Road To Redemption
Road To Redemption
Jahan Berns - Healing from Trauma through Faith in Jesus
Jahan shares her powerful journey of healing from childhood trauma, emphasizing the role of faith and the power of the Word of God in her recovery. The discussion includes the importance of vulnerability, the healing found in communal prayer, and how facing one's trauma can lead to transformative encounters with Jesus.
• Jahan’s traumatic childhood experience in Uganda
• The significant role of asking Jesus where he was in moments of pain
• The healing power of vulnerability and sharing one’s story
• Emphasizing the Word of God as a source of strength and healing
• Insights from a recent healing retreat and its community impact
• The transformative journey of using pain for purpose
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Welcome to Road to Redemption, a show sharing powerful life testimonies, giving hope to those on their own road to redemption.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Road to Redemption. I'm John Martin, your host. We're so excited we have our co-host, val Peterson, here.
Speaker 3:Hello, so good to be here this morning. I have my coffee in hand.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we need that.
Speaker 3:We need that.
Speaker 2:And we have our guest Jahan back.
Speaker 4:Jahan Burns, thank you for being here, oh it's so good to be with you guys again. I'm honored to be back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know we had her on in January. Was that a powerful show? Listeners go to Road to Redemption and check out our January show with Jah jahan.
Speaker 2:It was powerful, so we're just so glad you're back well, and our topic today really was something that the holy spirit bubbled up in val and I told val, I really want you to kind of lead our discussion today talking about trauma, so I'll kind of let you take it from here, val.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we know so many people have walked through trauma or are walking through trauma today and you know I look at you, jahan, and what you walked through at an early age, and would you be willing you know there's many people that didn't hear the January show talk a little bit about what you walked?
Speaker 4:through as a little girl. Yeah, I believe in January, when we met, I shared a little bit about my history, and I was born in Uganda and my father was in the military and during the civil war he was assassinated. And so I was about six, six and a half years old and you know they brought this corpse now I had seen maybe my first corpse at five years old, but it wasn't anyone I knew and so I didn't really process. But they brought my dad and he was dead and you know, decomposing and full of bullet holes and worms, and they're telling me this is your dad and wash him and prepare his body for burial, and you could see how brutally he'd been murdered. And I was so traumatized by that that I went into um, shock, um, for years, and I was, I would have nightmares about it and and so for years it just came to me again and again. And so when you carry that trauma, and we were so poor, we lost everything after he was killed and we just suffered a lot and were destitute, didn't have enough to eat, we had nowhere to sleep, and so it was just a lot to go through.
Speaker 4:And so when I finally came to Jesus Christ in a dramatic encounter in a missionary boarding school.
Speaker 4:That was the first time that I encountered Jesus in a way that brought me healing from that particular episode, because what I remembered was at six years old, at the funeral they played a hymn and it talked about Jesus loves me and I know he loves me.
Speaker 4:And I didn't know what it meant because I'd never been to church except once. No one had told me about Jesus. But that tune and the words, the lyrics, got so etched on my mind and every time something traumatic happened to me growing up I heard those words but I didn't know what they meant because my mom had converted us to Islam. Now, in my encounter with Jesus, as I'm giving my life to him, those words and the melody and the lyrics come back and it dawns on me that Jesus was with me the very moment that I was looking at my father's corpse and that those words were etched on my mind by him. And as the realization hit me and I started weeping, jesus brought me healing from that and I never encountered trauma from that particular instance or memories again. I had other trauma that he would later heal me from, but that was the beginning of that.
Speaker 3:Would you suggest to our listeners today that have gone through just severe trauma from their perspective to ask Jesus where were you in it, like he showed? You he was there all along. I'm assuming that can really help Restoring the foundations. Really recommends that an inner healing model about asking where were you in the trauma. Can you talk a little bit about that recommendation? Totally.
Speaker 4:The Bible says that he made us, the Lord made us. I believe it's Psalm 139. And he says he's always there. You know, we can't hide from his presence and he has a personal interest in our lives and so even in moments when we don't know him at all and we don't think he's there, he's there. And I'll give you an example of how that happened to me. In asking Jesus to heal me, you know to show me where were you in my pain. So I've just told you my dad died. In those circumstances, my mom went into deep, deep depression. She was a wonderful person, but when she went into deep depression, she had intense anger issues and you didn't know which person you were going to deal with from one day to the other. And so when she flew into uncontrollable rages, she would beat you within an inch of your life uncontrollable rages she would beat you within an inch of your life.
Speaker 4:And so when you get bitten and battered, from the time you're six years old, it messes with you. When you're being abused, every other turn, it messes with you. So at some point, by the time I was nine years old, I learned anger. And I was such an angry child filled with rage, even when I met Jesus. It made very little difference as far as my struggle with anger went, but as I grew in the Lord, it bothered me because I hurt people with my anger. I hurt people that loved me. I met a wonderful husband, got married, got children, and I hurt them with my anger.
Speaker 4:I went into, I started ministering, but when I had these blowups and I was filled with shame and guilt and all that. So one day I went to restoring the foundations with the founders blow-ups, and I was filled with shame and you know, and guilt and all that. So one day I went to, you know, restoring the foundations, you know, with the founders, because the Lord sent me there. And it was during that time of prayer that they said ask the Lord, where were you? And my initial reaction was like, what's that gonna do? Like, where was he? Like, but they said just trust him. And so I prayed. I closed my eyes and I prayed. I said, lord, what are the roots of my anger and where were you? And I was so surprised because a memory came to my mind and the Lord began to show me. You know where the roots of my anger were, the initial roots. The first thing he showed me was just the first instance of being defiled. The second instance was being beaten so bad, and he reminded me of the explosion that went off in my head. But in that instant too, he showed me that he protected me. It was a beating that could have killed me, but he was there.
Speaker 4:And I began to remember how, when I lay in bed that night, a strange warmth engulfed me and I knew that I was going to be okay, I wasn't going to die. And he asked me, in this healing process, what do you think that warmth was? Let me tell you, I wailed like a baby when that revelation came to me, you know so. It is very healing, very healing. You know. Now people ask often when you say that they're like well, why didn't you stop it? I have no answer for that. What I do know is that we live in a very broken world and we have free will and you know we live in a sinful world where people hurt other people. But God works to protect us and to watch over us until we come to a place where we can exercise our free will to know him and love him and invite him in to heal us. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3:You know you and I have talked about and I'd love for you to share with the listeners a little bit more about the power of the Word of God. Yeah, you know that's another strategy that you and I have talked about is the power of the Word you shared last time. I would love for you to share again about. You know, just Psalm 91 alone and putting it on your as I remember you were in bed and put it on your chest, just oh, my goodness, you slept well that night. Talk about the power of the word of God concerning healing from trauma.
Speaker 4:So I want to share a verse. Romans 15, verse 4 says and the scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God's promises to be fulfilled. The Bible says God has exalted his word above his name. There is so much power in the word of God to heal, to comfort, to restore, to build, to strengthen, to empower. And, honestly, there are people who do not have, maybe, supernatural encounters. And that's okay, because if you can go into the Word, the Word of God will heal you. If you invite the author of it to be with you as you read it, he opens it up, like I shared the day I read Psalm 91, right, it heals you.
Speaker 4:But now that we've been talking about just my relationship with my mom, I'm going to share a little story of how the word of God healed me. Because my mom had depression, because she had anger, because she beat me so much, I really grew to hate her. There was a part of me that laughed at her, but there was a part of me that really hated her, because I was like, how can someone do this to you, you know? And so I come to Jesus and of course he's telling me forgive your mom, love your mom. But it's hard. I go to law school and I'm really struggling with a lot of things. I backslide, I have an abortion, I come back to the Lord. I'm still messed up. I get pregnant again in that process and I know I can't have another abortion. I have to obey God. I'm at my lowest and I'm trying so hard to do the right thing. So one day I was walking by myself, you know, for miles and so exhausted I just sat down. It was a hill in the city of Kampala and I was sitting on the grass and I was just in tears and I said, lord, speak to me. I want to die. I really that's where I was. I just wanted to die. I'm like, please speak to me.
Speaker 4:And I opened the Bible and my eyes fall on the story of Hagar, who has run away from her mistress, sarah, because Sarah has been mistreating her. And I read the entire story and, and I finished reading the story and the Lord says You're running away from your mother and you've run away for years and I'm asking you to go back To your mom, like I asked Hagar to go back to Sarah and submit to her and I will heal you. I will heal you of the trauma that you have from being bitten and abused. I will heal you of the trauma that you have from being bitten and abused. I'll reconcile you to your mom. I didn't want to do that. I cried, I begged God I said no, I mean, and he's like yes, and he was very firm. So I asked for the strength to do it and I went back home pregnant, not knowing if I would be accepted or not, because we had a very volatile relationship. But I go home in obedience to the word of God, and my mom welcomes me which was a great surprise to me, you know and. But God knew right and we begin this beautiful relationship that we'd never had.
Speaker 4:At this point I was 21 years old. I give birth to that baby, my mom's first grandbaby. She falls in love with that grandbaby. It brings her healing. And little did I know that my mom had cancer. She didn't know either. Little did I know that my mom had cancer she didn't know either. So my plan had been to run away and come to America and never talk to her again. God's plan was to take me back to her to submit to reconcile, because two years later she was dying, and I presented the gospel and I prayed for her as she was dying to receive the Lord. So the power of the word of God is just amazing. But the way that happened was through the stir of Hagar. Yeah right, that's the bible Old Testament.
Speaker 3:Old Testament, you know. I'm just thinking, as you were talking, of the verses in Jeremiah 1.12, where it says that he literally watches over his word to perform it. Yes, that alone touched me. Or Numbers 23,. I'm not a man that I should lie, or the son of man that would change his mind. Will I speak and then not act? Will I promise and then not fulfill, oh my gosh? Or Hebrews 4.12.
Speaker 4:Yes, the word of the Lord is sharp and active. Yes, you know, sharper than a double-edged sword.
Speaker 3:Exactly so. If, when we get that revelation that once again the word is alive and we can stand on it and we can trust in it, I'm just sensing that can bring healing, that alone can bring healing, and you know.
Speaker 4:Valerie, I wish I pray so hard that people go back to reading the word of God daily and treat it as a vital necessity, where they don't just wait for Sunday for their pastor to tell them the word or to just listen to a podcast like this, because God really wants them to read the word for themselves. That's how you cultivate a relationship with the author of the word.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly exactly Read the word you know. Something else that we have discussed is the power of laying on of hands, of people praying for you. So what does that take, johan, that takes our listeners to step out and go to somebody and say I need prayer, I'm going through trauma, or I've gone through trauma and I'm having panic attacks and I'm having flashbacks and I don't know what to do. Talk to somebody, ask them for prayer. Can you talk about that?
Speaker 4:Right. There's a passage in the book of James and it says confess your sins to one another that you may be healed. And then in that same book it says is any of you sick, you know, call the elders, let them lay hands on you, pray the prayer of faith and there will be healing and if you've sinned, your sins will be forgiven. So those two passages really talk about the power of going to someone when you're in need, whether it's sinfulness, whether it's trauma, and you submit yourself to them, you make yourself vulnerable and they come with you and pray the prayer of agreement with you for healing and God will honor that and forgive sin and heal, whether it's physical healing or trauma healing. And I have been healed so many times from going to people and saying I'm hurting, I'm wounded, this is my pain, just what I was describing to you about restoring the foundation. But I think there's a fear in people about making yourself vulnerable. But the reality is that the bible actually tells you to do that. Yes, so you will be healed.
Speaker 3:So yeah, totally. I encourage notice, you know. Uh, you know, when we hold things in and just try to you know I'm from New York State push our you know trauma or our feelings or our discouragement or anger or depression down to the basement of our soul, God, if we bring it to the light and we talk about it, then God can touch it and heal it. I don't know about you all, but when I just talk something through with someone trusted, I feel better. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I feel better. Yes, so let's encourage our listeners to think about that. Anything else that you would like to say to them that you know I look at you. Your pain has truly and we're going to talk a little bit about your ministry here has become your platform. Your pain has become your purpose, and can our listeners trust that God can take all things Romans 8, 28, and doesn't say it is good, but he can weave it together for good right?
Speaker 4:Yes. So I think, before we transition, the last thing I would love to say about that is a person of Jesus Christ, hosting the presence of the Lord in worship is very healing. That in that place of intimacy with the Lord, pursuing Him, coming to Him in worship after you've read the Word and presenting your pain to Him. He comes and he heals. You know what it reminds me of. Do you remember how Peter told Jesus I will never deny you, I will die for you. And then you know Peter witnesses Jesus being brutally arrested, you know being bitten, and he's so traumatized by it all that he denies Jesus.
Speaker 4:I think we lose the fact. You know, we're all like so hard on Peter and we're like whoa. He denied Jesus, but he was traumatized by what he saw and the reaction of that was he denied the Lord, right. But what happens when you know he's gone back to fishing, jesus comes, cooks him breakfast. You know he has an encounter with Jesus and Jesus heals him, restores him and commissions him to go. And well, that's a very something that happens. You know that when we encounter the presence of Jesus, he heals our pain. Yeah, he does, he does. And so how do we encounter him now, you know, by hosting his presence in the way we love him and worship him, love it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know I'm thinking, joel too. In the last days, men and women will dream dreams, men and women will see visions, men and women will prophesy. That says to we don't know how long the last days are going to be, but it's pretty exciting. Let's stand on that. Lord, I want dreams, I want visions from you, I want encounters with you. Help me to enter into your presence that I can have. That Right Brings healing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:When, john, when you were talking about just it, really your, your talk is made me think of our kind, of our three key pillars of road to redemption, which are number one, to read the word of God Really didn't know the word of God, open the Bible and read it. So you were saying that and I was like this is what we're of God, really, to know the word of God, open the Bible and read it. So you were saying that and I was like this is what we're trying to want people to know. And second is to go to church. Don't just be alone, go to a Christ-centered church. And then the last is to get into a small group, because that's really the only way you can make yourself vulnerable, confess your sins.
Speaker 2:Not many people are going to get up in a church and do that. They need to be in a small group, right? So what you were saying just really you know excited me, because that's what, what we want people to know. And just to you know, even at church, like at Destiny Worship Center here, I love how, at the end of every service, they have prayer teams that come out and they invite people to get prayer at the end, and I almost always go, cause I'm like God. This is incredible, but I do notice a lot of times people don't go and I think it's because they feel, like you were saying, maybe shameful, maybe, like you know, to make themselves vulnerable to somebody they don't know. So, folks, we would just encourage you to start being bold and you know, if someone's offering to pray for you, get that prayer. Walk up there at the end of the service. Yes, get prayer. And you know, if you're a believer, also be bold to go and say pray for people when you feel called Right.
Speaker 3:Can you talk? I want to hear about the weekend, you know. Yeah, talk about it. I want to hear some testimonies.
Speaker 2:The Abound Conference that John and Triumph of Hope just had here in 38. Tell us about it.
Speaker 4:It was incredible. I will say that it was our most successful retreat thus far, and every retreat we do, we are like that was the best. But it really was the best. And I will tell you what. I don't remember who said this, but I really like it is getting ready to do something big and something important and significant. He moves upon his people to begin to pray and prayer is cooperating with God to bring down his purposes.
Speaker 4:And I can't begin to tell you how much prayer went forth for this retreat, a lot of fasting and prayer for the last eight weeks leading to the retreat. So when we got to it, it was, I mean, we completely filled up and it was so special to have all kinds of people young, old, male, female, young couples, you know, older couples, and then the beautiful girls from Path of Grace, which was incredible. So first night we had Jeremiah Castile, who was just amazing, and there was such heartfelt prayer at the end. And then Saturday was really special and we talked about what does it mean to abound, to prosper in all things, to overflow, to have an abundance of God? And it's not just mere materialism, it's greater than that. God wants us to abound in comfort, in hope, in giving, in salvation, to excel in all good works, in material provision, in health. But what does it take? Because you have to meet God's conditions in order to abound. Then in the afternoon we talked about baptism. What does it mean to actually get in that water and be saved from the sins and the things that hold us down?
Speaker 4:Then on Sunday we had a deliverance, inner healing and deliverance service. That was very intense and amazing and personal, but God delivered people from demonic oppression. We saw a lot of healings. We saw people get healed. You know instant healing and all that stuff comes from being in the presence of God, hosting the presence of God. The worship was incredible. I mean, no one wanted to leave. You know, we kind of left and we're like if we had been there one more day, revival would have broken out. Santa Rosa would keep coming. What a color would be turning to a revival center? But we left quite high, as high as kites. So we're hoping we'll do this again next year.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. Yeah, and Jahan, I didn't even know that you had this book called Stories and Prayers to Ignite your Heart, and it's kind of like the way I see it like a coffee table book almost, but it has these amazing stories and prayers about God and I really feel like, as we were talking about prayer, this book will help. It's helped me pray, you know. It's just really got some great powerful prayers in there. So I want everybody to know about that and just to find out more about you and your ministry. How did they find you?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I'm glad that you love that book. I've been trying to write that book for 20 years oh, my God, totally.
Speaker 4:And I ended up in Israel one day and I got a prophetic word about writing that book and when the Lord really breathed upon me, it took two months.
Speaker 4:It took two months, but I remember that as I sat down to write it and I began to write, what I felt the Lord bring forth was you know, make it rich in the word, fill it with stories of how I have, you know, how he, god, has encountered me to bring about change and character development and maturity, and then fill it with prayers, because that's how I learned to pray by reading the word of God and encountering God in difficult places, so that when you pick up that book with its different themes whether it's forgiveness or parenting or marriage you know there are prayers that are based on the word you know to help you that day. So I love that, and so even in the book itself, at the very I think at the end you'll find how to get to us. Basically, if you go to triumphofhopecom that's our website you can find us and you are able to actually order a copy of that book.
Speaker 2:When I love the photography in it. I've never seen a Christian book like this that's got a mix of incredible photography, mostly from Africa, which is just beautiful, yeah, and then these just powerful prayers. So I'd encourage all our listeners to check that out and Valerie anything else.
Speaker 3:Yeah, once again, tell them your website how they can get to you, find out more about your ministry and how they could get this book.
Speaker 4:Yes, so you can find us at triumphofhopecom, and then we have a YouTube channel that has so many resources, and then Instagram and social media, but pretty much the website is the best place to go, and we have a page, I think, that's just dedicated to that book. Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2:And I'd also encourage folks to look at their upcoming conferences or retreats that and just go to one, because it was one of the most powerful things I've ever been to and I can just promise you your life will be changed. So check that out. Yeah, let's. Let's close in prayer, Dear Heavenly Father. Lord, we love you so much. Thank you for this conversation with Jahan being so transparent about. You know just her trauma and you know gosh. She has received so much freedom and peace today through you, Jesus, and we want our listeners to have that peace and that joy that only comes through you. And we just, Lord, we just ask that you touch everyone listening to this show today and we pray that they, our listeners, invite you into their heart and receive you as their Lord and Savior and King, and we just thank you so much for this and we worship you above all things. Thank you, Jesus, Amen.
Speaker 1:Amen. You've been listening to Road to Redemption, sharing powerful life testimonies, giving hope to those on their own road to redemption. If you have any comments or questions, we would love to connect with you. You can reach out to us at destinyradiolive. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next week on Road to Redemption.