Biblical Cures for the Wounded Spirit: Answers for PTSD and Healing the Invisible Wound

By Wayne A. Keast

About the Book
Biblical Cures for the Wounded Spirit contains vital information that will answer many questions that those who suffer with PTSD and those close to them are asking. How does someone handle the grief experienced in combat? How does a spouse or other loved one handle the playing out of stress a combat veteran manifests when they return?
Fear, guilt, no peace, and other issues are addressed. These are emotions that stir the soul and plague those who have experienced unimaginable trauma in a war zone or even in a violent home situation. Psychology and drugs are not the answer. New Age philosophy will not help. The Bible has the answers and will be found in these pages to be the solution that so many have been looking for.

About the Author
Saved at age 14 out of a broken, traumatizing home, Wayne A. Keast entered the Army at age 18 and discovered God’s peace in the midst of Army duty that includes deployment, and long stretches away from family. After years as an enlisted soldier, Wayne was called by God into the ministry out of German guard tour on a midnight shift. Finishing college and seminary, the Army received Wayne back as a commissioned officer and chaplain.
After a deployment and after surgery, Wayne was in a rehab learning about war-time PTSD issues by listening to soldiers. After much bible study, Wayne learned of God’s cure for PTSD and how the inevitable wound can be treated successfully. Later, God showed Wayne a Bible verse that describes the issue. Proverbs 18:14 “The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?”
Wayne retired from the Army in 2012 with a burden for those with PTSD. This book is a compilation of the work completed in his Doctor of Ministry. Wounded Spirits is Wayne’s ministry order under Wounded Spirits INC.
[e-mail] www.biblecuresforptsd.org

• Language: English
• Publisher: RoseDog Books
• Release date: May 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798888128039

Book preview

The contents of this work, including, but not limited to, the accuracy of events, people, and places depicted; opinions expressed; permission to use previously published materials included; and any advice given or actions advocated are solely the responsibility of the author, who assumes all liability for said work and indemnifies the publisher against any claims stemming from publication of the work.

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2023 by Wayne A. Keast

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, downloaded, distributed, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without permission in writing from the publisher.

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To God be the glory, great things He hath done. Amidst, and regardless the turmoil of deployments, surgeries and uncertainties of military life, God’s unseen hand was upon my career and guided me to new adventures and ministries. This book is dedicated to Jesus Christ, those chaplains, physicians who have made a difference to our troops in the various war zones, and to those who have served in our Armed Forces in peace and in war: In the past and presently. To particularly those who have given their lives and to those who have been physically and spiritually wounded.

Foreword

The reason for writing this book

I write this book, Bible Cures for the Wounded Spirit: PTSD and Healing the Invisible Wound to develop in the reader an understanding for the importance of the true nature of PTSD, what it brings to its victim and through the historical background what brings the ultimate cure a rich faith in Jesus Christ that comes through the Scripture. Also, my intent is to make aware to all who contend with PTSD, whether personally or someone near them, that a personal faith in Jesus Christ and all the emotional support He can provide is, unlike popular drug treatment, psychological therapy, or New Age philosophies applications are without side effects. Within these pages I attempt to explain what I see through history and Scriptures what brings PTSD about. Due to the amount of false hope given through the plethora of supposed cures, I also give reasons why counterfeits do not work and are even dangerous.

If someone reading this book has never asked Jesus Christ to be their personal Savior, to forgive them of their sins, to be saved by trusting alone in the shed blood of Jesus Christ that He shed on the cross for them, I invite you to stop reading this, bow your head, and based on Romans 10:9 (That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved), receive Christ right now. If you prayed, asking Jesus to save you, then you have God living inside of you, and that step of faith is this first crucial step in letting God minister to you and solving your PTSD. Growth in Jesus Christ is the key resource to overcoming PTSD. All experiences one has endured to bring about PTSD in their life, those experiences while not be erased. However, the experiences can be replaced through the Word of God, the Bible. A consistent, faithful exposure to the Bible, individually and corporately through doses of scripture preaching at church services will in time bring victory over Post Traumatic Stress.

 This book is an added resource to help victims cope with PTSD symptoms. Finding the root causes of PTSD and to overcome the associated issues that draw from PTSD are also addressed. I believe that improvements can be made in therapy by implementing biblical teaching in place of much of what are current answers that have been suggested by the psychological and medical communities. These communities, though they mean well, are not equipped to treat the soul, which ought to be the target and the key issue. Scripture treats the soul. The current treatment shortcomings are demonstrated via two avenues: confronting the PTSD sufferer with their personal experiences of increased stress levels, and the lack of progress they experience through other means. In addition, the possible dangers that may arise as will be described below. Also examined are the differences between this program, based on biblical promises, and the current treatment modalities. Jesus Christ, as your Savior, walking by your side, living in you, is your go-to battle buddy in resolving PTSD issues.

If you have just prayed to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior, please contact me at [e-mail]. We would love to celebrate with you and to help further with other valuable resources.

Abbreviations

DSM: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th Edition DSM-5

KJV: King James Version

PTSD: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

TBI: Traumatic brain injury

WTB: Warrior Transition Battalion

Part I

Chapter 1

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Introduction

Background

Twenty-two veterans commit suicide every day.¹ This statement reflects an American tragedy. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta testified before the House Armed Services and Veterans Affairs committees in 2012 about the veterans’ suicide rate.

The issue preying on him was not the defeat of the Taliban or extermination of al-Qaeda, much less contingency planning for feared budget cuts. No, the issue Panetta had in mind and labeled a top priority was the runaway suicide rate in the military, averaging thirty-three suicides per month in 2012, roughly one every seventeen hours.²

What, however, is not mentioned are the statistics coming from the states to the federal agencies that report their numbers. Only twenty-one states report statistics. Not reported in the article is that twenty-nine states do not disclose information concerning their suicides. Two million, six hundred thousand military members have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since September 11, 2001. Seven hundred thousand have gone more than once.³

The desire for writing this book concerns prevention or relief of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and moral injury and how they affect US military members. I returned from Iraq in Oct 2006 serving in Iraq as a US Army chaplain. Having experienced some intense situations, my faith in God was challenged and then strengthened by meditating in and gaining an understanding of the Christian Scriptures. Many soldiers who have seen and experienced horrific events in war are returning home with emotional issues that they do not understand. Many asked questions they had never asked before and tried to subdue emotions they had never experienced. Though the military system supplied the traumatized soldier with psychology and medications, I discovered later through one-on-one personal interviews that these therapies were ultimately detrimental.  Soldiers, often, not knowing where to turn, used the medications given by a physician and sometimes self-medicated adding an often-deadly alcohol mixture. They had not been exposed to the answers could be found in the Bible.

In 2008, a year after returning from Iraq deployment, God worked in me some amazing circumstances. I had aortic valve replacement open-heart surgery, I was then assigned to a unit designed for soldiers with long-term healthcare needs, at that time known as Warrior Transition Battalion (WTB), now Soldier Recovery Unit (SRU). After assigned for rehabilitation the commander, who was short a unit chaplain, ask me to help soldiers with spiritual needs and counseling. During this time, I found through counseling conversations with soldiers that doctors or psychologists were not adequately addressing many of their emotional and spiritual problems.

As I said, many soldiers were self-medicating with alcohol. Drug addictions were epidemic, and the writing of prescriptions for soldiers struggling with PTSD was standard procedure for the doctors. God impressed upon me the need to do a Bible-level study concerning this problem that results from PTSD. I found in the Bible God’s answers to PTSD and related emotional issues.

The United States Armed Forces story is one of courage, heroism, bravery, and sacrifice. It is also often an untold story; a history of traumatic experiences that often go with war and causes participants of combat to re-experience emotionally harsh events in its aftermath. These experiences of trauma are locked into the memory and emotions and affect the soul and spirit, and can reoccur through triggers. These triggers are sights, sounds, and smells, and etc. that were experienced and associated with experienced trauma. These traumas are often manifesting in what psychology and the mental health community, since the 1980’s call PTSD and moral injury. By the way, it may take years for PTSD problem to come to the light. The military’s medical and mental health system generally look for manifestation to occur within three months, but realistically they can occur anytime based on triggers.

United States military service members have experienced various traumas that have inspired various attempts by those in the medical, mental health, and religious communities to help find answers to these issues. These attempts have brought on rather extensive and even lengthy discourses concerning the reason for and against the plethora of resources that perhaps should not be used. This book attempts to exam the help available and what has worked best.

Highly trained warriors, prepared for battle with weapons and tactics and taught to kill, lack in one crucial area; they are not trained in how to handle killing. That is, the mental (soulish) trauma placed on a soldier taking a life or how to witness death. Death, though happening on a near-daily basis in the active war zone, is viewed as unnatural. From the beginning, God did not intend for man to die. Death came when man disobeyed God in the garden of Eden in the book of Genesis (Gen 2:17). Coupling that with the commandment Thou shalt not kill (Exo 20:13). There is within man’s innate knowledge that killing is not right.  When man committed the first sin, he immediately died in his spirit by losing his fellowship and communication with God. Satan’s subtilty deceived Eve, and she ate of the forbidden fruit. Steve Curington, former drug addict and founder of Reformers Unanimous, a faith-based addiction recovery ministry, noted, He attacked Eve’s ability to trust God for what was right for her and her husband. He twisted the truth by, ‘If you eat of this tree, you will be just like him.’ This began the downward spiral of death as this one act spiritually separated humanity from God. Much of the mystery of death could be resolved with decreasing stress levels with just some biblical instruction. There is power in having information, if that information is applied to self. Sadly, the current spiritual condition of America and those in charge of running the various systems within the military complex do not have regard for biblical Christianity and its key biblical philosophy concerning PTSD and moral injury recovery.

Some in our deployed military suffer from physical wounds, while those and others can suffer from a wounded spirit but were not made aware during training that such an injury is even a possibility. Though PTSD can and is often referred to as an injury of combat, it can also be a result of an assault, child abuse, natural disaster, or an accident. Some attempt to go through basic training, and while experiencing the bayonet course or rifle qualifications, sense in their spirit that the military is really about killing the enemy. Many leave the service during basic training due to the inability to adapt. Having been a chaplain at a basic training unit, I have seen trainees experience that stress. Memories from youth can produce trauma. As a psychologist once said, With the help of the analyst as another self who participates in the experience of affects, unincorporated effects are now made conscious and bound in the meaning that emerges from the experienced intersubjectivity in the life context of the subjects here and now.⁴ While there is a broader civilian application, this book’s concentration shall remain on those who received a wounded spirit in the context of violence in a war scenario, the various means by which the military attempts to bring healing, and finally what processes and materials really makes the difference in PTSD recovery.

The significance and frequency of the problem of suicide and the other issues that proceed from PTSD should be addressed. To that end, it is suggested that a person, if they have not done so, come to a