“Holy Spirit, is there anything you want from our participant in order for us to move forward with today’s session?” I asked. I had been trying to get this particular exorcism session flowing for a good 20-30 minutes and had tried to break through the spiritual silence by approaching it from every angle I could think of.
The participant immediately heard a response to this question. “He says he wants me to give him permission?” they said with a confused look on their face.
We had to get into some tough subject matter that day, and God didn’t want to force it on them. What was ahead of them was dark and painful. Jesus wanted to help them work through it, but not if they didn’t want him to. I suppose it’s also possible that the demons had some grip on the memory since they were the ones who had historically counseled the participant through the pain. Perhaps the Holy Spirit was asking our participant to change their spiritual counselor by allowing him to hold the memory instead of the demons. Or perhaps both of these aspects are true.
Whatever the case, the participant granted the Holy Spirit permission and the session was finally underway. At the Holy Spirit’s discretion, we sorted through part of a painful memory until the Holy Spirit decided that we had done enough work for one day. He then gave some final words to our participant, and we wrapped up the session by offering them some counsel.
Trauma goes deep, but no one knows how to sort it out better than Jesus, who knows the full extent of the pain. What a beautiful thing to walk alongside him in the darkest places of our lives.
The Exorcist's Bestiary 
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