Psalm 30:2 O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me.

An imprint is a mark or impression made on a person or thing. To break it down further, you can have an experience, a person, or a thing that leaves with you an impression for a very long time. When it comes to negative things or experiences a person has had, sometimes they are called scars because they are like wounds that need healing. This explains the opening scripture where David is saying he cried to God and was healed. In another version of this scripture it says he cried to God and his health was restored. You can assume that it was a physical sickness or ailment that was healed but it wasn’t. How do I know? In verse three, which is the next verse, he said; O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. See the word in bold. This means the healing was in the realm of the soul not the body. So you can now understand the topic, Imprints on the Soul.

Let’s begin this journey. A newborn baby comes with no impression or imprint. They have a spotless slate or sheet because they haven’t had any experiences or built any relationships just yet. The environment they would be raised in, the parents or guardians they would have, the friends they would make along the journey, and the experiences of life they have would make an imprint on them eventually. As a result of this, I dare say that personality types are shaped through these experiences and imprints. Whether the child would become extroverted or introverted is determined by these experiences and environment they are raised in. Have you observed that most people from certain countries are naturally confident and bold? They are able to speak their mind without fear. It’s the environment. Of course, if a person comes to the point where they realize the reason why they behave a certain way and decide to intentionally make changes to their behavior, then their personality type will undergo changes and tweaks but until then these factors would largely depend on their experiences with family, friends and life issues in general.

Another word that can be used to replace these scars or negative imprints on a person is the word ‘trauma’. Trauma is the impression that a negative experience can make on a person. It can influence different aspects of their life. So, different things can make an imprint on a person and I’d go through a few.

A broken home can make an impression on a person. Under broken homes are different variations;

Scenario 1: Parents got married but divorced years after marriage when children were still growing. Scenario 2: parents never got married but had a child or children, Scenario 3: Step parent issues or polygamy. All of these have an imprint on a person.

I’d use David as an example in this case since he was talking in the opening scripture. Unknown to many people, David had trauma that was the root cause of the many bad things that happened to his children and led to the damage of his family. When he said in Psalm 51:5 that in sin did his mother conceive him, we know that his birth was outside of wedlock. All his life, he was treated with disdain and rejected. The time Samuel was to anoint a king in Jesse’s house, we see this rejection play out. His father didn’t even think David was valuable to be there. The prophet asked, “Are these all your sons?” and he had forgotten that David existed. Then later we see David after he had become king, sleep with another man’s wife and murder him. From this illegitimate relationship again, came a son called Solomon and we see what Solomon did with 1,000 women so the cycle continued with his son in a more amplified manner.

Sometimes what we may call a generational curse could be unresolved trauma.

• Another thing that can make an impression on a person is abuse. Abuse could be either physical, sexual, or emotional. So some people were raised by people who physically abused them. These people caused injuries on their physical bodies. Others may not have been raised that way but entered into relationships with men or women who hit them at the slightest provocation. For others, they were verbally abused that led to an emotional trauma. Parents who talked down on their children, compared them to other children or even their siblings all contribute to this emotional trauma. And then there are those who were abused sexually either by family or people they trusted. All these create an impression that can affect decisions of people.

• A final thing I’ll mention that can leave an imprint on a person is poverty. Yes, poverty affects a person’s soul. It can even affect your self-esteem, especially if you are not well-rooted in your knowledge of who you are in Christ. The bible says, the borrower is a slave to the lender. Proverbs 22:7 The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender. So you see the word slave here, right? Let me show you another scripture that would summarize this point. I never looked at this scripture from this lense. Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. This was Jesus speaking on why he was here. Look at the words in bold and you’d see one similarity. Anyone in these categories are usually victims. He mentioned poor, then brokenhearted which is an emotional trauma, then captives, meaning people who are enslaved. Do you see the slavery I previously mentioned? Then the blind, in other words people who are unable to see. Trauma can make you blind. So you see for example, people who have been in an abusive relationship over time begin to see the beating as normal. They would say, he beat me because I wasn’t respectful and start to make excuses for the person. Then he finally mentions bruised that’s physical injury. This covers the entire body of trauma that can happen to anyone.

What’s the point of all that I have said so far? I now understand why we would be told to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. Our experiences can model our belief system on many things that may not be the way God expects us to see those things. Let me give final examples; So for the one who had a terrible experience with broken home, it could affect the way you see marriage. It could affect the way you see men, if your father was abusive towards your mum. For people who were abused sexually, it could affect your view of sex. For people who were from a poor background, it could affect the way you see yourself and your relationship with money. Some people aren’t able to express themselves because they feel they are not of a certain standard enough to add their voice. The Bible says a poor man’s wisdom is not heard.

This is why God expects that we renew our minds with His Word irrespective of what we have experienced in the past so that we can enjoy what He has for us in the future. That you saw many bad marriages doesn’t mean yours will be the same. That you didn’t have rich parents doesn’t mean your children would also go through the same. It will start from the mind to begin to envision what you want to see in your own life regardless of where you are coming from. By renewing our minds with God’s Word, we would no longer be defined by what happened in our past but by who God says we are.

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