Today, Capt. Self’s PTSD is much less severe, but some symptoms still remain. He still has haunting dreams most nights, intrusive thoughts, and certain problems with anger. He still feels somewhat emotionally numb. While he used to wonder if complete healing was possible, he has since decided that answer doesn’t matter.
“I don’t know if it’s right to say, ‘I want to be healed from all this,’ because it’s a very humbling thing to be in this position and know that I’m being held in grace,” he said. “It equips me for better ministry and service. To wish away this thorn in my side would remove a significant portion of my testimony. It’s not that I have to be in bondage to PTSD. What matters is, now that I have it, what am I going to do with it?”
Self now works as a consultant on officer-training materials for the Army and is active in his own church’s military ministry, which serves one hundred military families in their three thousand-member church.
When Self was experiencing darker days with PTSD, members of his church reached out and listened to him. Now, he’s passing it along. “When soldiers come home, I’ll take them to breakfast or lunch as soon as I can,” he says. “They need people to be interested, to show that they care. If people think that the VA hospital will solve all the problems, they’ll overlook the greatest source of healing in any situation Jesus. The majority component for recovery is a spiritual solution, more than any secular clinical answer.”
Even as Capt. Self works toward healing, he realizes that his symptoms may never go away, and he has a peace about that. “Look at Job,” he said. “All that stuff happened to him, he did not deserve. He kept asking God why until God said, ‘Look, don’t ask me why until you understand why I laid the foundations of the earth. You need to be comfortable with my sovereignty.’”
Lord, teach me to be more interested in your character and sovereignty than I am in securing comfort for myself.
“Then Job replied to the LORD: ‘I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.’” (Job 42:1–2)