Christ-Centered Healing: Interview with Norm Wielch

welcome back to another episode of

christian natural health today i am

excited to have norm wheels with us norm

was an agnostic police officer for over

25 years he was exposed to many

traumatic incidents and diagnosed with

ptsd

then he was diagnosed with an incurable

debilitating muscular neuromuscular

disease and had over 25 surgeries in 10

years he was prescribed opiates for the

pain and soon began to abuse the opiates

to relieve the negative emotions of ptsd

after that his daughter was diagnosed

with liver tumors and the prognosis was

poor this placed him in a downward

spiral that led him to make some very

poor decisions that led to a 14-year

prison sentence he responded to god's

calling and through divine intervention

his daughter and he were both healed he

spent over eight years in federal prison

where he co-pastored the church and

taught how god heals ptsd in prison he

obtained a master's degree in theology

and counseling and then a doctorate in

christian counseling he went on to

become a registered addiction counselor

and pastoral care provider in a

residential treatment facility he wrote

a book called christ-centered healing of

trauma healing a broken heart and a

small group study guide to go with it

and both are on sale now

welcome norm thank you very much for

joining us oh thank you i'm honored for

um being able to speak to you yeah what

a story so flesh it out for a little bit

if you would what was your spiritual

life like when you were a police officer

before all this started there was none

right i grew up um in a christian home

but like most christians maybe on

christmas eve we would go to church and

that was it other than that we we never

practiced christianity and when i became

a police officer i saw so much death and

destruction that i truly believed in my

heart there was no god because how could

a kind loving god allow all this you

know

death and and

abuse especially to children happen so i

had no spiritual life whatsoever right

yeah and that's kind of the big

stumbling block for an awful lot of

people when they walk away from the lord

or when they don't believe in him so uh

you described this downward spiral so

during that time looking back do you

feel like god was kind of prodding you

and calling you the whole time

you know that's really funny i thought

about that yeah i believe that during my

whole life god was calling me he would

put people in my life to to tell me the

gospel right

but i had this wall up that prevented me

from listening i didn't you know just

like it says in corinthians i just

didn't listen i didn't accept it

i believe that we're

because of the fall we're all so

hardened right and we just don't believe

until we see it or until it happens to

us in our lives i used to make fun as a

police officer to make fun of people

when they went to jail all of a sudden

they would be religious right those jail

house conversions

now people are saying it about me you

know

oh yeah he's not really

but i realized that you got to be down

at your worst time in your life in order

for you to look up you know so but i do

see it now i do see people that were put

in my path and um certain things

happened that i just couldn't explain i

mean there was times when

there was this one time just real quick

is i stopped this car like a 2 3 in the

morning and something told me hey

go around to the passenger side don't

don't go to the you know driver's side

like you know police normally do on a

traffic stop

so i snuck up and because all the lights

from the police car they couldn't see in

behind

and when i looked in the guy had a gun

and he was he was ready to shoot me and

um

so luckily we got the the jump on him

but in in the in the jail he said he was

going to to shoot me to get away

so i think that was definitely god

saying hey go to this side

one more distinct time i i heard his

voice was

the day that i committed my crime

i heard a voice in my head saying stop

it stop it look they're the police that

that's a cop right there and he's

watching you

and it

it was and um

it's amazing how we shut off those

things and we we think that we're

smarter than everybody else right we

think that we can do it on our own look

you know i've been doing this a long

time i can do this on my own but we

really can't oh absolutely so wow

there's some really specific moments

there so what was your rock bottom

moment like when did that happen for you

the day of my arrest in sitting in a

suicide cell in the county jail oh my uh

was yeah it was um

i can't even explain how how horrible

that that felt and not because i got

caught because where i was right i was

and it was my own actions that brought

me there and a lot of times you know

human beings have a hard time admitting

their faults you know you say well you

know okay yeah i've done that but but

look at that guy over there you know

he's worse worse than me right yeah yeah

but sin has a way of creeping up on you

you know so when you start an activity

you're the first time you commit a sin

you're really worried that someone will

see you and then the the more you go on

with it the more your conscience gets

seared and pretty soon

you know you don't even think about it

anymore so when you're making stupid

mistakes

making poor decisions one after another

pretty soon

you don't even think about it anymore

and all of a sudden bam the world comes

crashing down on you

yeah so um when you had that rock bottom

moment

was it like you suddenly saw things

differently like was there was was there

a veil that came off or what was that

no no not at that time what happened was

um i bailed out

excuse me i got allergies today really

bad um i bailed out and and went home

and my dad was friends with a pastor

and i guess they had talked because i

was about one week out of jail and of

course you know i said in the couch and

i was borderline crying i mean my life

was just shattered right

and

this pastor calls up i didn't know him

and

he says hi my name is uh pastor jeff

he's pastor jeff kenny he was from new

hope international church at that time

and he said ma i got your number from

your father and i just wanted to let you

know that we're here for you anything

you need

you know if you come to church we'll we

got counseling here and we can you know

put

make you feel better right

and because of my

i don't want to say disdain but my um

my unbelief

inside my mind i'm going yeah okay yeah

yeah yeah you know trying to blow him

off right but of course my mom told me

to always be nice to people i was nice

to him

i was trying to blow him off

and he said well election by your church

i said well you know not right now you

know maybe in a few weeks or so and then

he said well before i hang up can i pray

for you i said sure you know in my mind

of all like knock yourself out you know

and i'm like looking around and watching

tv trying to see the tv

but he he prayed the sinner's prayer and

i didn't know what that was right

and at the end he goes do you um make

jesus christ your lord and savior and i

said sure you know i didn't really mean

well that's okay

okay

you're invited always to our church she

told me where it was i said okay

so i went back to the couch and sat next

to my wife

and she looks at me on a funny look on

her face right she goes what's wrong

and i thought about it for a second oh

nothing what what what do you mean she

goes i don't know something different

and then i sat and thought about i

thought you know

it's like a weight kind of lifted off my

shoulders a little bit

uh-huh and she said well she grew up

catholic and she was a christian all her

life but because of my views my strong

views that she would really never

brought up

christianity or church

and i thought to myself you know

something maybe is is different i don't

know i can't put my finger on it

and he said well maybe we need to go to

church i said okay why don't we try it

what the heck you know let's try it but

at that time

all my stuff was all over the news right

um it was because i was so i was a

high-ranking officer so everything was

on the news uh 48 hours um you know all

these tv shows

so i was really ashamed to go anywhere

and i had a difficult time doing that

but when we walked into that church

it it was such a calming effect right it

was

so it's unexplainable

and when i looked around i got all

dressed up right because i'm thinking

i'm going to church i got to put on a

nice shirt you know in slacks and

everything and i come in there and i see

guys in shorts and their hats on

sideways guys that tattooed up you know

necks and faces are all tattooed and i

thought to myself oh my gosh what am i

getting myself into you know

but they all came over and hugged me i

mean i don't think they really knew who

i was i don't think it was but

they welcomed us with such um

love

that it was it was incredible it was

really incredible you know in the police

culture you think that

the guys you work with are

are your family are the tightest people

that you're with thick or thin we got

you i'm going to sit i'm going to save

you when this happened man it was like

crickets no no nobody came all the

police departments ordered because i i

worked county-wide

so all the police departments told them

all not to talk to me you know not to

return my calls or or anything

so

this the people in this church

were better to me

than my own friends that we've been

through thick and thing for thick and

thin for years together

um and during dangerous and traumatic

situations

everybody left me hanging except for one

guy but um they all left me hanging so

that's when i started going to church

and i was teaching us how to pray and

all this and then my daughter she was

going to get a biopsy she had liver

tumors

and they were going to do a biopsy and

it was a big thing because

they had to have the surgical team ready

because the liver tumor was one big

tumor was over the artery

and so if it burst um and it was

cancerous if it was cancerous they would

have to do surgery right away so that

was a real stressful event and you know

i've been i was talking to the pastor

there for you know i was doing some

counseling there and attending um small

groups and stuff

it was funny one day the holy spirit

told him to stop the sermon i mean

mid-sermon he just stopped he looks over

at me

and he goes

i want to pray right now for norm's

daughter and the whole congregation

prayed for for her healing

and i i

i mean

i never cried we're taught not to cry

you know it's

my dad was a military guy

and all from the police academy you're

taught don't don't cry you got to shove

your feelings you know down you can't

show any emotion because if you go to a

scene

and you start crying no one's going to

trust that you can

handle the situation right worse so i

always stuff my my stuff down

and um

it was just an amazing feeling and about

a week later we did the biopsy about two

weeks later the report come back and

in the doctor said hey we got to do

another scan so you know i just want to

make sure something

said okay so she did another and she was

24 at this time so she wasn't a baby but

she was she was an adult but still she's

my baby you know she's my baby

and they did another scan we came back a

few hours later and um

he he put the most most scans up on on

the you know that lighted thing and he

showed us the old one which was all

there was dark spots where all the um

uh tumors were and this one was truly

clean and he said um the biopsy comes

back normal liver tissue

and and see the flesh came back to me

right i started getting really angry and

i said

you you don't know what you put me

through your misdiagnosis of this you

know cause caused me to go in the spiral

goes no no no and he showed me some um

secondary reports from ucla medical

center

and at that point i realized that god

healed her i mean it was and at that

point you have the pictures

yeah and at that point i thought okay

there is a god because i guess i was on

the fence the whole time you know

but at that time and then right right

from there i was on fire and um i

started studying the bible more

and um

putting my hope and my faith in him more

than ever and um

i never looked back i mean he's been

since that time he's been so great in my

life that i just that's why i had to

write this book right i had to tell my

story because

i

i don't think people would believe it if

i just told them but it's it's the god's

honest truth it's amazing it is an

incredible story so

wow so your daughter's healing was

pretty amazing and quick what about

yours for the ptsd what was that process

like well mine took a lot longer but god

was working in my life so i was out on

bail for like two years

and then they put me into a

uh the county jail during my um

my pleading process so i was in county

jail almost a year but they put me in a

suicide cell

and that is the worst thing you could do

to a human being that isn't suicidal

yeah and and my wife truly believed in

her heart that i was going to to do

something and um i was i was down and

um

so i can't i can't be angry at her but

what that did also is it made me gave me

a chance to to study more

and they only let us out for one hour

every three days

which was really something i never knew

i mean i never worked in a jail and i

always assumed that the government kind

of is doing the right thing

but this is just horrific that keeping

people in in these cells for three days

at a time one hour out you know it's

crazy wow but what they did is they

ended up putting me out with the

mentally ill

um patients and it would be separated by

a chain-link fence and this is where i

got to start learning about other

people's trauma

and i just i just

enjoyed hearing the stories of how they

got there right

in the police academy they never teach

why people do the things they do right

they they say okay they committed crime

it's black and white right either you're

a criminal or you're not a criminal

period and that's what cops face every

day

but there's so much gray area that you

never think about unless you really put

into a position like this and i thank

god for putting me in the position now

to see both sides

so anyway this is i learned um about

more about trauma about why guys were

doing the things that they were doing

how they grew up you know how their drug

addiction started and such

so it was truly a a good experience in

the life in the bigger picture not at

that time but

so they promised the government promised

to keep me in california where i'm at

and of course they didn't they sent me

to fort worth texas of prison in fort

worth texas

and

i was angry about it but god put me

there because the first day i was there

i walked into the chapel

and the chaplain offered me a job he

goes hey you want a job you know coming

here and it turned out there was a

couple of cops already working in there

and i was really realized how many cops

were in prison but there was quite a few

really interesting that was he was

orchestrating everything so i'm working

at the chapel and the tyndale

theological semi-seminary came in there

and taught classes

so i go okay i see what you're doing i

see what you're doing i started taking

the classes that's where i got my

master's degree

and um the chaplain there allowed me and

another guy to um to counsel inmates

there because they weren't really big on

counseling

but i was going through my own

counseling the the bureau of prisons um

provided me a psychologist to take care

of my ptsd

but i wasn't healing i mean they did

some good things secular counseling it

has it's it's good good points and

really it saved my life at the very

beginning by teaching me good coping

skills

and that's what the prisons did too they

taught me good coping skills but there

was no healing right so they said okay

well if you have an anxiety attack what

you do is you stomp your foot on the

ground real hard and rub your foot right

into the ground and it'll take your mind

off of what you're doing

it worked you know but again there's no

healing

so one day

i the chaplain calls me in the office

and go hey i want you to meet somebody

and this was an ex-police officer from

lapd

who had had done some some pretty bad

things right and he was on his

i think his 14th year of an 18-year

sentence and he was already in the

minimum security uh prison which

in the federal system there's no fences

right you go to work you do your thing

and you come back

and they for for um

a minor incident that he had with

another inmate that they sent him back

to the um low prison where i was at

right

and it turns out that um he had been

taught some what they call it from

elijah house ministries in idaho

he had learned some it's called inner

healing right from from some other um

other pastors when he was in county jail

and he had end up

having to shoot and kill a couple people

um he'd been shot like three different

times either all legitimate shootings

you know nothing nefarious or anything

but it really profoundly affected him

where he started drinking a lot and

using drugs you know real real drugs not

not pills like i use but real drugs

and it ended up getting him caught up

with some it's kind of the same thing i

did with stealing drugs and trying to um

give it to somebody else yeah

but when he came in and he started

talking i mean he was

it was just phenomenal he saved my life

i mean he really did because

he started teaching me how

our sin

in our lack of repentance

for these sins

caused chaos in our system right and and

when

we're not in in

alignment with god's will

how our negative emotions just pop up so

in other words it's god that's telling

us hey you need to deal with this if you

have a nightmare and i had nightmares

every night you have a nightmare

god is telling you you need to to deal

with this and most of the time we handle

things in a sinful manner

so when we started working together

it took about

four six months

and all of a sudden i was feeling a lot

better because each time that i had

judged a um a criminal um somebody did

something wrong i judged them i had some

judgments on my on my father um i had

you know just a lot of issues that

everybody goes through right

but we have to do like a spiritual

cleaning right we gotta because because

some people say well yeah when you come

to the lord all your sins are forgiven

yes that's true but what happens in an

hour when you sin again that that sin is

not forgiven right so we need to go

um forward and repent for that sin and

it's a simple process of just looking at

your history saying okay

god i'm sorry that that i did this i'm

you know i did this i did this just

acknowledging what what you did and it

kind of wipes the slate clean right and

you return back to fellowship with them

and when you return back to fellowship

with them that's when the the blessings

start coming

and

when i kind of wiped the slate clean

from um

his name was reuben palomares

when he

helped me do this

my negative symptoms of the ptsd started

going away

and as of today i think it's been eight

years now where i have not had a

negative ptsd symptom i mean i still

remember everything so god like didn't

forget it but the power it had over me

in nightmares and anxiety attacks and

stuff

is gone

it was just it was amazing it was truly

amazing

and um so we started helping other

inmates there

and a lot of them were um

had child victims

but when you listen to these guys i mean

i know that most people believe they're

the worst of the worst and

i guess you could argue that they are

but we don't know how they grew up right

when you talk to a man who says that at

five years old his uncle raped him in

that that he was basically the the party

favor for a bunch of these his friends

you know you you see where they're

coming from right

it's

we all

how we believe what we believe is how we

behave

so if he believes that he's a loser he

believes that he's just um a piece of

meat and stuff you know that's when he's

going to end up causing problems for the

community but

i'm not saying it's not his fault i mean

i'm not going there but i think that

we've got to understand

why people start doing things the way

that they do so that maybe we can kind

of prevent that in the future

but but anyway it was through that

process that i was healed

i didn't really think about at the time

but after a few years now of of being

healthy and emotionally happy i hated

myself i

attempted suicide twice before my arrest

i

now life is is different i see it from a

different perspective you know and i

think that's what getting closer to god

does for you you see life from a

different perspective absolutely and

that's fascinating that you're

describing the emotional symptoms

just like physical symptoms there are

signs to something that needs to be

dealt with they're not the disease

itself they are

pointing you to something that needs to

be addressed that's triggering them from

coming underneath once you deal with

that with the holy spirit's help

then

there's freedom i love it yeah no

it's awesome and and the funny thing is

this is this is not just for cops right

this is for everybody because everybody

has been through a traumatic event or

maybe not a traumatic but overwhelming

life even a divorce can be an

overwhelming life event but what we do

is people since the fall

right we

we know that there's something missing

in our heart

and we fill it with alcohol gambling

drugs food what sex whatever the case

may be

but it's god's shape so only

a close relationship with god is going

to make that heart whole right and

that's going to give us the peace that

we're looking for

but most of us fail to see it that way

because we're all hey i can do this on

my own i don't need no help you know

and then there's questions like we

talked about earlier was you know if

if god um

why why does god stop

pain and suffering why doesn't he you

know just make everything great but in

reading the bible and understanding

god himself

you know we'll never understand that and

um

i truly believe that we we need to know

him and we need to know who we are in

his eyes

right i'm just finishing a book now why

god allows suffering and i'm going to

put that on my website for free here in

a few weeks but

it's it's a we need to understand god's

reasons for the things he does and not

that i know his reasons but i'm saying

but by studying the bible you can learn

lessons and i'm going to try to depict

those lessons

that's great so from the book the the

christ-centered healing of trauma can

you give us i think you kind of have a

couple of the pearls in there is it

mostly like your stories or do you give

step by steps for people to kind of walk

through the journey with the holy spirit

what is that like it's more step by step

so at the beginning i'll just tell them

what happened to me

and then the next chapter goes into what

ptsd is what what trauma is and how it

affects the body because there's

physical reactions too you know

backaches neck aches you know

sicknesses illnesses because

the the amount of cortisol that's dumped

in your system when you're in a

stressful situation can cause autoimmune

disease and all sorts of different other

ailments so i'll go into that a little

bit

but then i go into a real deep bible

study of the

healing

scriptures that are in the bible

because i think if we don't like i said

understand who god is right and what

he's done for us

we can't understand

the sacrifice that jesus made in order

for us to be healed and so i think

that's one of the most important things

so it goes into the gospel that goes

into

you know how

jesus is our sacrifice and why we should

believe it i even have a few pages there

of um why we should believe the bible

you know go into a little bit of um

evolution versus um

um

yeah creationism

and then after that i'll go into the

steps i'll pretty much explain our

emotions you know

what they are and in what we feel

and how they come upon us and um then

they go into um things that block our

blessings

you know

like

being envious you know a spirit of envy

of spirit unforgiveness all these things

can block our healing because it puts us

out of fellowship with god

and then towards the end i got a series

of prayers that i actually have they're

free on my website but a bunch of

prayers to reveal

um unforgiveness to reveal past trauma

to heal trauma to look at generational

sins all these things and um

because we really need to look back our

history tells us our future

so it's like

they have studies now of alcoholics

where if your parent is not called you

have this gene and if you turn on this

gene by starting to drink

it's it's natural you're going to be an

alcoholic

you know so so we got to learn about our

past when we move on to our future

yeah that's amazing

so is there anything i have not asked

you that you want to make sure you leave

with our audience

no i don't think so yeah i think that

the important point is here you can heal

you know there is healing we go through

life thinking okay this is this is just

going to be part of my life from now on

you know and some people get comfortable

with it some people believe you know hey

it's just part of life life sucks you

know

and um the people will tell you uh just

pull yourself up for your bootstraps

stop it be happy smile

you know

it doesn't work that way because

god designed us with these emotions for

purposes right but we use these

these negative emotions for different

reasons right because what we want to do

is we want to stop the emotions so what

we do is we go to our crutch like

alcohol or drugs and um any other kind

of the addictive behavior which makes us

feel good for a short time

but in the long run you're we're never

going to be happy until we have that

close relationship with with god

and i just want to make sure that

everybody knows there is healing there

is possibility of healing it's just that

connection that's so important

so where can people go to learn more

about you

okay my website is

www.christhyphencenteredhealing.com

and it'll tell more about me i'll talk

about the book and you can um go through

the website there to buy the book

and um has some other information on law

enforcement culture and um

about healing so that that's the main

thing i'm on facebook too at

christ-centered healing

awesome so i will link in the show notes

to that so people can find you and thank

you so much norm this has been fantastic

thank you it was an honor thank you