Trauma - Pt 3

Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free. The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? The Lord is on my side as my helper; I shall look in triumph on those who hate me. (Psalm 118:5-7 ESV).

The Scripture offers ample proof that God does not simply forget those things that are easier to do so. He tells stories of trauma that would have been much easier to ignore and forget. Glossing over the darkness for the sake of a redemptive story only perpetuates trauma. Calling the smallest signs of functionality “healing” and “progress” can actually undercut real healing and progress by minimizing pain and loss. The process of recovery is not typically immediate. Accurate self-assessment and self-honesty, as much as it is possible, is what places us within God’s true story about us, not trying to contrive redemptive emotions and improvement before they truly come. God speaks about our trauma with precision. No ambiguous talk of “darkness,” “shame,” or “chains” will accurately describe the transgression of abuse, or the self-harming cycles into which it throws its victims. Not crassness. Not oversharing. Not shouting it from the rooftops or bulldozing every conversation with its weight. But God does encourage and embrace truth in grace. The narratives in the Old Testament are awkwardly full of details. Like peering at surveillance footage, God inspired the authors to exposit the events with brutal accuracy. We see them in Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38); a Levite and his concubine (Judges 19); and, Amnon and Tamar (2 Samuel 13) to name a few. These are ugly, awful stories about traumatic experiences among God’s faithful ones. God didn’t intervene to prevent the abuse. God didn’t micromanage the suffering, or give the victims a clean and quick “recovery story.” And yet he still put them on stage in his redemptive story. Judah and Tamar interrupt the Joseph narrative. The Levite and his concubine interrupt the final cycle of Judges. Judah and Tamar interrupt David’s saga with Bathsheba and Absalom. God interrupts the stories of redemption with short stories of lives interrupted by trauma, some that are never resolved this side of heaven. What we can know with certainty is that they each are worked for our individual good. That is an absolute promise of God (cf. Romans 8:28).Therefore we can find comfort and healing in our story. There is glory awaiting!