When Trauma Strikes
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[3 Comments]
On a cold Friday night, Shawn volunteered to pick-up a pizza for dinner. When he left the house he told Susan, his pregnant wife, and their two-year old son, "Hey guys, I'll be back in 20 minutes with the pizza." He never came back. Another driver slammed into his car, instantly killing Shawn. Susan was suddenly a widow, a trauma survivor, and a single mother.
Immediately after the accident, our church, including our pastors and our women's ministry leaders, surrounded Susan with love and support. We helped her and her extended family make it through Shawn's funeral. We brought meals to her and her boys. But after a year of our support, Susan turned to one of our women's leaders and said, "I appreciate the help, and I have plenty of frozen baked ziti, but I need you to understand what I'm going through. On many days I wonder if I'll ever feel normal again. I feel far from God. I can feel grief and anger and sadness all in the same day. Can I trust God again? Will you ever understand my shattered soul?"
As I've counseled numerous traumatized women, I've found that Susan isn't alone. Trauma shatters live. Many trauma survivors struggle with the same basic gut-wrenching questions: Can I trust God again? Will others understand my shattered soul?
As leaders in the church, how do we help traumatized women deal with these two questions, walking beside them so they can begin to reconnect with God and others after trauma?
The Nature of Trauma
What is trauma? Most of us hear about the "big traumas," like 9/11, school shootings, and wars. But there are more personal "everyday traumas": a child is abused, a woman is battered or raped, a friend commits suicide, a woman aborts a child, an accident or illness breaks your body.
The word trauma refers to a "wound," which often leaves us feeling overwhelmed and stuck, disrupting our intimacy with God and our connection to community. One of my clients, a young woman physically abused by her father, told me, "I've always believed in God, but for years I never liked him. In my mind God stood in the doorway of our living room just watching as my father beat me. So when I grew up I shoved God away." Trauma affects core beliefs about God, ourselves, and others.
If our God truly "heals the brokenhearted" (Psalm 147:3), and if he truly calls us to be his instruments, then how do we walk beside fellow-sufferers so they can open their hearts to Christ? There isn't one simple answer to that question; however, there are biblical principles that can help us as we seek to help people like Susan.
Be present, walking with the hurting. Before you say anything or give any advice or quote Bible verses, just be there for the brokenhearted. Our God knows about trauma not just because he's God; he has experienced trauma. "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities" (Isaiah 53:5, NIV). God doesn't look at our suffering with a distant coldness. He entered our brokenness and felt it first hand.
Related Topics:
Abuse, Healing, Help, Suffering, Tragedy, Trauma
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Average User Rating:
Judy
I haven't lived through a trauma such as those described in the article. I HAVE lived through the grief of several losses, most recently that of my 94 year old father who experienced dementia; this includes numerous layers of grief. What's been missing for me is people to sit with me, ask me to talk about my Dad and to share deeply how it felt to see his decline and his death. Please, be present in these times, too.
Kate
As a counsellor and Christian I found this article really encouraging. I appreciate how the writer validates the experience of trauma (recognising that this is not the time for quick fixes), but rightly demonstrates that true and lasting healing is available. It is tough work to walk with those who are in so much pain and are so broken. I pray that God strengthens you all and increasingly blesses 'In the Wildflowers', which sounds like a beautiful project.
Pat K.
As a mother who has lived through the trauma of having a son take his own life, I am very sensitive to the term, commit suicide. 'Commit' gives the conotation that one has done something criminal. The more current usage is died by suicide, completed suicide, took their own life. Suicide is a perfect storm: a diseased mind, a mental illness & a trigger, all coming together to a devistating result. It is not a crime. Otherwise, a very good article!
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