TRAUMA

“I’d rather be dead than keep doing this.” My gut sank as I listened to my own mom weep across the phone, as I told her those words. My mom was strong, and she wasn’t one to fall apart so easily. She wasn’t crying because this was news to her, as I had opened up to her about my suicidal thoughts a few months prior. She was crying because she knew I meant it this time. She could tell that I actually felt relieved by the idea of death.

Science has yet to fully understand the capacity of pain and stress any singular human can endure before utterly breaking into pieces. 22 war veterans take their own lives daily. There is a reason for this, as the statistics actually point to something devastating. A horrific kind of pain that is unlike anything else a human can experience. Something so utterly debilitating, that I can tell you myself; death feels like a sweet escape from continuing to live in it.

I am talking about post traumatic stress disorder.

PTSD is one of the least understood psychological conditions a human can have. The root word for trauma actually means “shattered mind.” No therapy, conversation, or message is going to be enough to completely put back together a mind that has all but fallen to pieces. There is a good reason addiction and trauma are so well associated, because the pain of trauma itself is so intrinsically scattered. There are often so many compartmentalized points of pain within PTSD, that attempting to deal with it almost feels as terrifying as the trauma being dealt with. Escapism seems a lot more appealing when the problem is one of a chronological stasis of the mind, that distorts every present experience with the terrors trapped in the prison cell of your memory. Life becomes a living hell.

The stupidest things, even if you know in the logical part of your mind that it’s not scary, can trigger you to a place of terror. It isn’t something you can explain to others either, like the way you can explain the horror movie kind of scary. It’s much worse than that. Again, the only way I have found to explain the level of pain PTSD entails, is that death feels like a relief than to continuing to live in it.

My journey with PTSD has been the primary battle in my life for the last few years. I will spare you the details, as this is a blog, not a book! However, the pain I endured was unlike anything I can even begin to describe. Most people won’t suffer with something quite this terrible, as PTSD is relatively rare. However most people have experienced trauma to some degree in their lives. Believe it or not, Jesus actually had some pretty profound things to say about it.

I learned throughout my own journey battling trauma, that trauma is intrinsically the number one limiter when it comes to experiencing God. There is a laundry list of inhibitors that many pastors talk about, things like idolatry, bitterness, etc… Despite those things, I have found that unresolved trauma most often takes the seat as the number one obstacle to having a genuine intimacy with God. This may be why Jesus wanted to decimate trauma before He did anything else.

In Matthew 18, Jesus says that to enter the kingdom of heaven, we must become childlike. This is interesting, because what this implies is that our capacity to experience the invisible world of God is actually connected to our capacity to be childlike. What is childlikeness, inherently? Well among other things, many define its primary quality as innocence. What is fascinating to me, is that before Jesus said of Himself that He would do almost anything else, in Luke 4 He fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah in saying that He came to heal the broken-hearted. The root word for “broken-hearted” is actually also, shattered mind! This means that Jesus said of Himself before He came to heal any sickness, or cast out any demon, that He came to heal trauma.

The connection between these verses is really interesting. To enter the kingdom, we must become childlike. Jesus also said of Himself first, that He came to heal trauma. What this tells me, is that Jesus actually wants to heal our trauma first so that we can BECOME childlike first, because childlikeness is the gateway to experiencing His world! The very first thing that Jesus wants to completely heal and take care of is the trauma we have endured, so a sense of innocence is restored. This allows our ability to experience His invisible world to be revived again to His original design!

Trauma is so often marked by hyper vigilance, as it sees the horror in everything. However wonder is the complete opposite in every way. Childlike wonder sees the beauty and the curiosity in everything. All it takes is being around children for a very small amount of time to come to the realization just how much wonder they actually have. The contrast between trauma and wonder is also the contrast between trauma and childlikeness. I believe that wonder itself is actually the axiomatic pinnacle of the conceptualization of childlikeness.

I learned in my own life that trauma doesn’t have to lead to death. When we allow Jesus in to the darkest and scariest parts of our past, He can rewrite the narrative. Wonder can take the place where trauma once lived. Let me tell you, wonder becomes a whole lot sweeter when it reigns in the place where trauma once ruled. There is hope for anyone who has gone through the worst life can throw at them. Jesus came to heal the shattered mind, and I am here to tell you, He certainly healed mine. No matter how scary it feels, I promise you, He can heal yours too.