The Traumatized in the Church

I’d missed it. 

I walked in the doors, my body shaking visibly. Though my children walked by my side, and my husband held my hand, I thought my feet might collapse beneath me. I couldn’t talk for the large boulder sitting painfully in my throat. My stomach lurched with every step and the tears I was holding back seemed to threaten to tell my story to everyone around me as I felt certain I might physically explode if even one tear fell. 

As I passed through the sanctuary doors an overwhelming wave washed over me: I’d missed them. 

I’d missed so many. 

I’d missed so many hurting people who may have come through my church doors not too long before, just as I was now coming through these doors.

How could I have been so blind all those years as one on ‘the other side?’ The inside. 

Shame and conviction grasped my heart and, though I didn’t think it possible, my heart broke even more. 

I was undone. 

Trauma in the church exists in so many ways. 

~ The abused and neglected, young and old alike

~ Those crushed with deep grief and loss

 ~ Those haunted by dreams that wreck their brains and bodies frequently even though it “only” happened once so many years ago…(shouldn’t they should be over this by now?) 

~ Those surviving an abusive marriage, their soul beaten down inside the walls of their homes, (while their elder husband charms the crowds on Sunday)

~ Those standing next to the pastor who greets you with a smile that betrays the stories she’d never dare whisper out loud 

~ The pastor, too ashamed himself, carrying the weight of haunting memories, swearing only he and God will ever know  

~ Perhaps even the abusing and neglecting sitting around us or leading from the stage

These are the buried stories most will never tell. 

As a pastor’s wife, I didn’t have a clue. I had never experienced such depths of pain until now, feeling as if my heart was physically shattered, pieces scattered about yet imprisoned inside my skin. 

Though I had carried pain throughout the years, I had never once considered how painful it might be to another inside the doors of a church. Now experiencing some of the most painful betrayal from the very hands of the ones who called us to minister to them, I knew well the breath-stealing pain that squeezes the air out of your lungs and makes you think you’ll never be able to breathe in again. 

The words of the worship song came to mind in that moment, “Break my heart for what breaks Yours.” And I have never been the same since. (Thank you, Lord.)

This is trauma and trauma changes us.

Trauma isn’t what happens *to* us, but it is the *lingering imprint* of what happened to us that forever changes the way we see ourselves, the way we see others, and the way we see God. It inevitably shapes what we believe about ourselves, others, and God, and will radically challenge all we ever thought we knew. 

Trauma will cause deep doubt. Doubt that chases you down at night and overtakes you with nightmares as your brain attempts to process all that doesn’t make sense. 

Trauma will cause haunting fear. Fear that is trying to tell us something, but we’ve been so conditioned to believe fear is sinful so we don’t listen. 

Trauma will cause despair.

And despair needs a place to rest its head. 

In the church, with no place to rest its head, despair leads to deep spiritual shame and isolation. Not only has something horrifying happened to us, but often no one believes us, or hears us, or thinks it’s ok to hurt this way. No one thinks we’re really Christians because the pain is so great and we can’t seem to overcome it with prayer, praise, or “surrender.” 

The Church often denies the traumatized the deep power of collective grieving over the imprint of another’s sin upon us.

Trauma in the church is reprehensible because, of all the people in the world, we follow a Savior who has descended the depths of suffering to the point of sweating blood and did not deny, hide, or dismiss its pain. 

Can we, His Beloved, not stay awake with Him but one hour?

Can we, His Delighted In, not sit quietly with those suffering, yet trying to move on in faith? Those like Job and the woman seeking to just touch the edge of Jesus’ garmet? 

Can we, the recipients of His limitless, abounding, never-ending, pursuing love, not learn to receive and share that compassionate love with another human? 

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

John 12:14-15

What is washing another’s feet, but taking their burdened feet, their dirt, their stench, in your own tender hands with a bent-down self, and gently washing away the pain, the weariness, the dirt, and the stench so one can begin to walk once more renewed and refreshed in their journey. 

This is the Church’s job: to care for orphans and widows, to bind up the wounded, to feed the sheep, to care for those who can’t care for themselves because their suffering is too great. 

These are the ones to whom we’ve been called. 

These are the ones sitting on your left, and on your right, and standing behind the pulpit looking back at you. 

These are the traumatized and hurting.

And unto them, Jesus is sending you and he’s sending me.

How will we respond, Church?

How will you respond, Friend?