Still Part of Me
The room was dark and the machines quiet. My son laid still while my heart raced.
Even if the mind and heart have reconciled things we’ve been through, my body’s visceral reaction tells me trauma still has presence somewhere inside.
It’s there when I enter certain floors of the hospital. Or feel crisp white sheets. Sometimes it’s a smell that sends me back to a hospital cafeteria booth years earlier. The only thing predictable about it is that it’s unpredictable.
Some people deny it. Others find their identity in it.
But what about the Christian? Is trauma erased by trust in Jesus Christ?
I’d argue, no. Not yet. And for a reason.
Just like every other circumstance in our lives, when we trust in Jesus Christ, every single detail works to serve his purposes for us. The good, the bad, the unexplainable, and the unexpected. The short-term changes and long-term challenges. All will be repurposed for His recreating work in us. Work that brings continued dimensions of life and growth.
All things for good.
Good doesn’t mean easy. It doesn’t mean comfortable. But it means even trauma can bring life.
Every twinge of trauma is an invitation to trust. Trust that when we’re weak, He is strong. That His grace will be sufficient through another season of insomnia or uncomfortable memories. And that the weight of trauma here is working an eternal weight of glory.
These repeated opportunities to trust work to strengthen our faith. And faith increases our joy. And joy fuels our perseverance.
Trauma doesn’t need to be denied by the Christian and it will only drain us dry if we make it our identity.
The answer is Jesus Christ whose ownership of us establishes our identity, whose suffering enables Him to enter in and carry us, and whose resurrected power will make even trauma a means for new life.
Trauma may linger and feel crippling. But in Christ, it’s setting us free.
Around the House:
Dinner: Chicken Fajita Rice
Reading: 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz (represented as “the Final Solution”. Sober but necessary read considering the media and radical left’s messaging today.)
Mama’s Bank Account (read this one to Violet, we loved it)
Bible Plan: There’s a free app “The Holy Bible” which has lots of reading plans. Darryl and I are following the “Bible Recap” schedule together and are in the middle of Job. We like to use the audio feature and have the chapters read to us, on average 3-4 chapters a night. There’s a follow-up 6-minute podcast that follows the reading you can also listen to.
On My Kindle: Free to Believe: The Battle Over Religious Liberty in America Just 1.99 right now! Comes with some high recommendations: 2020 Book of the Year at Christian Book Award, The Gospel Coalition, AND WORLD Magazine.