Beth, our Pastoral Worker, recently attended the Biblical Counselling UK conference. Here she shares what it was about and some of what she learned...
Trauma arrives. Trauma is real. Trauma intrudes. Something happens, sometimes keeps happening to someone. They cannot cope, helplessness pervades. It disrupts normal life, it overwhelms, it’s dark, ugly and the effects remain and keep remaining. How do we navigate trauma? Where is Christ in our trauma?
Trauma was the focus at this year’s Biblical Counselling conference which I had the privilege of attending. It was a mixture of the hard and hope. Hard, because sitting in the ash heap of extreme suffering and seeing the effects on our lives hurts, is messy and complex. Yet mingled in the darkness was hope. Comfort arising in the depths of the anguish, found as the beauty of Jesus emerges, crushing the ugliness of trauma by breaking “the powers of chaos and evil ... by taking the ugliness of the cross and making it beautiful” (S Midgely). How do we navigate helping one another when reeling from deep anguish and distress and the impact which this dark intruder has on our lives? How do we care well amidst the darkest of evils in our world? How can we love and care for one another in the face of our trauma?
As we walk alongside one another at the Village Church, here are five things to reflect on and chat about when considering how we care for one another when trauma invades (taken from Helen Thorne and Steve Midgley’s Church Based Care session at the conference):
Our calling as community - As Church family, broken and messy and living alongside each other, we seek to bring God’s hope to light in the darkness of the fallen world. We seek to be a good friend by walking alongside others, sharing our lives and gifts. This will look different for each of us but we remember we all have a part to play in a variety of ways and it’s in our variety God brings rich blessing to His children. In the middle of trauma, we seek to be devoted to: Prayer, for and with each other; listening rather than probing, by having a firm hold on our tongues, and, slow to speak, so, radiating a willingness and compassion to hear what our brother or sister desires to share with a sympathetic heart posture; speaking in wisdom faithful to the truth of Christ and confident in His promises; humble servant hearted love, the foundation for sharing in each other’s pain and leads us to encourage and serve in the deep pain. Humility and sacrifice are the heartbeat of our actions, remembering we can’t do everything but we are willing to do what God asks of us.
Our calling in conversations and continued support - As we provide support as God’s church we lovingly seek to embrace the beauty and power of small things. We love someone by including them in our family meal time once each week, giving them a place at our table. We do life together whatever that might look like; cleaning the house, making meals, baking, watching a football match, shopping, sharing hobbies, going on holiday, having times that are antisocial, giving space. We check in with no pressure to share something they don’t want to share. We desire to help one another in our darkness to make small steps to safety and security, feeling connected and loved. We chat, wisely finding out how the week has been and how we can pray. We rest content in helping each other trust God a little more by praying together, memorising scripture, looking for God together and “being a rock solid encourager, who is certain of hope”. And as we walk together so we keep praying for each other. It’s the most loving and powerful thing we can do.
We remember the reality of the darkness and battle: Satan is real. Satan is evil. He wills and schemes evil, and trauma reminds us that we are wrestling against him, against “rulers…authorities…cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6).
We remember who God is and what He desires: It’s God’s responsibility to heal, that role does not belong to us! We cannot make someone better. As we look at Job’s experience of trauma and see how hope emerged in the darkness, we remember that, “Trauma is not beyond God, it belongs to God” (S. Midgley). Satan is kept on a leash. God has the ultimate control. So, we can simply be content to know that “what God wants from us in Job like suffering is neither repentance nor deep spiritual discipline. All He wants for us is to hold onto Him - not to curse and walk away, but just to maintain our relationships with Him through tears and sackcloth”. (Erin Ortland)
We remember our calling: To be a faithful, present friend, who personifies the beauty of God Himself by lifting each others eyes in the darkness and ugliness of trauma to see Jesus’s beauty. God does just this with Job! Amid Job’s deep anguish, torment and pain He turns up, listens then speaks and as He does He turns Job’s eyes to Himself and all that He is and His startling beauty through creation. Might this be our hearts desire here at Village Church “…to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him” (Psalm 27), the One who has entered the darkness of our world and defeated the most heinous evil.
