Page 129 - Advanced Biblical Counseling Student Textbook

Facing Trauma requires honesty about our pain.
I wish that just reciting a passage of Scripture was all you needed to do to heal from the trauma behind
it, but God’s Word is not intended to be our Zoloft (Zoloft is a medication that helps with depression and
anxiety). It must be understood in its full, overarching narrative. The stories in the Old Testament often
detail painful circumstances, unimaginable injustice, and uncertain futures. They also picture a
relentless God who pursues and intervenes for good, even when the circumstances seem hopeless or
dire. Our own stories are much the same.

Part of healing from our trauma is to stop hiding from our reality and attempting to paint a happy face
on it. Instead, we must confess it, allow it to come into the light, and lament it. Biblically, this was done
well. Lamentations illustrates how we can grieve deeply about our sin through the story of the
subsequent captivity of the nation of Israel. Job expresses despair as he wrestles with devastating loss
despite his upstanding lifestyle. One of the reasons that so many details are given through the Old
Testament is so we can rest assured that God cares about the truth of our details. We can bring our
pain into the light, because only then can it be dealt with properly.

Facing Trauma requires Grief over the loss
Consider the rape of Tamar by her brother, Amnon. “She put ashes on her head and tore the ornate
robe she was wearing. She put her hands on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she
went… And Tamar lived in her brother Absalom’s house, a desolate woman.” (2 Sam. 13:19, 20b)
Absalom was so angry at the injustice done to his sister he later had Amnon killed. David believed all his
sons had been killed, and he “tore his clothes and lay on the ground.” Later, when the other sons
arrived, they were “wailing loudly. The king too and all his servants wept bitterly.” And “King David
mourned many days for his son.”

Place this story in modern time. What would Tamar likely have done? Perhaps been too ashamed to act
like anything was wrong. Tried to go on with life and stuff down how she felt. Worried that people
might accuse her of coming on to Amnon. And would we ever see grown men grieving so deeply they
laid on the floor or tore their clothes or wailed loudly together?

I love the Psalms because we see that David doesn’t just sing songs that make him feel happy. He
expresses his anger, his frustration, his confusion, his sadness, his weakness, and then he engages with
who God is in the midst of that grief. He doesn’t stay wallowing in his mess, but neither does he ignore
it.

Facing trauma requires trusting God with the future
As we grieve our stories, God begins to reveal why we are afraid, and what it is we’re really afraid
of. We can forgive abusers and receive God’s forgiveness for ways that we responded sinfully to our
traumas. We can renew our minds, and according to Philippians 4:4-10, think on what is true and good,
even good that may have come from our trauma as we reflect on God’s faithfulness.

We can make choices to walk by faith into the things we fear. Psychology calls this exposure therapy. A
common anxiety treatment, it involves essentially facing your fear, talking yourself through it, and
seeing that you came out okay on the other side. As children of God, we don’t have to go into our fears
alone. Remember what Isaiah said,

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