when power and loyalty became more important than truth

There’s a dark undercurrent in the malaise. There’s a drone that can be discerned. The end is nigh. When power and loyalty become more important than truth, the Lord is coming. (This article is so hard to write.)

I now know so many people for whom the church is a club vested in power and loyalty. Yes, I know, birds of a feather and all that. I know there are many people in the church who go through their whole entire lives happily content singing songs on Sundays, going to their small groups, having lovely afternoon teas, and are challenged regularly by the Word. That used to be many of us. We’re thankful and not just a little envious.

But when we talk about a burnout or kickout rate of pastors that’s as high as 50 percent, there’s something atrociously wrong. “Oh, those ones weren’t ‘made of the stuff’,” which properly situated highlights a narcissistic view that pastors are “special” or somehow “superior.” And when pastors who were burned out or kicked out hear that, they and their families, are abused all over again. They gave their lives to their ministries. It wasn’t Christ who expected more from them than they could give, it was the institution.

When countless thousands are sexually abused, and hundreds of thousands are spiritually abused, when churches resemble clubs, and the power is bestowed in few or one. Narcissism rises. It must because power is too much of a temptation, and loyalty wins the weak favour.

When money is the driver, and manipulation is the means, and when the faithful don’t even know. The degree of “gifting” involved in an altar call, or swooning the crowd for a “love offering”… once you’ve seen it, you cannot unsee it. Not all, but many are peddlers in the subtlest and loveliest coercion, helping the pure heart feel guilty in just the right sort of way. And then they get their relief having given many times more than they could afford, because they’re reminded about the widow and those last two mites she gave.

When abuses are forgivable, but then silences bring a mountain of contemptuous disdain. Until you’ve been there you don’t know how much worse for a survivor is the silence and lack of repentance.

When abusers garner support and use their minions to quash the empath’s sensitive spirit for the umpteenth time, and trolls patrol the fringes of “cherished” institutions.

When PTSD and C-PTSD are on the rise, and what was considered “family,” parents of which divorce their children on a whim. Oh, you “dedicated” a family member did you, into “the family,” and then burn us all the following year. How can that not create trauma? You love with the appearance of Christ’s perfect love and then behave in hateful ways. Psychologists have malevolent terms for that.

When church has utterly crucified the faith of the faithful.

When the vulnerable are gun-shy and find it tremendously difficult to know Christ through their experiences of church, let alone know his comfort, and give him their trust. Of course, the Twitter troll has an answer for that: “They never knew Jesus.” How dare you. Matthew 18:6-9 was written for people who behave like you do. 

When the captives are kept imprisoned, and when the poor have proclaimed to them a belligerent gospel, and when the blind are led by those who intentionally keep people blind, and to keep the oppressed in bondage.

When power and loyalty become more important than truth, and that’s the face of Christendom right now, that’s a “movement” that has to be crucified so Christ can truly rise again and reclaim his church.

Adults, stop traumatising children by expecting them to be adult

Here’s a scenario I see all too commonly.

Father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, or caregiver (including teachers, child care workers, dance teachers, sport coaches, scout leaders, etc) traumatising a child in their care by expecting too much of them, and then when they react poorly it’s a secondary abuse of verbal tirades and threats—further exasperating them. I have seen children as young as 12 months old, barely walking, absolutely beside themselves in the torment of an abusive care; any and every adult in ear shot completely conflicted and confounded for a response. The child affected is traumatised and thinking others are also traumatised vicariously, especially other children who look on.

I wonder in these moments if these grown up children caregivers know the damage they’re inflicting or whether they care. If only they’d reach out. I’d love more opportunities to get to the child’s level, quicken them to safety’s peace, and do whatever I could to usher a sense of security into their little, vulnerable bodies and minds.

Trauma is trauma. Whether a child is sexually abused, the subject of neglect through adults’ caregiver addiction or gross neglect of overt physical harm, it’s all academic. The eggshell skull rule dictates that levels of abuse are surprisingly arbitrary, and what affects one in a minor way will affect another in a major way, and it is known that no one is ‘stronger’ than the other!

The impact of one abuse on two different persons will remit two entirely different traumas and those impacts cannot be predicted beforehand and, of course, it’s too late once the damage has been done.

At least as far as it depends on the care of the child, it is reprehensible that a child will be berated beyond their capacity for response.

To expect a toddler to communicate the complexity of their emotions, for instance, is ludicrous; yet, how many times have I heard a parent/grandparent/caregiver shout into the little one’s face, “What’s with the *&%$# attitude—I’ll give you something to cry about?!”

Really anyone who is entrusted with the care of a child, especially when it’s you and only you there, where the child is completely vulnerable to your real treatment of them, ought to be caring for the child as God cares for us. Be mindful your care of the child is seen by God!

All I can offer at these times is a slightly threatening stare, but I wish I had the words and actions that would bring stern reflection for change, but I fear if I said anything, I’d only make matters worse. If I’ve had the opportunity, I’ve gone in and pacified the situation by way of distraction, which has worked on several occasions, hundreds in fact as I reflect, where I’ve sought to bring peace where there is chaos and fear.

It should be obvious to any thinking adult when a child is exasperated. We know what it feels like. Try having about a quarter of the empowerment and agency and we may remember how little control over the world a child has.

Especially for the truant and rebellious child we need to ask what abuse they’ve already met and what trauma they’ve already borne. We must learn to convert our question of “What’s wrong with you?” to “What has happened to you?”

I know as a parent myself some of the shameful things I’ve done years ago when I lost my temper; when I was a different man. Thankfully I think my adult daughters have largely forgiven me for the occasions I exasperated them.

I’m in the unenviable position, post-conversion, that I’ve gone from someone who didn’t believe in counselling to being a passionate advocate for truth and the need of counselling.

~

Because this is ‘my voice’, I can say this unequivocally… a message for those who do not yet revere the awesome responsibility of raising children:

Caregivers, grow up! If you have vulnerable ones in your care, it’s YOUR job not theirs to model adult attitude and behaviour. You’re leading them. You don’t have the right to expect them to match you in any way; physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually. To expect that is an attitude of abuse. To insist they do so is the behaviour of abuse. And you WILL traumatise them, and you may rue your actions now, because the cycle will continue into the next generation.

The traumatised child is put on a set-and-forget path that can never be completely undone. Does that matter to you? If it does, seek help. If it doesn’t, I do pray that you lose the right to ‘care’ for those in your charge.

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What is the gift of prophetic encouragement and how is it used?

Everyone has this gift lingering inside them. Only some use it. And of those who do use it, they don’t use it all the time. It isn’t one of those gifts that God sprinkles over a few “special ones.” No, this gift is given in stereo across the breadth of humanity.

But this gift requires humility, as any gift does.

Gifts are for others. They make us humble. Gifts come forth out of love to and for others when others come first, through our expressed acts of love. Gifts are from God. Gifts are for others.

So, the first hint about this spiritual gift is it’s those blessed with humility who use it best; or, better put, humility is in any of us, when we put others first to the degree that we do acts of love toward them.

See what Rick Warren says in describing what I call prophetic encouragement:

Jesus called Peter a “rock” when the fisherman was still acting on impulse (Matthew 16:18), and God called Gideon a “mighty man of courage” when he was hiding from the enemy (Judges 6:11-12).

Prophetic encouragement expresses the positive potential we see in another person, which builds them up, causing them to grow further into that vision of that gifting we see in them. If God did this for Peter and Gideon, calling them what they would be at a future time, modelling just the right way of doing it, we certainly can.

See how prophetic encouragement encourages through the potential that is seen?

See how God called these two men better names than at the time they deserved?

See how the Holy Spirit calls us to the same ministry of seeing, which is prophecy, and encouragement, which is equipping?

I commonly use prophetic encouragement before a person has acted that way, as a way of calling them to self-awareness; that they might say, “Wow, this person saw THAT in me! I wonder if it’s true? I liked the feeling of that encouragement. I want to become more like he just said I was.”

If the word of encouragement sticks, it’s from the Holy Spirit and they go on to express what I prophesied, but if it doesn’t stick, I accept it wasn’t of God.

If we see someone has the capacity for kindness, and yet they haven’t been very kind, but suddenly we see them do an act of kindness, it’s encouraging for them when we point that kindness out.

I know a particular female pastor (a former teacher) who does this extremely well; she hasn’t chosen to criticise people when they perhaps would have deserved it, but she has pounced on times when they did the right thing, to make an example of that right thing. “That, did you see that; I did,” is what that says to me, with her big encouraging smile of loving goodness.

What a beautiful way to shepherd people in a particularly trying world. To wait for the time of encouragement, praying that it would arrive, that we’d be ready, and then to utter a timely kindness.

In a world that often rewards the wrong behaviour, we can see here how much better it is to ignore that which would only demoralise someone in favour of calling attention to what we want more of.

Just in case you or I don’t make it

There is so much I want and feel I need to say. Too many things.

This is for the irreconcilable moment where sadness attends and insists on staying.

This is for the time when it’s too late. A whisper from heaven to let you know.

This is for those times when you wonder. Are we ‘okay’? Without a moment’s hesitation—with no reservation—yes, we are, unequivocally.

For all those times that were—times locked firm in the past, undoable by the nature of time and history—we were more, much more, in our hearts, for each other, than those times.

If I don’t make it, I want you to know that our love will never change. I know you will keep loving me. If you don’t make it, I want you to know our love will never change. I will keep loving you.

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Sing this song of love over your loved ones

Here is a prayer to sing over those you love.

Oh love, I love you with such an indescribable love that words cannot express, nor can action show, what I have in my mind and heart for you, that I just wish I could do and continually do and never stop doing, for you.

I wish it were the case that I could say and do all the things that I think and feel toward you, and for you, and with you, never acting against you.

My heart longs for the situation where you are at peace, where all about you is hope, and truly all you experience is joy. My soul yearns for radiance to shine forth through you, that all your dreams would come to be within reach and be able to be fulfilled, that all about you would be vivacity, buoyant vulnerability and vision.

But so very sadly, it is to be, and is actually the case, that life cannot ever be like this. This fact leaves me bereft of response, saddened for a reality I would want to reverse.

It causes my heart pain simply to acknowledge that life cannot be controlled to the extent with which I would want your life blessed. If I want this for you, truly I would do anything to help you to bring it about, if only I could. I would do this. If only I could.

My heart aches and groans for the fact that yours does. And my mind doesn’t stop thinking about you. My grimaces of anguish suffer for the sole purpose that you are still not where you want to be. I want it for you… so much!

But let me sing this song over you.

Let me sing a song of hope and of peace and of joy, so you would know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I am for you and never against you.

Even if I acted in a way that would leave you doubtful, I do hope and pray that part of you will see that my intent cannot help but love you.

Let me sing this song over you.

Let my prayer of love soothe your senses and fill your void. And if only it could! Surely I know in fact, even as I muse on the theory, that all of what I say is an aspiration, but it is still the devotion of love the drives my heart interminably toward you. For you. With you. By your side. Always.

I cannot bear for you to be in pain, but I realise and recognise and accept that I cannot control every nuance or semblance of reality. My heart is charged to want good for you, and to keep believing in you, no matter what, and my belief in you will never fail, even if it is that you thought that I did give up on you. I never will.

I pray that you would grant me the benefit of the doubt when I disappoint you, but even if you don’t, I will keep trying anyway, because my love for you means more to me than life itself.

I’m captivated by love for you. My life is absorbed in yours, and yet, even as I think, I’m so blessed by the love that God poured out my way by the very thought of you in my mind, and what God gave me as you rest indelibly on my heart. This thought gives me such gratitude.

But my song for you remains. My spirit will go with you, whether I’m here or at home with the Lord. You will always have me, even when you don’t. My love will remain, it will abide, it will go on, ever and ever, for you, for your ‘ever’, before we are reunited in the heavenlies.

I do thank God for this love in my heart for you that connects me to life itself.

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Why we MUST love one another

We must love one another simply because the issue of vulnerability, or the potential vulnerability, or the past vulnerability of people will mean that those negative experiences have meant that the last thing they need is for us to add to their burden.

This means none of us can afford to wear even more than we’ve worn. And none of us can afford to put onto another person more than they’re already wearing.

For this reason, it is imperative that we love people with every ounce of encouragement that we can give them, because in assuming that there is vulnerability (loss, abuse, mental illness, etc) in a person’s past or present or future, we know that we cannot add to that trauma, for reasons that would be obvious. 

We do not need to put ourselves in harm’s way by becoming a protagonist when in the same moment and vein we could very easily become an instrument of peace and healing and of hope in their lives.

It is therefore the best and only way of Christian discipleship with others to love them with the love that Christ loves us with which is the Father’s love for Christ himself.

You may ask what about the truth? Sometimes we need to love people with the truth. Of course, we do. What I suggest is an equal blend of love and truth, to the measure that truth is honoured, and love is not betrayed, is an ‘equal’ mix of 49% truth with 51% love. See how not all things when being equal are equal?

A truth honoured where love is not betrayed is a firmly gentle communication, characterised by patience and perseverance. If a truth were to burn the person, we ratchet back. We don’t always get it right, of course. So, having burned a person, we go back and make amends.

Sometimes I’ve sought to love people with the truth and gotten the mix wrong—perhaps it was 51% truth, or 60%, or 90%. When love was minimised and truth appeared too strong, truth wasn’t appreciated. It’s not to say there can’t be eventual or overall benefit, but we need to recall Jesus’ final command wasn’t, “Truth one another,” but “Love one another.” Yet, in all this we need to acknowledge just how much speaking the truth IS love.

We MUST love others simply because there is already too much pain in this world; there is already too much grief, too much existential confusion, too much lack of meaning and purpose. There are weary people everywhere. None of us can assume that others are impenetrable and resilient. The safer assumption is that they aren’t. 

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A torrent of blessing… IF you don’t give up

God spoke to me these words: “See what happened there; the attack was incessantly furious, wasn’t it? Yet, how did you respond? I know, but have you noticed yet? You did not give up, so I’m coming through for you… now watch!”

Of course, you know these moments, because you see them through the rear-view mirror of your own life. We all know those times when we could have reacted in a desperate overture of anger or despair that spoke only of a fearful and resonating hopelessness. 

Those times when we could have but didn’t.

As tsunamis and landslides and hurricanes and floods cannot be stopped, acts of God as the world insurance industry refers to them, God’s favour toward those who patiently persevere cannot be stopped. God’s will cannot be thwarted.

A torrent of blessing is coming… IF you don’t give up. IF in the circumstance of your exhaustion, bewilderment, grief, depression, etc, we don’t resign from the purposes of hope. 

So, knowing all will be set right, we don’t. We keep hoping onward beyond the torment, reminding ourselves of our resources of patience and quiet and honest strength.

We take that situation audaciously, as just the situation we were waiting for, as look at the enemy and say, “You’re on!” That’s right, it was no curse, because it was our opportunity. We don’t fight with the weapons of this world. We fight with the patient fortitude of a grace that is sufficient for us. The world looks on as if to say, “Are you for real? How do you slay this evil with a smile?”

It was what was hatched in the beginning as the conquest set before us.

To be crushed? No, it’s not about that, at all. That’s the reality that has beset us, for sure, but there’s more ahead, if only we can bear the present moment in gentle patience and perseverance.

This moment that has hit us, this reality of torment, precedes the very torrent of blessing that is coming forth toward us, that again, cannot be stopped. The moments ahead are not easy, but they will be worthwhile in the overall plan of our redemption.

We look not for reward, but we are assured that reward is coming. We are assured that a torrent of blessing is rushing toward us, just like that unstoppable tsunami, and once it sweeps in, we shall see from that Mountaintop. All was worth it.

This is our hope even as we prevail without a hope in this world.

See how the Kingdom is advancing and sweeping up the captives, carrying us to safety and security, converting our hardship and misery into sweet droplets of blessing, a vision building even as we wait and toil.

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The who, what, when, where, how and why of Triggers

Life takes its toll on all of us. And that toll is often borne out from trauma into triggers, from our minds to our bodies, from our attitudes to our behaviours, at light speed, like a flash on a camera.

That toll, when it was too much for us, is revealed through the visible manifestation of trauma.

The toll is taken,
it’s transmuted into trauma, and
ongoing effect is felt through triggering.

When we’re triggered

When we’re triggered one or more of a number of things can happen, from freezing in thought or action (or both); to fighting through anger which comes more from anguish and utter confusion than through wanting to be violent, because there is an itch that cannot be scratched; to fleeing through all manner of denial, escape to sheer panic attack.

It occurs and we may run without a thought to food or drink or drugs or video games or shopping or some other crutch. Being triggered sets off a chain reaction of responses that seem beyond our control. We run to comfort, no matter the negative consequences of our behaviour.

Being triggered can often feel like and often is borne out of spiritual attack, when we feel threatened, whether the threat is real or not. In actual fact, the very nature of spiritual attack is it’s a threat we cannot see, feel, taste, touch or hear; we sense it in our spirit. It doesn’t get much more disconcerting than that.

Being triggered is scary, because, though we suspect we know what is happening, we can feel hopelessly out of control, we feel exposed and vulnerable, and we may often feel embarrassed and incredibly silly.

When we’re triggered, we hardly recognise or acknowledge that most if not all people have triggers. We may feel as if it’s only us that has this ‘silly’ weakness.

What is a trigger? Why do we have them? Can we lessen their impact?

Well, it’s the body’s adapted physiological response to trauma. Because trauma was unconscionable, and the mind could not cope with it, we developed a way of coping that is far from ideal. When we are triggered (re-traumatised) our minds switch us straight into this learned response.

Tracking back from the triggering is the key to learning what trauma we met in the past and how we might better understand it. When we better understand what sweeps us off our feet by what cut us off at our knees, we have a better chance in future through using our mind to gradually respond better, little by little as we adjust our coping style.

How should we respond when we’re triggered?

These are the nuts and bolts of where we start in reconciling those things that happen that are beyond our control. So, how do we manage our responses to the things we cannot control? Great question!

In the early going, when we’re first discovering what triggers are and how they collapse our world in a second, we need to be gentle with ourselves and take the pressure off ourselves. Inevitably we may find we can talk ourselves through it. A trusted and competent psychologist will help.

As we gain more knowledge about ourselves, and more knowledge about the antecedent trauma, and having accepted it, we’re given ways, through prayer, to respond better, through practice.

Most of all, we need to be reminded that being triggered is not our fault. We are all wired to be able to cope with so much; any more than that, and trauma occurs. It’s therefore not us, but the experiences we had.

Our journey’s in forgiving those experiences and learning how we can respond better.

Where does triggering most often occur?

When we’re feeling unsafe, vulnerable in a situation, or particularly when we’re surprised or didn’t anticipate a thing happening, that’s when a trigger is most likely to occur.

There are places we may go, places associated with trauma, where our mere presence in that place will raise us to alert.

Then there’s a particular person or persons. Those who have threatened us or who have posed as a threat—and this is often the case, when we just discern something is off about a person—are a major cause of triggering.

Sometimes it’s a task that we do, or an activity that brings it on.

And very often it’s the case that all kinds of stimuli can cavort together to bring on a time of triggering.

Whether it’s a situation or a person or a task or anything else, it’s not good to remain in such an environment. Wisdom dictates we’re always better off in safety.

~

When we notice someone behaving out of character, or responding without thought or by instinct, in ways that could mean they’re being triggered by their trauma, the compassionate approach is to keep them safe, offer them comfort, to be gentle with them.

I know personally that enduring a season of feeling triggered can leave my body feeling bruised and battered, and most often not physically, but spiritually. Somehow in being triggered repetitively, the body bears the brunt of what we cannot cope with. And to recover, we need time to reconnect with our bodies—our physical self.

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Where there is love for God, there is care for humanity

At the risk of telling people things in an age where people don’t like to be told, I wanted to express something that’s been on my heart for some time.

One thing I’ve always been keen to observe is how Christians get along with one another, and how they care for one another, as an extension of the Lord’s final command to “love one another”; just as Jesus loved his disciples, and our love is to be the same as the Father’s love is to Jesus, and Jesus’ love for the Father (see John 13-17).

Just as Jesus loved the disciples is how we’re to love one another.

Jesus himself warned us, that the world will know we are his disciples by the way we love one another. To consistently fail in this regard is to consistently fail God.

And yet, what is the measure of such care?

Care is defined by those who need the care, not by those who are positioned to care, but it is often the case that those who are properly positioned to care, know implicitly how to care. A caricature of the wounded healer, for instance.

The advocate needs no coaching. They discern the sufferer and know how to apply the balm of healing, for they have been there, just as The Advocate has.

Usually, however, the agency to healing is much simpler, and requires much more patience, and needs less of our humanity, than our humanity is comfortable with.

When God is glorified in the healing, the human agent gets no glory, for the human agent who acts for The Advocate seeks no glory; for, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing (Matthew 6:2-4). But still too many want their taste of success and disqualify their love as being an attribute of God’s hand.

The measure of care, defined by those needing it, comes in portions of first aid and then of surgery.

The former requires simply a heart to care, yet the latter requires the discernment of a ‘therapist’ who is trauma-informed.

This denotes that there are two levels of care: the primary level for the actual site of the injury, and the secondary level for the trauma that occurs deeper in the tissues beneath because of the injury.

When we suffer loss or abuse or a crisis of faith or we burn out, there is always the event which is traumatic in and of itself. But then there are the deeper levels in layers of loss and trauma that come as the ripples of suffering flow outward.

Just like a tsunami, the most tumultuous and cataclysmic effects are felt as aftershocks once the waves have reached their destination before receding.

In trauma, the aftershocks last much longer than was ever anticipated, because the story needs to be told and retold, each time producing waves that discombobulate the equilibrium.

It is a sensitive work of faith to continue when there are consistently no signs of progress. But, trust. For healing is like a seed about to germinate. We don’t see growth until the shoot pierces the surface. Then and only then do we celebrate, when our faith is vindicated. Before then it looks like a lost cause.

And there arrives the Christian, with the word of God in their right hand, which compels them to love; and especially, to love the wounded like the Good Samaritan would.

The Christian isn’t the person he slides on by and the other side of the road.

And they are definitely not the person to mete out harm!

And yet in our day, as the #ChurchToo movement suggests, as it continues to gather momentum, we see Christians not only sliding by on the other side of the road, but they were the attackers who left the wounded traveller dying on the side of the road in the first place.

Christian? Really? To not respond in care? To injure? To injure and then to fail to care… oh, that’s right, to injure would preclude the motive of care.

There is little wonder that on the occasion of causing suffering, the one causing suffering fails to respond in care.

It is one thing to cause suffering, it is infinitely worse to fail to respond to suffering one has caused. And yet, the suffering that a person causes is never easily nor willingly confessed. And yet, we will all face God.

Is infinitely better to confess our sin in this mortal life, where healing and reconciliation and God’s will might be done, than to carry it over into a time of judgement.

Yet, those who won’t listen to the calls of the sufferer now are those also who will not heed the call that echoes throughout all eternity. Woe.

Whoever would love God will care for their fellow humanity.

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What we feel that goes soul deep to steal

Maya Angelou is famed for saying, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I’ve been reflecting on that of late. I’m finding that it’s not always the positive that I do that’s sometimes remembered in people’s lives I work with. I’m finding, to every pastor and counsellor’s chagrin, that it’s the times I’ve let people down that they can seem to remember the most.

It’s not that I make it a practice of trying to let people down. Nobody who seeks to help people does that. But in working with human beings, and being a human being, letting people down is the unintended consequence of time and the odds of getting it wrong at some point or other. I’m so glad of the facility of apology and repentance, as a way back to restore shaken relationships.

Something about the experience of a negative goes deep into the fissures of our soul.

And though it’s often the positive memories of our past that linger and the negative things fade, with people who’ve harmed us it’s one-hundred-and-eighty degrees different.

Those who I have forgiven long ago whom I still cannot bring myself to trust are those who made me feel the deepest, most negative experiences of my life, and those experiences are not easy to erase—indeed, it’s a good possibility that that’s impossible.

Not that we don’t pray for redemptive moments, and we should. Surely God will show up in some of these situations? Or even one? To give us hope for healing; for the relationship certainly, but for the reclamation of fragments of our own peace, too.

What is it that we feel that goes soul deep to steal?

When we were shamed in a degrading way or publicly or in ways that left us brutalised, where we were made to feel guilty, vile, useless and worthless.

I’ve been amazed at how many of these experiences I still recount as if they happened five minutes ago—the place, the person, the time, the words (sorry, Maya), the sting in the tail, even the weather. Something of that pain was immediately etched or imprinted on my psyche. And there it remains waiting to be healed.

Not that I’m scarred beyond help. Not that you are, either. But we all suffer from another’s careless whispers or worse. And these things dredge their way deeper into us than we’d ever expect or allow if we had that sort of control.

The way we were made is incredible. We were made to feel love and to respond in kind. We weren’t made to deal well with the life-crushing emotions of life.

These feelings we feel that went soul deep to steal—our joy, our hope, our peace, our trust, our faith—are real and they are necessary.

They are beacons to warn us of what is wrong that must be corrected. They are headlines from bygone times to remind us of what should have been protected. But wasn’t. Yet, they are also bells of hope for the fact that we felt, which qualifies us in the empathic realm.

Trauma is something to be held aloft and owned. It may be a trophy we don’t want, but it is also God’s reminder of the work God is yet to do. And hope for healing is both reasonable and necessary.

Those feelings are real. We shouldn’t allow anyone to undermine them for us.

Strangely enough, it’s when we accept the status quo of particular feelings, as being both real and relevant for our time now, that we actually begin to set up the healing sequence.

When we abide with Jesus those darker emotions—and it takes time—we find that what used to crush us now brings us agency. The truth has indeed set us free.

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