Can Understanding Trauma Help You Grow Closer To God?
Trauma in the Pews 2.0 Section I: Chapter Two (first part).
Chapter Two: Part I
In one of Emily’s email messages, she shared how she often felt separated from God. Many other survivors have also expressed this feeling. As a young adult, I remember repeating the following verse to convince myself that it wasn’t possible to be separated from God.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love… No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39 NLT)
The verse seemed clear; I couldn’t be separated from God. Yet, what I heard in sermons twisted this hopeful verse by saying, “Nothing can separate you from God, but you can separate yourself.” How? Sin—because we are born sinful and unworthy of God’s love. None of this is helpful for survivors who suffer from intense shame because of childhood abuse.
Being harmed by the adults who should protect often results in a children believing they are unworthy of love. Teachings that emphasized unworthiness can easily be believed by survivors of childhood abuse who already believe themselves to be unworthy. Again, the problem is not spiritual, it is the result of shame—the belief that we are unworthy of anyone’s love, including God’s. In contrast, Rev. Ben Cremer states, “Both humanity and creation are fundamentally sacred” Not being able to embrace this truth is one of the most tragic impacts of trauma.
Created as Sacred (Rev. Ben Cremer, Facebook post June 8, 2023)
When our theology as Christians is based on a fundamental belief that humanity and creation are both inherently corrupted by sin rather than inherently sacred, we will show blatant disregard and even hostility towards those who don’t believe the way we think they should and towards the planet itself until they both conform to our way of thinking. No matter the harm it causes to humanity or creation. This is why bad theology kills.
The Bible begins with God creating out of love and creating humanity in God’s own image. Both humanity and creation are fundamentally sacred. To claim otherwise is to somehow claim that sin is more powerful than God. Our theology must always begin with the sacredness God created into the fabric of all things. Otherwise, we are following a theology based on “the fall” rather than God.
What Does Wonderfully Created Mean?
Many years ago, as a second-grade Sunday school teacher, one of the lesson I taught emphasized how our bodies were a wonderful part of God’s creation. The memory verse was, “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” (Psalm 139:14a). I enjoyed talking to the children about their amazing bodies, especially their magnificent brains. Now I would have so much more to tell them!
After teaching the lesson, I left the children’s area and headed to church. That sermon on that day offered a very different approach to the human body. “But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23 KJV). What a contrast! It was a perfect example of the very conflicting teaching about the human body that we should both “beat into submission” and care for “like the temple of God.”
As I began diving into the neuroscience of the body, I learned a new perspective: The human body and brain were created for survival. There is no possible way to either understand trauma or heal from the impact of trauma without understanding this fundamental truth. A body that was created to survive will react when a traumatic event occurs. For instance, when you are in imminent danger from an out-of-control car.
When a car is speeding toward you it is necessary to react quickly. Considering your options is too time consuming! You are probably familiar with the feeling caused by a rush of adrenaline when you perceive danger. This happens because the amygdala located in the center of your brain, in the limbic brain, alerts the more primal area located in the brain stem. Your response is immediate. It is an autonomic response with three options—fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. It is not a conscious choice.
Extensive neuroscientific research on the brain is now providing a greater understanding of these responses. This will be explored further in Section II, but for now, viewing the impact of traumatic events through autonomic responses is sufficient.
When your amygdala senses danger, the download of stress hormones shuts down your prefrontal cortex—the thinking part of your brain. This is especially important to understand when reflecting on how you may have reacted to a perceived threat. If asked what you were thinking, you probably did not have an answer. You weren’t thinking; you were reacting. We see this every day on the news or in our schools. Why would people resist arrest? What were they thinking? They weren’t. Why do children run out of the school building and out into the street? What were they thinking? They weren’t.
Without fundamental knowledge of how your brain reacts to threats— either real or perceived—it is impossible to have the self-compassion that is necessary for healing. If your body is holding unresolved trauma, you will be triggered and you will react. Reacting doesn’t only mean being angry (fight), it can also mean that you will avoid anything connected to the traumatic event (flight) or shut down (freeze). For those not impacted by trauma, these reactions are far less likely to occur.
The second part of Chapter Two will provide additional information on triggers and what qualifies as trauma, along with types of trauma.