God and Trauma

It’s not that I’m angry with God, or that I don’t trust what his word says anymore. It’s not that at all…so I have been struggling to identify exactly why I can barely read my Bible without emotionally responding.

I see your promises. I see scripture after scripture where you’ll deliver those who trust in you, that you’ll protect them from harm, that you’ll hear them when they cry and answer their petitions. So why didn’t you?

But even more unexpected than the “why didn’t you” questions that were inevitable, is the deep despair and anxiety over hoping in any of those promises again. I can accept that I don’t understand why this happened; I really can. I can trust that God knows better. But the idea of being faced with another situation even remotely like this one and having to hope in God’s word for a miracle…I don’t know that I’m strong enough to do it again. No, I know I’m not strong enough to do it again – and if I’m 100% honest, right now, I don’t want to do it again.

I’m struggling to reconcile a baby that existed, but that won’t be acknowledged by many. I’m struggling to accept that the physical evidence of her coming and going is disappearing so quickly. There will be no funeral and no memorial. No birthdays to mourn that she’s gone. She’s just gone, like the mist, having so affected every piece of my being but never taking one breath on this earth.

You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. – James 4:14

That’s the raw emotion that has been my existence the last week, but it’s not the truth; I’m grateful that I know that much. And when I say I know I’m not strong enough to do this again, it’s because the truth is that I need God to walk through it. He gave me supernatural faith to believe before – and He will do it again.

Tony Evans talks about marriage with the analogy of mayonnaise. The two main ingredients of mayonnaise are oil and vinegar; fundamentally these two things do not combine, so egg is used as an emulsifier that binds the two together. In marriage, you and your spouse are the oil and vinegar, and God is the egg that brings the two ingredients together. As I was laying in bed the other night, I began to ask: if God is the oil and I am the vinegar, what is the emulsifier between us? Faith. Faith is the egg.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. – Hebrews 11:1,6

Trauma is one of the many things we experience in this world that is inexplicable. It doesn’t make sense because it is senseless. Trauma is the result of a fallen world, drowning in sin, and freewill that God refuses to take control of. As a Christian my job is to walk through the trauma and come out on the other side still believing in a God that is good and faithful. THAT is what I cannot do in my own power.

For it is [not your strength, but it is] God who is effectively at work in you, both to will and to work [that is, strengthening, energizing, and creating in you the longing and the ability to fulfill your purpose] for his good pleasure. – Philippians 2:13

I have received so many words of encouragement from women and men who have walked in our shoes. It equally encourages and saddens me that so many have walked this path. My favorite encouragement so far has been a quote from Charles Spurgeon – “I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages.”

May we gracefully accept the waves that come to more personally know the Rock of Ages.