Acknowledgements:
For my daughters in the faith.
There are two
types of trauma we can inflict on children.[1] Type
A trauma is passive, while Type B trauma is active. The first is through
neglect, the second through abuse. The sobering reality is that we hurt the
little ones when we deny them their right to the God-designed relationship of
parent and child (type A) just as much as when adults actively seek their harm
(type B).
In fact, many
people have said that the type A trauma (neglect) was much more difficult to
deal with because it took so long to recognize it for what it was. Open abuse
leaves clear and painful memories that can be brought to God for healing.
Passive neglect leaves a void that is not so easily identified, leaving
malnourished souls wondering what in the world is wrong with them. [2]
My aim in
sharing this is threefold. First, I want to give hope to anyone who needs to
hear that God is working in the body of Christ for the healing of his
traumatized children. This hope sometimes comes through hearing other members
of the body of Christ call trauma what it is. It creates hope when churches
speak of trauma as a “weep with those who
weep” issue,[3]
rather than denying the needs of members of the body of Christ by claiming that
all our healing happened at the cross, and nothing more is required (hence
never obeying God’s command to weep with those who weep). For anyone who feels
trauma the way I mention, Jesus heals the brokenhearted and binds up our wounds
today, just as he promised.[4]
The church he is building joins him in his work.
Second, I want
to give hope to traumatizers. Whether we have hurt children through neglect, or
abuse, there is as much healing for parents as for the children they have
traumatized. Yes, I know how difficult it is to use the word “trauma” to identify
anything we may have done to our children. However, I know that the greatest
blessing we can experience comes as we face our poverty of spirit, mourn both
our failures and our sins, meekly come to Jesus in the confession that we
cannot fix ourselves and all we have done wrong, and so hunger and thirst for
the righteousness that comes by faith in him.[5]
To face our
relationship to our children in light of the mercy of God towards us as his
children, makes us the merciful parents who will face anything we have done
wrong in order to help and bless our children, and anyone else we may have
wronged or failed in the course of a “multitude
of sins” kind of lifetime.[6]
Third, I want
to stir up churches to the centrality of ministry to the brokenhearted. “Healing”
ministry in the church should not be relegated to a
one-night-of-the-week-come-in-the-back-door-of-the-church-basement kind of
program.
God said that
the Messiah would, “bring good news to
the poor… bind up the brokenhearted… proclaim liberty to the captives, and the
opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the
Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to
grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of
ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead
of a faint spirit.”[7]
Jesus said
that he came to fulfill this prophecy.[8]He “began to do and teach” this during his
earthly ministry through his human body.[9] He
continues to “do and teach” this
through his spiritual body, the church.[10]
Churches must
accept that we are not autonomous entities run by the governing elite of the “core”
group who all appear to be doing well.[11]
We are the “body of Christ.”[12] Jesus
came to do things that he now does through his church, his one body. If he came
to set people free, heal the brokenhearted, comfort those who mourn, release
the oppressed, and any other descriptions of his will, his work, and his ways,
then the church must do these things.
Paul wrote of
it like this: “Therefore, my beloved, as
you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my
absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who
works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”[13]
God is working in us for “his good
pleasure,” and we find the greatest joy when we walk in his truth.[14]
He is working in us to “will and to work”
the same things he is willing and working. Since both type A and B trauma hurt
and wound God’s children, his will and work continue to will and work for his
children’s healing.
The most
extreme visualization of both these traumas came one night when the father of
one of our home church members asked for a few minutes to address our prayer
group. Over the course of a couple of decades I had tried to help him join with
other men to grow up as fathers to our children, and brothers to our church
families. Things were happening in his family that offered another opportunity
to seek healing for his loved ones. I had hope that he was going to join with
us in working through some of the new details of the family dynamic.
Instead, the
man disowned his daughter in front of us all, told all of us to have nothing to
do with him any longer, and stomped out of the house. To this day, I wish I had
pulled a Paul on him. When Paul discovered that the conduct of Peter and some
others “was not in step with the truth of
the gospel,” he “said to Cephas before
them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how
can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?’”[15]
This man’s
conduct was clearly “not in step with the
truth of the gospel.” I wish I had not been in such shock that I missed the
opportunity to confront him then and there, “before
them all”. Perhaps blogging about such things will bring greater help and
healing than such a confrontation would have accomplished. God works all things
together for good,[16]
so there is always hope.
What came
clear to me just this morning is that this man had inflicted both type A and
type B trauma on his daughter in one fell swoop, as they say. It was as though
he used type B trauma to begin years of type A trauma.
The type B
trauma, the active abuse, was to come to our prayer meeting, wait until his
daughter was seated and listening hopefully to what he had to say, and then
actively disowning her, telling us that he was now “dead” towards her and us.
Death is
traumatizing. Losing a parent to suicide is even more traumatizing. Losing a
Dad by his deliberate choice to die only to you, while flaunting a very “alive”
relationship to your sibling, is active, abusive, trauma of a most insidious
strain. Knowing that the family members involved are all accepted as is in
their respective churches, increases the heartache just as discovering that a
history of abuse was covered-up by people who knew, but wouldn’t tell.[17]
The type A
trauma is that, through the too-easy-to-remember experience of disowning, years
of neglect have heaped on the painful message of worthlessness. The type B, open,
public, active rejection, set in motion the subsequent years of type A passive
rejection.
The type B
event is easy to remember. The anniversary of that event has cycled through our
lives far too many times. At the same time, the type A trauma is just there.
Every day a man leaves his daughter rejected and abandoned. A girl is simply
without her father. But she is without her father by his choice. She is without
her father by his daily choice. It is not the closure of death that brings
immediate grief and lasting comfort. It is the daily experience of waking up to
one more day that a father does not want his little girl.
I say sorry to
any little girls I may be hurting with this story. I am really writing about
healing, not hurting. Bear with me in hope. Jesus does heal the brokenhearted,
but as the church brings the brokenhearted to Jesus, even if it requires
demolishing long-standing structures to do so.[18]
He does release the oppressed from the prisons of trauma, but, sadly, it often
takes far too much time to get all the church members who form his opening-prison-doors
hand to get together and work as one.
When Paul
spoke about us (the church) working out our salvation with fear and trembling,
it was because God was working in us to “both
will and to work for his good pleasure.”[19]
Since he says that it is his good pleasure to heal the brokenhearted, release
the oppressed, and proclaim the time of God’s favor over those living in
despair, let’s join his work with fear and trembling, keeping our hearts open
to the two kinds of trauma that could be hindering people we know.
God heals them
both. But he does this through his one body, the church. Let us be such a
church.
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures
are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
I am deeply indebted to the Life Model” family for teaching me about how to understand
trauma, its effects, and the practical dynamics of growing up as an expression
of the body of Christ that brings Jesus’ healing touch to traumatized souls.
Here is a brief description of the types of trauma from their website: http://www.lifemodel.org/topic.php?rn=7&page=0
[2]
I do not in any way mean to lessen the painful impact of type B trauma (abuse).
I only mean that abuse is sometimes dealt with more effectively because it is
easier to identify, while neglect is more difficult to identify, and so its
effects last a lot longer. This is “sometimes” the case. I also know how type B
trauma can cause varying levels of dissociation that make it difficult to
access the memories, delaying the much-needed healing. There is far more that
could be said about this, so I only want to emphasize the way that some people
experience extended difficulty in dealing with type A trauma because it has
taken them so long to admit that parental neglect has affected them at all.
[3]
Romans 12:15
[4]
Psalm 147:3
[5]
This is based on the Beatitudes of Matthew 5:1-12.
[6]
James 5:20; I Peter 4:8
[7]
From Isaiah 61:1-4
[8]
Luke 4:16-21
[9]
Acts 1:1
[10]
II Corinthians 1:3-7 gives one picture of the way comfort comes from God and is
expressed to others through members of Jesus’ body.
[11]
The appearance of wellness, with the corresponding rejection to the
traumatized, is a fairly good indicator that people are playing roles they don’t
want anyone to mess with, rather than that they have already experienced Jesus’
healing for the brokenhearted. Those who experience mercy become the merciful.
Lack of mercy towards God’s broken children is telling in
a-tree-is-known-by-its-fruit kind of way.
[12]
Romans 12:5; I Corinthians 12:27
[13]
Philippians 2:12-13
[14]
I John 1:4
[15]
Galatians 2:14
[16]
Romans 8:28
[17]
I grew up with this, and so have many church folk who have never discovered
that Jesus heals such trauma.
[18]
Cf Mark 2:1-12
[19]
Philippians 2:12-13
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