Full disclosure: I’m not a great Christ follower. I love Jesus, believe in God, and have accepted Christ as my savior. I like to think I have a pretty strong faith, especially considering the trials I have endured. However, I often find myself drifting between a reality of close relationship with God and distance from God. I struggle with consistency in my walk with the Lord. At times, I am fueled with the fire of the Holy Spirit. At other times, God becomes an afterthought in my busy, chaotic life. While I know I hold the key to unlocking a stronger connection with God, I am reluctant to open the door.
For a trauma survivor who has lived decades in the fight, flight, freeze response, experiencing joy can be terrifying. It is an unknown, and it can be threatening to the safety of my status quo, regardless of how harmful or uncomfortable that status quo may be. Just like anything unknown or new, we tend to dance around curiosity and fear, allowing only our toes to dip into the water. Jumping into the unfamiliar is jarring, and such a shock to the system can trigger us to quickly exit the pool of possibilities. So, whenever my life begins to feel stable and joy tries to creep in, I find myself quickly shewing it out.
Like a foreign body entering the bloodstream, my body surrounds and attacks the joy until it has been eliminated. The response is automatic. If I laugh a little too hard, feel the warmth of love a little too long, connect too deeply, or experience the beauty of life too intensely, my mind quickly recognizes the joy as a threat. The joy is quickly replaced with guilt, shame, and fear. A voice drowns out the melody of joy with harsh vibrations of judgement.
You are being too much! You don’t deserve to feel joy or love! Who do you think you are?
Because closeness to God brings me closer to indescribable joy and unconditional love, I default to retreating from God.
The comfort of chaos feels safer than the fear of unpredictable joy.
I fall back into patterns of self destructive behaviors, binging on unhealthy foods, lulling myself to sleep watching hours upon hours of television, and pouring all of my energy into work in an effort to escape the unfamiliar.
But God...He keeps pursuing me, even to the point of disrupting my status quo. He may provide a gentle reminder of my worth and value through the kind words of a friend. Or He may allow trials to knock me back after I brush aside His gentle nudges. Something like my husband cutting his thumb on a table saw, possibly requiring surgery and eliminating his ability to work and drastically decreasing our income. Perhaps behavioral issues with my teenage son or a careless injury resulting in a sprained ankle. Better yet, throw them all together for a tornado of disruption. It’s a bit more difficult to ignore a crisis.
Ok, God. You’ve got my attention!
I have nowhere else to turn but back to God when my life is disrupted so abruptly. I know I can find the comfort I need from Him, albeit at my safe arm’s length. Trials are nothing new to me, and over time, I have found that with each new obstacle I settle more easily into the familiarity of the patterns of struggle I have come to know. I have learned to recognize them as not only a part of life, but as opportunities to grow. God uses these experiences to develop my character to be more like His and to chisel back the calcification of my heart and tenderize it. God knows what is best for me and my family, and after each new challenge, I find myself trusting Him more deeply.
Do I still worry? Of course. Do I become irritable and overwhelmed? Absolutely! However, I am able to recognize just how limited I am in my own abilities and how much I must rely on God to steer the boat both in the calm and the choppy waters of life. Is it easy? Not at all, but God’s gentle hand becomes more tolerable and familiar. With each storm, a little more joy splashes into my soul. Slowly, very slowly, my mind begins to welcome it rather than to fear it.
Trauma has conditioned me to reject joy, love, and basically anything gentle or kind. God continues to battle the unseen forces that strive to keep me in that place of defeat while gently approaching my heart with the care it craves and desperately needed in the trauma of my youth. Healing is slow, and often riddled with pain and heartache. While I may not experience complete healing on this side of Heaven, my body, mind, and soul are learning to accept God’s goodness a little more each day.
While I am far from the example of Christ I was created to be, I pray that the words of my raw truth may encourage you. I am rooting for you to find healing. May you continue to fight back the familiarity of fear, comfort of chaos, and darkness of defeat; instead, may you find peace in troubled waters, beauty in the mundane, and unspeakable joy!
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