Trauma! (Part 3 of 4 – The Emotions)

As discussed in previous writings, trauma is unexpected, unplanned for, and can’t always be prepared for. Sometimes it is possible to prevent disaster by staying out of dangerous situations. Though we don’t have control over all things – only God has control over everything – we can still choose our attitudes, actions, and words. But there’s one thing we can’t do. – we can’t control the words, actions, or attitudes of other people. Sometimes what others say and do can have traumatic effects on us. That is what this piece is about – trauma of the emotions. Another way to say this is trauma of the spirit.

We are told to build up one another and encourage one another. That includes our emotions. When people are attacked in body, mind, and/or emotions, they need support. They need to be built up. They need encouragement. You can’t tear people down and build them up at the same time Be kind. Emotional trauma tries to stop us in our tracks, and often does – but it does not have to. We definitely need Jesus to help to get us through these traumatic experiences and I pray that we at least have someone to talk to when we are hurting. I am here. Others are too. Don’t keep it bottled inside. Let others build you up and encourage you. Then pass it on to others. 

In First Thessalonians 4:18, we read, “Therefore encourage one another with these words”. The second one is Second Thessalonians 1:4 – ” … “He comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us… ”

As a pastor, I always want to include practical ways to apply these instructions to comfort and encourage each other. I would like to suggest three steps each of us can take when the emotions are assaulted by the pressures of life or by the attacks of others.  I will close with these steps and a prayer.

1. Admit that you have been hurt and that you need emotional support and encouragement. While you don’t want to dwell on the hurt, you also don’t want to deny it. That just presses it down into the soul, and hurts yourself and others.

2. Ask the Lord to send you to someone to comfort and encourage who has been through, or is going through similar situations. It’s good to know we are not alone.

3. Release the hurt to Jesus. Pour it on him. He already knows. Just let it out.

“Father God, you tell us to encourage each other and comfort each other. Help us to seek Your comfort and to pass it on to others well. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Trauma! (Part 2 of 4 – The Mind)

As I think about how trauma affects the mind, two causes come to mind. (No pun intended!) One cause would be physical trauma – traumatic brain injury. This is not uncommon with soldiers, accident victims, or those who have suffered abuse. The mind affects everything in the body, so it is very important to deal with. I am not qualified to write about that except to say God bless those that have to deal with this kind of assult to the brain.

But there’s another type of trauma of the mind – when we have too many thoughts coming at us at once. Does anyone out there relate? Sometimes our mind gets on overload, and it is very frustrating. As mentioned in the last piece, trauma is sudden. It is unexpected. There is no way to plan for it. When multiple thoughts come at us all at once and we have to make decisions quickly, it can be very difficult to function, especially if those decisions affect our loved ones. Our processors are not designed to work at warp speed. At least for me, I can only think of one thing at a time. When I have competing thoughts, its like they all knock each other out and I don’t know which one to revive, pick up, or even which one to look at. I’m glad I have a great memory aid in my wife, who hands me a piece to look at – “Did you remember to take your pills?” Very helpful.

How do we deal with this trauma, this overload? What does the Bible have to say about this? We need God’s wisdom and peace to ease and manage our mind. Proverbs 23:7 says “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” When thoughts come too fast, we need a way to deal with them. We need wisdom.

The Bible talks about wisdom in James 1:5 which says “If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it will be given him.” Sometimes we just need to take a breath and say “Lord, please sort out these thoughts. What is the most important thing to think about right now? I need wisdom on how to proceed.” Practically, it may help to write the thoughts down too. Looking at them on paper may help you see them more clearly. Also, though it may be hard, it is best to choose one thought and lay others aside. Stop. Breathe. Reflect. Calm down. Ask God to help you narrow your focus. Relax. God’s got this, even if you make the wrong decison.

When our thoughts are anxious, we can remember Phil. 4:6 – “Do not be anxious for anything, but by prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Literally, that means God’s peace marches around your heart and protects it.

Trauma of the mind can be released to Jesus, into His hands, His heart, and His control. Keep talking to Him. He will help you through it. God bless all who read these words. – Pastor John

Trauma!
(part one of four – the body)

Today’s piece begins a four part series about trauma that may happen in our lives and how to deal with it. Those that go through traumatic experiences may take a long time to get over, or rather to get through it. Today, we will deal with trauma to the body. In the following weeks, we will cover trauma to the mind, emotions (spirit), and soul. A traumatic experience can affect any or all of these areas, and they all affect each other.

Trauma is sudden. It is unexpected. It is unplanned for. In some cases, it can be prevented, which would be the best scenario. (If you can avoid being in the most dangerous part of town, alone, and at night, then by all means do. If you are an alcoholic, staying away from the liquor store would prevent the tragedy of falling off the wagon. The resulting trauma could be prevented.) But we don’t always have a choice. Life comes at us full force and may blindside us. Then we have to deal with it. Trauma can bring us to a halt, and we often don’t know what to do. How can we? We didn’t have time to think it through. We couldn’t process it ahead of time, because we didn’t expect it.

When an assult happens on the body, whatever the cause, it needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible. We may need medical attention, or practical help getting things done. We may also need financial help, because physical trauma can be expensive to fix. Of course, when the body is traumatized, this consumes our mind and suppresses our spirit. Trauma is overwhelming.

When we are overwhelmed, we need to remember that we do have a God, the one true God, our creator, who is available and ready to listen to our cries. We can pour our heart out to Him. This is one way to vent, to get the stress out of the body, mind, and spirit. When trauma is stuffed down into our soul, we need to start to let it out. It is so easy to get stuck, to think there is nothing we can do about anything – but we do have a choice. We can make the decision to call on God and ask for His help. At least that’s a step.

I know there are times when even that is not possible. Our mind can’t function enough to find words that will say how we feel. At that point, I believe we still have two choices. One is to simply take a slow, deep breath, let it out, and speak the name of Jesus. Maybe even repeat this process. Getting our mind on Jesus can help us gain the strength to deal with the trauma. Barring that, just open your mouth and look up to Heaven. I say that based on Ps. 81:10 – “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” (ESV)

A prayer for the reader: “Lord Jesus, come. Please heal broken bodies, minds, and spirits. In Your name. Amen.”

Assault on the mind can come from within, with struggles over thoughts, doubts, obsessions, compulsions, or it can come from others. As kids, others sometimes ) remind us of what we can’t do mentally. I was told in high school that I was not allowed to take algebra, since I would flunk it. Nice. Of course, Beethoven was once told by one of his teachers that he would never amount to anything. I think they got that wrong. Mental struggles, over time especially, can be very traumatic and stressful. The enemy of our soul, Satan, wants to bring us down in every way possible. Jesus wants to build us up and strengthen us.

We are told to build one and encourage one another up emotionally too. When people are attacked physically, mentally, or spiritually, they need built up. They need encouraged. Telling people they are no good, they will never learn, that they should be more like their brother or sister. This type of trauma tries to stop us in our tracks, and often does – but it does not have to. We definitely need Jesus to help to get us through these traumatic experiences and I pray that we at least have someone to talk to when we are hurting. I am here. Others are too.

There is a fourth trauma that I mentioned earlier, and here it is. It is a trauma of the soul. That’s right. I’m talking about your eternal soul, the one that will stand before Jesus one day, either with His open arms and rewards for you, or a “sorry, I never knew you.” That one is for unbelievers, for those that don’t know Jesus, that have thought all along that they were good enough to make it to Heaven, or that just wanted to try to do things their own way. Good people, that’s not going to work. We need Jesus to help us with our body, our mind, our emotions, and our eternal soul. Jesus came to bring wholeness to all of us and to give us eternal life. Have you received it? That’s one trauma that can be avoided. Just ask. Submit your soul, and your cares, to Jesus, because He cares for you.

The syringe sits gleaming, beckoning

Filled with thoughts of escape

To a land far away

Never mind the hook behind the intrigue

Or the challenge ever increasing

Just be one with the story.

Come, claim your place, its free.

I plunged it deep into my veins

A roguish grin forming as I’m carried away

To this land far away.

My blood racing with the thought,

of another kill, another hunt, another chase.

Going farther than I want to go,

Keeping me longer than I want to stay.

Taking more than I have to give,

The reward, in this you will live.

Yet each day I die a little,

Craving another dose, another thrill.

Rip the needle from my flesh,

Taste the bile of regret,

Crushed remains beneath my boot,

This day, I choose,

To find release,

Refuse to be enslaved,

I will be free.

Glued to the screen by Michael Blaes

Real Life getting boring?

escape the doldrums

enter another world filled with mystery and intrigue

Where You can be anything

an elf, a dwarf, or even an evil orc

a knight, a thief even a mage

Just ignore that open cage

adventure till you’re hooked.

now the door’s slammed shut

my brain-dead plaything

my willing minion

glued to the screen

Now you’re a sight for hungry eyes,

But it seems you’ve seen the lite,

Gone and slipped away

I’m so hungry,

And I must feed

You say that in him you stand,

I say that won’t last

You say that he’ll rebuke me for your sake,

I say there’s a firey arrow coming your way

What is this,

You bear your shield of faith,

And a bookish sword from which you quote

What makes you think that I’m afraid?

Yet for reasons that can’t be explained,

I can’t help but choke on your songs of praise.

Now covered in the blood of that lamb

Against this, I can not stand.

This day I’ll flee and lie in wait

for when next we meet,

or you give me place..

Moose

Ps. 27:8 – You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, LORD, do I seek.”

Meet Moose. Moose is my cat. Karen’s cat’s name is Iggy. They are both sweet, funny, weird, fascinating, and very loving – and sometimes get in trouble, but we still love them. I picked Moose out of the litter because he was the only one of the bunch that was looking up at me. I also chose him because when I picked him up out of the cage, he immediately curled up in my arms. Now how can you beat that? Both Moose and Iggy greet us at the door when we come home. We are glad to see each other.

Moose does the sweetest thing. He wants to be close to me. He wants me to love on him, so when I walk by the dining room table, he’ll get up in the chair, put his paws on the top of it, meow, and look up at me, as if to say “come love on me.” He wants me to notice him and he wants to look up to my face.

And that is the point of this writing. When we have a relationship with someone, we look them in the face. We don’t talk to their toes or their fingers or their ears. We look at their face, and they look at ours. We see the expression of who they are and what they are feeling by looking at their face. When we don’t look, we miss a lot of context clues and expression. (Guys, we can do better at this.)

King David wanted a closer relationship with God. He just finished saying in verse one – “The Lord is my light, and my salvation. Whom then shall I fear. The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom then shall I be afraid?” His confidence, his hope, his security could only be found in a relationship with God. It could only be found by seeking God’s face.

So too with us. I want to challenge us all to look at God’s face. To look in His eyes and see His love. To see His expressions of tenderness, to see the depths of His love, compassion, and forgiveness. We can look up at any time and say “Papa. Can we spend some time together? Come here. Let me look at you.” And He is saying the same thing. This is not a religious obligation or checklist. It is an opportunity to grow in His love. It’s time to seek His face. Spend some “face time” with Him today. You, and He, will be glad you did.

Until next time,

Pastor John

Can the clay say to the potter,

I want to be a sword when the potter needs a scythe

Can the clay say to the potter,

I want to be a glass when the potter needs a jar

All the clay can say is make mold me into a vessel fit to be used

He throws me into the fire

It Burns as sin melts away

Once I dry in the sun

he fills me to overflowing with living water

destined to quench the thirst of dry and dusty souls

As time goes by my clay grows brittle and starts to crack
The potter picks me up and throws me into the fire to be used once again

                                                      The Tale of Our Two Cats

Yesterday, our two six month old cats, Moose and Iggy, went to the “Fix Clinic”, to get fixed. And they didn’t even know they were “broken”. I don’t know why they call it that. Regardless, this is the adventure my wife and I – and our cats – went through the past couple of days, and some insights and lessons we can learn.

Neither Karen nor I wanted to do this to our boys (we think of them as our kids, and they act that way sometimes!), but we knew it was the right thing to do. Still, it was tough. Parents, I can’t imagine how hard it is for you to make decisions for your child or children that you know will be hard for them, but still has to be done. Bless your hearts. Sometimes you just gotta do what you just gotta do. (Forgive me, grammarians!)

The day of the procedure, we managed to get both of them into the carrier and carry them out to the car and to the clinic. We were both anxious the whole day. Just to let you know the cats are fine and now fully recovered. Thank you to all who prayed for Moose and Iggy’s surgery and recovery. They were answered well.

Now for some insight. Both Karen and I were doing a lot of praying and reflecting that day. At one point, I was sitting in a room and thinking “one or both of them are always in here, making themselves known, and vying for my attention. I found myself praying “I miss my cats. I just want them home!” Then it hit me. That’s what the Lord must say when we go astray, when we miss the mark, intentionally or accidentally.

Child of God, are you close to Him? Do you know Him? As surprising as it is, He knows you and wants a relationship with you. It is an awesome thing to have a relationship with the living God, our creator, our father, our God, who sent Jesus to die for us, so we could be with Him forever.

When we find ourselves feeling alone or hopeless and helpless, there is a Father who longs to hear our heart and to spend time with you – as you and I need to spend that time with Him. He is listening. He is waiting. He is there. Give Him a shout, and He’ll give you His ear.

Blessings to all who read these words.