Season 9 Episode 5/ Trauma: Safe in God
Alex (00:06.239)
Well, welcome back to season nine. Every time I say that, I can't believe that's where we are. And we're talking about trauma in this season. And today we're continuing this paradigm that we've started to talk about of what it means to return to safety because trauma makes us feel like we're not safe in our own bodies or safe with God or safe in relationships. And so those are the three ways we're talking about it.
talked last episode of what it feels like and what it means to return to safety in our body. And I don't know about you Brenda, but I've thought about that a lot. I got to teach some of it in Sunday school this past week and had just a lot of questions. I probably had the most responsive any Sunday school I've ever taught when I taught about the body and breath and things like that. And so I...
Brenda (00:54.148)
Yeah.
Alex (00:58.547)
I love seeing that people are being given permission to have that conversation and to think about the ways that their body has responded to trauma in their lives and what are some of the ongoing effects of trauma and the ways that they can care for their body. So I love that we started off with safety in the body. And then today we're gonna talk about safe in God.
Brenda (01:22.158)
One of the things I've really been thinking about ever since we started this series, in particular, looking at the body is I feel like my biblical counseling journey has had kind of three iterations. And the first one was really just learning like solid theology, solid Bible and all about sin and idolatry. And that's what my counseling was all about, sin and idolatry. And then kind of the next iteration of that was a real understanding of suffering and lament and all the things that have come up, you maybe in the last 10 to 15 years. I, but it seems like
Alex (01:32.564)
Hmm.
Alex (01:39.029)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.
Brenda (01:51.695)
to me, this iteration in the biblical counseling world is recognizing much more and identifying what's going on with the body. And there's just so much talk about being embodied souls and what that means not only in trauma, but just in life because we're so disembodied, right? Like we, don't get together with people. We text people, we, we don't go outside and actually do things. We just watch YouTube videos of people doing things. And so just how important our bodies are. And particularly when we come to this place of trauma,
Alex (02:00.224)
Yeah.
Alex (02:07.881)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (02:16.477)
Right?
Brenda (02:22.202)
And I did want to just say one other thing before we move from the body and that is, you know, we don't always know how somebody is going to respond in their body and they don't always know. And so sometimes, you know, we may not see that reaction when we are sitting with someone. Sometimes we do. We can begin to physically see that they're getting dysregulated and we're going to stop and maybe we're going to stop altogether. Maybe we're going to take a break. But I think there's also times that a person
sitting with you, they don't even realize how much it's impacting them until they leave. And this happened to me twice since we met the last time. Yeah, so one was a gal who shared her story and I don't think she first of all, because she didn't understand her story, her story was far worse and this often happens, right? Like somebody and somebody tells her story kind of in a way of like I'm telling my story and it's not really about me, it's just I'm telling a story. So they don't know how much they're going to be caught off
Alex (02:56.384)
Yeah.
Alex (02:59.87)
Wow!
Alex (03:12.852)
Yes.
Alex (03:18.869)
Yep.
Brenda (03:21.265)
guard.
Later on, I learned that her body broke out in a rash on her face, her neck and her chest, and she was completely overwhelmed by having told her story. And then another woman who didn't even share her story with me, we just talked about starting to share her story. Like, what was it going to look like to enter into counseling? And when I checked back in with her, I found out that she was not only was she exhausted after the day we left, she had a migraine and then threw up all night.
Alex (03:27.435)
Hmm.
Alex (03:39.551)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (03:50.109)
Wow. Wow.
Brenda (03:52.061)
And so it was just such a great reminder to me. One is just how important the body is and how stress impacts the body. It was also important that just a reminder to check in with people. They may seem fine when they leave your presence. And the first gal, it took her like I kept reaching out. I had to reach out email, text. I was about to be like on the phone calling her husband or something because I couldn't get her to respond to me. I was really concerned. Like I felt like the Holy Spirit gave me
Alex (04:03.945)
Yes.
Alex (04:07.529)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (04:22.568)
discernment and but I think she was just so overwhelmed it's almost like she didn't want to talk to me at that point and then again the other lady what you know was easier to get back in touch with and it responded immediately but you know I just want to say that oftentimes we cannot prevent.
Alex (04:22.985)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (04:27.999)
Right?
Brenda (04:38.378)
We're not going to prevent what happens. But you know, now with both of these ladies, of course, I know that talking with them a lot more about their body and their stress responses and giving them those tools and giving them more tools and slowing the pace down, all of those things are going to be really important because their body told us it is.
Alex (04:50.121)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (04:55.677)
Yes, mm-hmm, yeah, wow. That's amazing, that happened right after we had those discussions, yeah. And I think it is a good reminder, I do, I always, after a first session with somebody in the second session, I say, did our first conversation affect you? But I don't know that I always do a good job of that later, as the relationship unfolds. And so it is a good reminder to check in with people.
Brenda (05:02.342)
I know.
Brenda (05:12.137)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (05:21.895)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Alex (05:23.263)
Well, we're gonna switch gears a little bit today and we're gonna talk about what it means to return to feeling safe in God because when trauma comes or if we've experienced traumatic events in our past, it's really hard to understand where God was in all of it, how His sovereignty over all things plays into our experience of trauma, why He didn't prevent that. We ask a lot of questions. God, where were you? Where were you in my suffering?
were you in my pain? And I think when we hear people's stories, it can be very hard to sit with those questions in ourselves. And it can be very hard to attempt to give answer. And I would, I would even go so far as to say, like, I pull back from answering that question really specifically, like, God, where were you? But, but I think there are some things we can begin to talk about and to
Brenda (06:03.23)
Yes.
Alex (06:23.778)
return people maybe to a good theology of suffering as we talked about before but these are really hard questions and these are really hard places and these are places where I hope people don't feel like they have to have the answer.
Brenda (06:38.056)
Hmm
Yeah, I just listened to an incredible talk by Diane Langberg, of course, who we're referencing every other word on this podcast, because she is the queen of understanding about trauma. And it's called Where is God when there's abuse? And she talked about where is God? And at the end, she goes, you know what, I can't tell you where God is, but I can tell you who God is. And I thought that was just really good. Like, here's a woman who's walked with a lot of people. And I know for me, I've tried to answer that question, Alex, you know, like, well, he didn't cause it, but he allowed it. Or he's everywhere. So, you he was
Alex (06:50.091)
Mm.
Alex (06:56.735)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (07:03.305)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (07:08.895)
watching and weeping. And, you know, these kind of answers that we have, I mean, even these answers don't really bring a lot of comfort to the traumatized, right? You're just like going, huh. So, and I think, yeah, I think that there's just a lot of questions we don't have about the whys. And so then we have to come back to what is it that we do know? What is it that we do understand about who God is? And how can we come alongside?
Alex (07:20.178)
No.
Brenda (07:38.732)
time, as we build relationship, and as we ask the Holy Spirit to really work in this person's life. you know, two things I know that we can be sure of, and at the right time, these are truths that we do want to continually put before our counselee. And one of them is that God is just, you know, that He sees us in our weakness, and He sees what's happened to us, and He cares. And one of my favorite verses is Isaiah 42, 3, and 4, says, He will not crush the weakest reed.
Alex (07:57.159)
Hmm.
Brenda (08:08.928)
put out a flickering candle. And sometimes when you deal with somebody in trauma, I mean, you are just looking at somebody that truly... I sat with a lady this week and I mean in that that verbiage would describe her. Just a little weak read, a flickering candle. And it says, will bring justice to all who have been wronged. He will not falter or lose heart until justice prevails throughout the earth.
Alex (08:22.759)
Hmm.
Brenda (08:35.171)
And so God's justice is one thing that we can hold on to. And then the second thing that is so vital is God's love, that He loves His children. And Romans 8 28 says, nothing can separate us from His love. And I don't know what that means in terms of like, where is God in the middle of our abuse or our traumatic experience? But what I do know is that I cannot be separated from His love. We are His beloved. We are His bride. We are His treasured
Alex (08:43.254)
Hmm.
Brenda (09:05.128)
possession. And He's proven that for us, you know, through the cross and through giving us the Holy Spirit. so if we are going to be safe, so to speak, in God, we really need to be rooted in three ways. We need to be rooted in the love of God, who God is, right, who God says He is. We need to be rooted in the work of Christ. What has He done? And how does that change things for us? How does that change our suffering? And then we also need to be rooted
our understanding of the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Alex (09:38.909)
Yeah, so that's how we're going to talk about returning to safety and God today is those three things and we're going to unpack the first one of what does it mean to be rooted in the love of God that has said love of God the love that never fails that is long suffering and everlasting and I think we do have to keep returning people like you said to the idea that God cares about our trauma even when we can't answer that question of where is
He cares. Psalm 56 says, keep track of all my sorrows. You collected my tears in a bottle. You recorded each one in your book. He's not separate from it. He's there. then I particularly love to return to the Exodus story when we talk about trauma. But particularly as God looks down and sees his people crying out in slavery, he says, I've surely seen the
afflictions of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their suffering and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians." And we're going to unpack that again in a few minutes as we talk about a way to journal through that verse. But I think it's really important for us to remember that that God saw the people of Israel. He sees us. He hears us. He knows our suffering and He comes down. And that's probably the idea.
I return to the most when I talk to people who've been in trauma is that in any other God story, you know across the world all the God stories the gods that are worshipped we see gods who
kind of delight in some ways in making the human squirm in their suffering and their sacrifices. They delight in that. And what we see with our God is a God who entered into our suffering that he didn't keep himself separate from it. And we see that, of course, in the person of Jesus, but we do also see that in the Old Testament. And so I think it's important for us to be reminded of those places that God talks about seeing and knowing.
Alex (11:54.369)
and understanding the suffering of his people in the Old Testament.
Brenda (11:58.291)
Yeah.
I just think about my trip to Turkey and learning about so many of the ancient gods and they were task masters and what they required created a lot of harm. And this God, this God of Israel, he's a different kind of God. I think another verse in Exodus that's so great is Exodus 34-6 and I learned this from the Bible project. I will definitely post this video in our show notes because it was so powerful. The first word that God uses to describe himself in the Old Testament is
Alex (12:04.438)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (12:28.975)
the word compassionate. In Exodus 34, 6, it's that verse that says that God is speaking of himself and he says, Lord, the Lord, compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love, and he goes on for there. So the Hebrew words for compassion and compassionate are related to the word womb.
Alex (12:47.625)
Brenda (12:48.914)
Yeah, so it's so cool. So when God uses this word compassion throughout the scriptures, he's really giving us an image of this picture of the tender care of a mother toward her newborn baby and toward her children. And of course, my daughter just had a baby now that's six weeks old. And I just think about the intense emotions that KK feels anytime she senses that little Lulu is in distress, right? She's deeply moved and she'll sacrifice.
Alex (13:02.891)
Hmm. Hmm.
Alex (13:14.871)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (13:19.151)
whatever necessary, she'll do whatever it takes to go and rescue this little one. And so it's just been a beautiful picture as I have learned this concept to have that right in front of me to see, this is God's compassion for me. This is God's compassion. This is what it looks like.
Alex (13:22.517)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (13:36.833)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (13:39.615)
that his actions toward me are motivated by his compassion, this deep, intense feeling that he has for me, just as I'm watching my daughter with her little baby. So, so sweet. Isaiah 49 says it this way, the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on them in their suffering. Yet Jerusalem says, just like many of us say, the Lord has deserted us, the Lord has forgotten us.
Alex (13:43.959)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (13:50.325)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (14:06.516)
And then God says this, never can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for a child she is born? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you. See, I have written your name on the palm of my hands. Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem's walls in ruins.
Alex (14:29.277)
Mmm.
Alex (14:33.596)
That's a great one. And it makes me smile every time I think about this versus because I can think as I'm sure many mothers who have nursed, can think of so many stories of why you cannot forget your nursing child physically, emotionally, psychologically. But one of them is the very first time when I left Elizabeth Ann first child left her for the first time with Mason on a Saturday, like here's the baby watch football. I'm going.
And she was probably about six weeks old and I got a ticket. I got a traffic ticket first time because like I could I I literally was changing lanes and almost ran a cop off the road. Like yeah, yeah. He pulls me over and he says, did you see me? And I was like, I wanted I couldn't talk because I would have cried but I wanted to say if I'd seen you I wouldn't have
Brenda (15:15.692)
Yeah
Brenda (15:21.695)
Alex (15:33.143)
I mean like what a change that and he's like so he gives me a ticket for whatever reckless driving or something But it was such this verse like I could not think Clearly I couldn't almost function Being away from a nursing child like it was so I was so preoccupied I should not have been behind the wheel of a car. We cannot forget our children day
Brenda (15:39.81)
Hahaha!
Brenda (15:46.039)
Yeah.
Alex (16:00.337)
they are, they are especially our nursing children. So it was just, it makes me smile now to relate that story to that person and realize like how much I couldn't function for how much my child was on my heart and my mind and you know, and how I can't, couldn't think of anything else.
Brenda (16:15.363)
Mm-hmm.
Yes. Well, I think even as our children grow up, what we see is that their distress is our distress. Right? Like even with my adult children, their distress is my distress. And so we never outgrow this idea. And it's, and again, if we think about compassion coming from the womb, it's like, why as mothers do we have, you know, do we care so much? Why is it we are in distress for our children so easily and so often? It's like, we have the womb. Makes sense to me now. So.
Alex (16:24.06)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (16:36.679)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (16:44.123)
Guess. Mm-hmm.
So we're rooted in the hasad love of God, the compassionate love of God, and we also need to root ourselves in the work of Christ. Because as we said, we see Jesus in the incarnation not move away from us in our pain, but move towards us in our pain and enter into human suffering. He says that he was anointed to bind up the broken hearted, proclaim freedom to the captives, release from darkness.
prisoners and so he was compassion in the flesh and he's moved by human suffering. Oftentimes in the Gospels we see Jesus again and again move towards suffering, constantly moving towards suffering. If you ever read that book Love Walked Among Us, think Paul Miller does a great job talking about just this motto of Jesus of like seeing the suffering, being moved with compassion, and moving towards it over and over and over again. And I love that
Brenda (17:21.784)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (17:34.383)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (17:44.168)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (17:47.131)
because once he spelled that out and then you read the Gospels, you can't unsee Jesus. Seeing it, feeling it, and moving towards it over and over and over again.
Brenda (17:52.143)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brenda (17:58.106)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, and I just even love in Luke 13 where we get this picture, this motherly compassion again, because Jesus is weeping over Jerusalem, the people of God, and he compares himself to a mother hen gathering her chicks. And so again, we just have this idea of compassion, just the compassion, the womb-like compassion of God that comes now in the person of Jesus as he moves towards suffering. And I think the amazing thing about Jesus is he chose, he chose the suffering.
Alex (18:28.827)
Yes.
Brenda (18:30.578)
He chose to become powerless. He chose to face abandonment for our sakes so he understands our suffering and even our trauma.
Alex (18:40.237)
I think that really came out to me in this talk by Diane Langberg when she kept saying go back to Gethsemane, go back to Gethsemane. And I thought about, of course, the crucifixion shows us that choice, but Gethsemane is where the wrestle happened. Like Gethsemane is where you really see that he's asking if there's another way and yet submitting to the only way. And so I really loved that she kept saying go back to Gethsemane and see
because that's the place where we see him choose to enter into that suffering, submit his will to the Father, and to become completely powerless and face the Father turning his face away. And so that was a really powerful part of Diane Lambert's talk.
Brenda (19:31.301)
So good. Well, you know, one of the things that Jesus took on the cross was not just the guilt of our sin, but the shame.
Alex (19:40.443)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brenda (19:41.133)
of our sin and the shame that comes with being sinned against. Like he took our shame. And I think one of the things we've talked about how shame makes us want to hide and makes us want to hide our faces. Like I just think about a shame person puts their face down, doesn't want to look you in the eyes. And a lot of times, you know, we see, we see this body language with people who have been traumatized, people who are under so much, so many feelings of guilt, whether, you know, whether they're at any fault or not, because they've been told they're at fault a lot of times. And then just the
Alex (19:45.905)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (19:49.724)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (20:01.932)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (20:12.25)
And I think one of the most beautiful verses is Psalm 34, 5 when the scripture says, who look to him are radiant, their faces are never covered with shame. And we just think about that, that God's face shines on his children because he is happy to see us. He is always happy to see us. And again, I kind of go back to just being a mother, you know, even going through hard or dark times with some of my children.
Alex (20:19.479)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Alex (20:30.145)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (20:40.965)
there is really never a time that I don't want to see my children. There's never a time that I don't want my face to shine upon them, that I don't want them to know that I'm happy to see them. And especially, I think, at the moments where they are feeling a lot of shame.
Alex (20:44.235)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (20:50.135)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (20:55.196)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's really good.
I'd say the final way I like to think about the work being rooted in the work of Christ is that we recognize that the scriptures say he was tempted and tried in every way that we are. And so even if we don't know where Jesus was, we know he understands. Like we know that he's encountered those things that we've encountered, that he did it. Like we said, he chose it. He responded to that pain without sin.
and because he was tempted and tried in every way we are, I think it makes that verse in Romans that says that he's always interceding for us, like makes that so much more vivid, so much more intentional, like he's not interceding for us before the Father from a place of not understanding, he's interceding from a place of deeply understanding what the pain and suffering of this world feels like.
We don't know where he was in the midst of our suffering sometimes, but we know where he is now. He's before the Father. He's pleading for us. He's interceding for us. And he's doing it in an informed way, in a very acquainted way with our suffering, not in a distant or detached way.
Brenda (22:04.938)
Hmm.
Brenda (22:18.366)
Alex, what would you say to someone who can't really see, like they're suffering, they can't find that exact suffering in the scripture. So you're saying that Jesus has suffered in every way that he understands, but you I don't see that Jesus was raped or I don't see that Jesus was in a car accident or I don't see that Jesus fought in war. Like how would you respond to that?
Alex (22:36.176)
So I talk about going up just like higher level that I think what scripture means at that point is that like the car accident produced a lot of physical pain and that Jesus understands that physical pain that Jesus understands. I...
I personally believe that the crucifixion was sexual abuse. think if you're stripped naked and put on display, you're being sexually abused. And so I think Jesus is acquainted with sexual abuse. We know he experienced rejection from family, friends, religious leaders. I think when we begin to think in categories of what our suffering is, we see that in every category that we face, he's entered into that category of
Brenda (23:03.759)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brenda (23:23.852)
Mm.
Alex (23:23.942)
suffering and therefore again like the human experience does become universal our pain and suffering we do have a lot of commonalities in it the particulars may be different in our place and time of history but but the experience of suffering like we said physical pain sexual and physical abuse rejection psychological and emotional pain like I think when we look at those bigger categories we certainly see that Jesus identifies with all of them
Brenda (23:36.556)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (23:46.647)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (23:53.548)
Boy, that's a great answer. And I was just going back thinking about our definition that trauma is an event, experience, and effect. And so that kind of goes back to the idea that the event may not always be the same, but oftentimes the experience and the effects are the same. And so that's what we have to look at with Jesus. And the other thing I just want to add to this is that I think it's a great mystery what happened on the cross.
Alex (24:07.982)
Yeah, was great.
Alex (24:14.436)
Hmm. I- I- Yes.
Brenda (24:17.327)
When we talk about Jesus, you know, paying the penalty for the sins of the whole world. And so we know to do that, you'd have to suffer under the hand of those sins. And it's every sin imaginable mankind. Like it's just one of those kind of things that you just go pew pew pew pew. Like I don't understand, I believe there's something in that. That somehow or another sin touched him in every way and he suffered in every way on the cross as well. So.
Alex (24:27.003)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (24:32.047)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (24:35.644)
Yes.
Alex (24:42.542)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Brenda (24:45.346)
Well, the last thing we wanted to talk about was just being rooted in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in terms of safety. And, you know, this is where I think we have to really, really come back to when we're doing trauma counseling. And that is there is a supernatural work that is required to heal people from their trauma. Like Brenda Payne does not have the power to affect the sort of change and to do the deep soul work.
Alex (24:52.68)
Hmm.
Alex (25:05.799)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Alex (25:10.781)
Right?
Brenda (25:15.44)
only the Holy Spirit can do. And so as believers, you know, we carry our safety with us in the person of the Holy Spirit. So we can know that we will never be alone. We are never abandoned by God. And that means that God is always working, even when we don't recognize He's working. Alex, even the Holy Spirit's working when we don't even ask Him to work. You know, so great is the love of the Father. And
Alex (25:42.064)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Brenda (25:45.535)
the Holy Spirit is really the only one that can convince us of the other things we've talked about that we can be safe in God and safe in Christ.
Alex (25:51.977)
All right.
Right, because that's his job, right, is to magnify Christ and to remind us of how we are sealed. Like our redemption is sealed. It's completed and it's sealed for all of eternity. And so I love to tell people to trust the Holy Spirit, to do his job, right? To trust him to show up, to like you said, to do the healing, to trust him to remind us of our assurance, that testifying that we are God's,
we belong to him and to rest in his power to heal and to make whole because as you said there's no person on this earth who can do that for us and then also it's also part of the function of the Holy Spirit to connect us to God's Word to illuminate God's Word for us and make that come alive and to connect us to the community of believers the means of grace that help us as we heal from trauma so yeah we cannot downplay
Brenda (26:40.953)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (26:53.329)
or minimize the role of the Holy Spirit as we think about returning to our safety in God. And I love, I really do love that image that we carry safety within us when we carry the Holy Spirit because we can't assure people as they work through their healing and trauma that they aren't, that they are going to go into circumstances, situations, or relationships with people. cannot assure them that they're going to be safe again, but we can assure them that
Brenda (27:04.367)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (27:20.975)
Right.
Alex (27:23.209)
they carry safety in the Holy Spirit because they literally carry their eternal safety with them by the Holy Spirit living in them and that's a great comfort.
Brenda (27:35.12)
Mm-hmm.
Okay, so I think what we wanted to do now was just to move on to some tools.
Alex (27:43.346)
Hmm.
Brenda (27:44.319)
To remind us of what it looks like to be safe in God. How can we invite God in? Trauma is an opportunity Deep pain is an opportunity to connect with God and to invite him in and that's that's where the healing is going to come from is going to come from as the person we're working with begins to invite God in and You know, this could be a slow process This has to be a process. We always say you have to get the pace of love and the pace of love is the pace
Alex (27:49.565)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (27:59.913)
Hmm.
Alex (28:07.664)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (28:12.135)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (28:14.002)
that person is knowing and growing and God is speaking to them. And sometimes, and we're going to talk about this more in the next episode, it's going to take a while for you to stand in the place of God and to become a safe person, a signpost, if you will, to point to the safe one. But some of the tools that we like to use, and we've covered some of these in previous episodes, but we thought it would be worthwhile going back over some of these. And the first one, Alex, is Lament.
Alex (28:25.457)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (28:32.551)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (28:44.334)
Yeah.
Brenda (28:44.97)
What do we mean by lament?
Alex (28:46.617)
Well, we have, I think we've done two or three different episodes on lament and really, you know, I like to tell people that lament is that crying out to God in the midst of their pain. It's not turning away from him, but it's turning toward him and telling him how it hurts, asking him their questions. know, Tamar's question is one of the questions that rings just so real and true for so
trauma survivors of how can I get rid of my disgrace and to take that question to the Lord. And in order to do that, know, Diane Langberg, she reminds us like trauma survivors have to connect to themselves and their story if they're going to take that story to the Lord. And so what I see many times is my role in walking with someone in their trauma recovery is helping to give them language for their lament. Like sometimes they there's a groaning without words.
And so we give language, we start to name things that happened in their story so that they have words to take to the Lord. so I think we shouldn't underestimate the power of being able to name something and then giving someone permission to take that naming to God.
Brenda (30:06.26)
Mmm.
Yeah, and I'm just thinking of a woman that I counseled not long ago, and I think this really played out with her. We were talking about lament. She was in a really, really dark place. It was in so much pain and was looking to God for a rescue. And it just seemed like God was silent. That's all she just kept saying is, I can't hear God. I don't think he's here. I don't. And she was typically somebody who could find like encouragement in the Lord. But at this place, she couldn't find it. Everything was terrible. She couldn't find anything.
good. And, and we just, you know, we just really encouraged her that my co-counselor and I like continue to talk to God about it. Continue. And it was interesting because I even sent her, I can't remember the Psalm I sent her because she wrote one or two laments and they were pretty kind of clean. You know what saying? Like they were like what God would want to hear. Yeah, it was tidy. And so I sent her one of the Psalms and I said, I want you to read this and I want you to model what you write after this. And she goes, wow. She goes, I've been honest with God, but never
Alex (30:53.974)
Yeah, yeah. Tidy, yeah, that's somehow.
Brenda (31:07.251)
like this.
Alex (31:08.13)
Yeah, I love that. Yep. Yep.
Brenda (31:08.841)
And those were words from the scripture, right? And so she ended up just, mean, to the Holy Spirit's work in her life, and to her credit, she ended up coming in week after week in this really sad and dark place. I really resisted the urge to cheerlead her through it and to rah rah her and to let her sit with Jesus in this place and to assure her the Holy Spirit would come. The Holy Spirit is not going to leave you there. He will come and He's going to move at the right time.
Alex (31:26.969)
Mmmmm
Alex (31:33.666)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (31:38.79)
in the right way, but you just keep going back and being real and honest with God." And then she wrote this incredible, she left my office one day and she texted me and said, I had a breakthrough. I went and read her journal. Alex, I couldn't even read, I think I read the first three sentences and I was weeping and I immediately went back to text her before I could read the whole, finish it, because it was such a watershed moment, like the dam had broken. And she gave me permission to share this. So I wanted to share this because I thought it was so powerful and maybe it will minister to somebody else who's
feeling really in a dark place. This is what she said, God spoke to me today and now I understand why he's been silent these past six weeks. This gives me goosebumps and it really makes me tear up even as I read it. She's so precious and this was so hard. He's been silent because he's grieving too. Much like when a friend is so grief-stricken, all you can do is sit in the room with them while they cry. This realization is so comforting to me.
One of the most difficult things anyone can do is sit in the room with someone who is so devastated they can hardly speak and all you can do is listen to them cry and catch their tears. God has been in the room with me this entire time. I didn't realize he's grieving too. I feel led to see this as a recovery, not a death. God says, I am here, but he's also telling me to seek gentleness and rest, because she's a hustler, Alex.
Alex (33:06.426)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (33:06.999)
he's trying to figure out a way to fix it.
showed up during that dark time. And then from there, Alex, she went to list at least a half a dozen or more truly like incredible ways that God heard her cries and it showed up with protection and provision. And after that, I'm not saying she'll never go back to that place again, but her hope so returned and she experienced and felt this incredibly deep relationship with God that she had never had before. So, yeah.
Alex (33:46.703)
Hmm.
Alex (33:51.992)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (34:04.703)
Mmm, that's sweet. Mmm. Really beautiful.
Brenda (34:06.953)
was just precious. It's the kind of thing that makes helping people addicting. When you just get to be inside somebody's healing journey like that. And anybody can do this, Alex. I just want to say this again. Part of the series is demystifying.
Alex (34:12.238)
It's exactly right. Mm-hmm.
Alex (34:18.706)
Hmm.
Brenda (34:23.733)
that you have to be, have some sort of specialty. You need some skills, you need some understanding. We need to know how to meet people in deep pain, but we can do that as Christians. God has given us what we need.
Alex (34:34.779)
Yeah.
We can certainly give permission to cry out to the Lord about their pain. one of the things I love about, know, this next one is my favorite thing to give. I probably give the protest journaling or we now affectionately call it the burn journal to just about everyone. Some people take me up on it. Some people are still afraid of it. But this is taking that lament one step further because in the example about your friend, her lament did turn to
It did turn to gratitude. It did turn to seeing the Lord working. But the Preah Test Journal is really patterned after Psalm 88 where we don't see that turn. And there are times in our lives where we're stuck. One thing I like to remind people is that when we read the lament Psalms, we don't know the time period it took for that writer to get from the beginning of the Psalm to the end to hope. And so we sometimes feel bad if in one sitting we don't move from
Brenda (35:31.094)
Hmm.
Alex (35:36.212)
lament and grief to hope and and we have to remember like maybe that took months to get that Psalm written right but the so that's what the protest journal does is just gives people permission that in that sitting they don't have to make their heart turn towards something if where their heart is is still in grief they can stay in grief and so the protest journal is really or the burn journal is just almost what I call the purge journal like
Brenda (35:39.383)
Yeah.
Brenda (35:44.503)
Hmm.
Brenda (35:59.787)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (36:06.192)
it out. Say the things that you're afraid to say. Say the words that feel too harsh and pour out your heart to the Lord. And what I love about it and I said this in our other podcast about this is my counselor said to me when I told him that I was doing this he said I told him then I go to the sink and burn it. Some people shred it. Some people you know just throw it in the garbage but I encourage people to get rid of it because if they destroy it in some way delete it off your computer.
Brenda (36:07.467)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (36:36.122)
if you need to, but if you destroy it in some way, then you really are giving yourself permission to say it because you're not afraid your kids are going to find it one day and go,
Brenda (36:43.435)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (36:44.514)
my mom you know but my counselor said to me I said I'm burning them in my sink and I love love this picture of it it's like this sacrifice that goes up to God and he said my counselor said and he is so much kinder to the messiness on that paper than you are
Brenda (36:53.727)
Hahaha!
Alex (37:06.918)
Like he sees you in your messiness and you don't want to be that messy and he loves you in that messiness. And so I think of that. still, I still burn journal. I try to do it about once a week. I think it's just a great practice. Kind of a staple for me and
And I really encourage people that this is a way to connect to the heart of God and to not only just know that God loves me in this place, but to me, it's an experience of it because I don't let myself be messy in front of a lot of people. But when I let myself be this messy in front of the Lord, and then I spend a few minutes meditating on his love for me, I really get to experience that.
Brenda (37:39.127)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (37:51.918)
Yeah, I think it's the secureness of that love that changes us. Like we have to be that secure in the love of God for change to come. And I know we've talked about this in another podcast, but we really say this is patterned after Psalm 88. And you know, that's the Psalm, the Psalm gets to the end and he says, he does all this crying out to the Lord at his, at the end of the story, at the end of the Psalm, darkness is my closest friend. And I was thinking about my example of my friend. was, she had six weeks of that.
Alex (37:55.302)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (38:15.611)
Right.
All right.
Brenda (38:19.387)
six weeks where nothing, God was silent. There was darkness, darkness, darkness, darkness. And then the Lord came, you know, and then the Holy Spirit spoke and she could see God again. But I want us to really notice like how that Psalm starts because it does start with, Lord, you are the God who saves me day and night. I cry out to you. My prayers come before you. Turn your ear to my cry. And again, I just want to remind our listeners that this burn journal, if you were this protest journal is we're going to God. We're running to
Alex (38:22.225)
Yep.
Alex (38:37.164)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (38:47.65)
Right.
Brenda (38:49.281)
We're not running away from him. This is the whole point. But then in verse 3 the psalmist says I am Overwhelmed with troubles and then he goes on to talk about his overwhelm and that's really what we're doing We're talking to God about what has overwhelmed us and in psalm 88 he asked God a lot of hard questions Alex a lot of hard questions and at the very end he doesn't go and thank you God I feel so much better and now I I feel your love and your light and I see you he's like and I'm still in the dark You know, and so I just think it's a
Alex (39:15.885)
Right.
Brenda (39:19.161)
pattern that we have in Scripture. And there are times if you've ever been in that level of pain that you couldn't see your way out of the dark, then you know that that is a very spiritual journey and a very needed part of our spiritual walk. But I am thankful to say that, you know, as somebody, if somebody will stick with it, if they will continue to cry out to the Lord, the Lord will come. Like I've never seen somebody stay, you know,
Alex (39:46.149)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (39:49.081)
I've never seen somebody who genuinely cried out to the Lord, who took their issues to the Lord, who ran to the Lord, even if it was dark for a long time, that the Lord did not meet them and they didn't come out at some point.
Alex (39:59.937)
And yeah, I've had a friend that has really had a pretty dramatic turnaround and burn journaling is one of the biggest keys to her turnaround. And I think that she came in early on in the process, like after the first or second week and she said,
Alex, I use a lot of profanity in my burn journal. And I said, yeah, me too. And she was like, I don't know how I feel about that. And I said, well, one, do you think God's surprised that it's in there? And she's like, no, I know he's not surprised by it. She's like, but, it feels like I'm centering my mind on it. And I was like, well, I want you to think about not so much as centering your mind on it, but like getting it out so that it doesn't, it doesn't just stay there.
Brenda (40:47.895)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (40:50.599)
and it doesn't rest there. I said, and the other thing I want you to think about is that what happened to you is profane. It was profane. And in the truest sense of the word, like it is an offense to God.
And so it doesn't surprise me that the language that comes out when you talk about it is profanity because I think it matches the experience. And it was just like a weight rolled off of her and she just dove into this journaling and, it's been really amazing to watch her.
Brenda (41:06.87)
Mm.
Brenda (41:12.759)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Alex (41:25.877)
just lighten every time I see her. Just every time I see her, just her countenance has changed. She's sleeping, she's eating differently. Like her body is coming back to life. And it was this whole thing of just facing the Lord with her pain and by faith believing that he was going to hear her cry and she could say it all.
Brenda (41:27.617)
Hmm. Hmm-hmm.
Brenda (41:36.236)
Yeah.
Brenda (41:50.867)
Mmm, that's so beautiful
Well, fine, well, we have two more tools left, so we're going to keep moving. The next one we want to talk about is a manual journaling, and this really comes from some of Jim Wilder's teaching and his book from the Joyful Journey. And I think this is another one of those that may seem a little bit odd to people at first, but I think is super sweet and super helpful. And because you are such a fan of the Exodus story, I'm going let you kind of walk us through this a little bit and get us going.
Alex (41:56.719)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (42:10.341)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (42:21.367)
So the pattern is back to the Exodus three verses where it says, where God says, I've seen their affliction, I've heard their cry, I know they're suffering and I've come down to deliver them. And that becomes the prompts of the manual journaling. And this is the weird part.
is that when we write this journal, we actually write in the voice of God. And it's not that we're thinking that we speak for God, but it's actually a reminder that God sees, He hears, He understands, and He's glad to be with us. And so we write, we write kind of to ourselves from His point of view. But what we're writing when we really actually recognize like what we're doing is we're writing our experience. So it's like writing, like when God is saying, I can see you, He might be saying like,
can see the expression on our face. He can see our movements. I see sadness on your face. I see the tension in your body. I see you trying to interact with people when you feel like you're going to cry. So you're really describing your own experiences. You're just putting them in God's voice to remind yourself that he sees your experience. You're putting it in God's voice so he hears the things you're saying. I hear your heart and your mind racing. I hear you being angry with those around you.
Brenda (43:26.276)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (43:38.127)
hear you, I hear your frustration at the way that you, you know, feel or the way that you've been acting. So you're putting your experience in God's voice. And then the next prompt is, I understand how hard this is for you. And that's just, you know, back to this idea that God has compassion on us. And so we're putting in God's voice, the compassion that he's expressing in our particular situation. I know that
this situation is really big and hard for you. I know this is scary and you feel like I'm not in it with you and you're putting those words into his voice. And then the last two are I'm glad to be with you. It's just a confirmation of his love and often I encourage people to return to the promises for these last two expressions of God's love and then I can do something about what you're going through and that's where I encourage people to think of through the promises
of Scripture and give voice to the promises of Scripture like my spirit is with you I will never leave you or forsake you I am interceding for you I am your defender I am your protector and so to put that in God's voice
Brenda (44:54.309)
Yeah, I think this is a...
I know the first time I did this journal, did feel really weird because to your point, it's like I'm not clearly not writing scripture here, but I'm taking something that I know to be generally true of God, His all-knowing, the fact that He's all-present, He's everywhere, all times, the fact that He loves me sees me, and really making it much more specific and particular to me in this situation. And it is such a reminder of His power and His presence.
Alex (44:59.417)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Alex (45:19.013)
Right.
Brenda (45:26.569)
his love and his wisdom and all the things that bring comfort. And I know that part of Jim Wilder's studies also have to do with the neuroscience, which is really interesting that this way of praying actually activates things neurologically that bring healing to us, body and soul, again, going back to be embodied spirits. So I think what we'll do, we have this in another podcast, but we'll go ahead and post it in the show notes, the link for this journal so people can
Alex (45:43.269)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Brenda (45:56.379)
have the prompt but just really quickly the the five prompts are I can see you, I can hear you, I can understand how hard this is for you, I am glad to be with you, and I can do something about what you are going through.
Alex (46:08.889)
Mm-hmm.
That's good. I love the manual journaling. I think the last one we wanted to remind people of is a visual theology. I think we talked about that in season four in our episode on anxiety. And this again is just returning to those visual images. We talked about some of them, you know, even today, like Jesus saying, he's like a hen who wants to gather her chicks. It's just a visual image of the care that Jesus has. talked about, we often talk about this,
This is something I find in trauma is that if there's been abuse at the hands of a father or a father figure, a male authority figure, it's oftentimes hard for abuse survivors to connect to God as father. And so I often redirect people towards the imagery of God as shepherd. And we talk about the 23rd Psalm, we talk about the little booklet, A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm,
imagining God as the shepherd caring for the sheep can often become something that feels a lot safer and more relatable and a beautiful theology for people who are recovering from trauma.
Brenda (47:24.841)
Yeah, and I think, you know, pictures worth a thousand words. And so one of the things we miss a little bit in our Western Christianity is how visual and rich the scripture is with visual and how many visual things God has given us. I think about creation. All of creation was created for mankind, for our good. And all of creation is a signpost that points back to the Creator. So whether it is visual theology in the sense, I think, of seeing the things
Alex (47:34.456)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (47:41.637)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (47:50.2)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (47:54.87)
around us and seeing God, know, seeing those things point back to God or whether it is visual pictures in the scriptures. And there is something about our eyesight too. I don't remember the whole connection to the brain, but something about how information goes through our eyes and how it's processed and how important it is. But I think Eastern, I think it was Marty Solomon who said that like when you ask an Easterner who God is, they will tell you a rock, a refuge, a shepherd, a judge, and those sort of things. If you ask a Westerner who God is, they'll
Alex (48:01.144)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (48:06.008)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (48:25.153)
He's wise, he's loving, he's omniscient, he's omnipresent, right? We like to use words to describe things where in the Eastern cultures, they like to use pictures to describe. And so I think that's just very instructive for us that sometimes we're so doctrinal oriented and so word oriented in our culture that we forget and miss all of the beautiful imagery that the scripture gives us.
Alex (48:26.753)
Right.
Alex (48:53.441)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Brenda (48:56.329)
Well, I think Alex that kind of wraps up this idea of safety in God. I just had one final thought, some or another. I don't even know how I ran across this information, but I ran across a lady named Dr. Lisa Miller who studies the science of spirituality. And she's actually founded this, it's called the Spirit spirituality mind body Institute at Columbia University.
Alex (49:14.95)
Hmm.
Brenda (49:22.37)
And her work is really interesting. She's Jewish. She's not Christian. And she's not trying to present a Christian worldview. But I always think it's interesting when I hear Jewish people because I'm like, wait, we we study out of the same book with the same God, right? Like there's something there. There is a connection there. And I just I've found some of her work just to be fascinating. But one of the things she talks about is how despair is an epidemic of our day.
Alex (49:26.993)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (49:49.929)
And right now we're seeing the highest suicide rates among children or young adults 18 to 24. It's even rivaling or exceeding that of car accidents. And so what her research has found, she says that 40 years ago we took spirituality and religion out of the public square. And what we're seeing now on a neurological level when they look at brain scans is what's actually happening to the brain along the way that's creating and making us more
Alex (50:07.334)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (50:19.363)
vulnerable to despair and less resilient.
Alex (50:20.764)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (50:22.697)
And so she says that a robust spiritual life is what she calls neuroprotective. That deep spirituality is the best antidote against despair and that spirituality is our source of hope. So there's nothing that protects us more against despair and the hardships and being sucked in and not being able to get out of all the hardships of life.
Alex (50:29.437)
Wow.
Brenda (50:53.352)
than developing a strong spiritual core. And I love this because just in her scientific study, she says this, says, trauma is an invitation into a deeper walk with God and she names God, she'll say whoever your higher power is, for her it's God. And this is her quote, she says, science shows us that in our darkest moments, we are particularly able to break through and deepen our relationship with God. And I just think, again, and she says that science is just a witness.
to what God has already said is true, right? Like, we know the scriptures say this. And then I love what the prophet Isaiah says in Isaiah 45.3. And by the way, I just think Isaiah has so much to say for trauma, right? Like, there's so much beauty in Isaiah. But here's what Isaiah says.
Alex (51:22.97)
Right. Yeah.
Alex (51:36.743)
Yes.
Brenda (51:41.455)
God says, will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel who summons you by name. And so one of the things that we like to tell people in trauma at some point is there are hidden treasures and there are riches stored in secret places. And some of those places that are so dark and so deep and the caverns of our heart that we don't want anybody to see, we don't think
would understand there's no place we can go to God is saying let me in because as painful as it is there are treasures and riches that I want to show you and at the end of the day the greatest prize really is to know God and to know that he summons us by name
Alex (52:28.572)
Beautiful. Best place to end.
Brenda (52:32.496)
Yeah.
Brenda (52:36.632)
So we've wrapped up with safety in God and next time we meet we'll be talking about safety in relationships. And I think the way we're opening that conversation is just to talk about, know that trauma impacts our relationship with ourself and how we view ourselves, how we relate to ourselves, but it also impacts how we relate to other people as well. So we're looking forward to that next episode as we just continue to talk about how to be on a healing journey and to help people. We can help people, we're people helpers. God has given us
Alex (52:38.909)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (53:06.586)
what we need and so we want to be equipped, we want to be ready. Diane Langberg says trauma is the mission field that we're in. So let's be equipped and ready and prepared and willing to step into the field of this world which is so full of people who have and will experience trauma.
Alex (53:13.532)
Mm-hmm.