The Quiet Killer
When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. Psalm 32:3 NASB
Silent – David knew the truth about being silent. We might think his verse in the psalms is about his sin, but this is a general truth that applies to any action or event that isolates us from others and ourselves. Human beings are relational creatures. We exist, as so clearly articulated in the Bible, in relation. There are no Robinson Crusoe’s in the biblical world. If you are going to be human at all, you must be related to your world—both animate and inanimate. This is one reason why so many of us find solace in nature. It speaks to us in ways that reveal the awe of being. So should our relationships with others. Unfortunately, relational existence is also filled with risk. Trauma is a human reality. David knew this. And he knew that “ignoring inner reality also eats away at your sense of self, identity and purpose.”[1]
“We may think we can control our grief, our terror, or our shame by remaining silent, but naming offers the possibility of a different kind of control. When Adam was put in charge of the animal kingdom in the Book of Genesis, his first act was to give a name to every living creature. If you’ve been hurt, you need to acknowledge and name what happened to you.”[2] “Silence reinforces the godforsaken isolation of trauma.”[3]
The Bible is a book about healing ruptured relationships. It’s not primarily about how to escape this world and get to the next one. It’s primarily about how to live in this world in full connection with God and others. The Bible is a story about God’s efforts to help us recover fatherhood, and in the process learn what it means for us to be fully-human. What we have lost in the risk-filled world of emotional trauma is the reality of God as our loving parent, the one who has only our best interests at heart and is ready and willing to do whatever it takes to bring us back to the fulfilling purposes for which we were created.
This all sounds correct. We can all nod our heads in approval of the theory, but that won’t help us much when we face real terror, grief or shame. Those emotions tend to overpower our best logic. We do all we can to avoid or numb them so that we can stay in control of our fragile existence. We stuff it all inside and learn to be high-performing hypocrites. You know, the ones who have an acceptable mask between themselves and the world. But often it’s not enough. That’s why knowing God as Father is crucial to our well-being. And that doesn’t mean knowing Him as an object of our cognitive processes. Most of the life that really matters to us is not rational. It’s emotional—emotionally connected feelings of security and safety. The things we need in order to get up every day and face a world without guarantees. Silence kills. Maybe that’s why virtually all the words for prayer in Hebrew are actions.
Topical Index: silent, emotion, relationship, Father, Psalm 32:3
[1] Ibid., p. 235.
[2] Bessel ver der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score, p. 234.
[3] Ibid.
Why do so many people who have experienced trauma end up leaving the church? I am asking for myself as well as for a LOT of other people I know. The common thread I think I see is that if your life does not LOOK ‘good’; if your head is confused and your surroundings are a mess and you are dealing with stuff you cannot ‘control’ the last straw is to show up in a place that is promising relief and others who are saying they love you but all you really get is “shut up and look good” and “don’t rock the boat” and “for goodness’ sakes don’t disturb my fragile exterior with your mess that I cannot handle or else my lid may crack too and everybody will KNOW”.
That is what we fear the most. Everybody will know. Know what? The truth. Fear of the truth. Biggest fear on the planet. Bigger than the fear of spiders or death. Even tops the fear of speaking in public, which is running close to it, for there we can still lie. Above all, public is the place where there is the most pressure to lie, and the church where people keep silent about the truth of their own selves is a church full of liars.
Truth is the only real relief for hurting people; telling it and hearing it, but it’s not the esoteric truths about otherworldly concepts that is the “balm of Gilead”. The majority of Yeshua’s ministry was the work of going around healing people. Every once in a while He preached, but the rest of the time He was in the ditches of others, pulling them out. Truth is what knits broken people back together again, but it is the truth about what broke them in the first place that does it. If preachers were to really follow the Example we were given, they would be titling their sermons “how to recognize addictions in your life and why they are there” and “secret iniquity: how to talk about what hurts” and “let’s talk about fear, guilt and shame today” and then turn the floor over to the audience.
Witness is also about the process of what put Humpty Dumpty back together again. My witness is not about what a Bible verse means or spiritual concepts: my witness is about my particular mess and what God did about it. We have to fix the car before we can get in it and go down the road. We have to mend ourselves and others before we can start pretending that everything is great. No, wait. Everything will BE great, then, and we won’t have to lie any more. How many times did we sit around in Alanon with everybody spilling their awful guts and with the Holy Spirit working overtime and everyone there would know it and someone would speak up and say “this is what church should be like”.
Conversely, Laurita, how many times did people speak up, be transparent, in “church” and their relationships and get crucified for it.
How do you think they learned to shut up?
But if church is not a safe place, then the church needs to change, not the people.
Except the people ARE the church, Laurita.
That’s the real Body. Then there is the Establishment. We need to get the vernacular straight.
“We”?
Not in this lifetime. When people are all smiles and warmth to the public and plotting and trolling behind the scenes, considering it ‘normal’, it’s never gonna be.
As long as people are trilling about “learning from the best” and that ‘best’ is a demonically control individual that made their life hell and they don’t see it for what it is (learning from the best would be YHVH, IMO) then that is the ‘body’ we are drawing from. It will always reflect.
The Body begins with me. With thee it will become we. What say ye?
I’m sorry church has not been a safe place for you, Laurita.
I’m SO thankful to have been in many congregations (all fairly typical evangelical churches) over the past two decades who focus on small group participation. I think it’s the safest place, outside of one on one, to “spill your guts” and share your struggles. One pastor insisted that if you weren’t a part of a small group, you weren’t really an active part of the church. I’ve been hurt by pastors several times along the line, hurt by congregation members giving advice when they shouldn’t. But. I’m not giving up on community. I need it too much. It’s family – and you don’t just give up on family when they hurt you.
I think one of the reason people usually leave churches when they get hurt is our leaning towards pain-avoidance. It’s always easier to avoid what hurts – that’s why many of us have wounds that we won’t give over Abba to heal, not really anyhow. Because so often he wants to use community and authority figures to unpeel those layers, poking at the pain until we let it see the light of day and can be loved through the healing process.
Like I said, I’ve been hurt by plenty of people over the years, but I’ve decided that to harden myself against a group because of my pain will keep me locked up in my broken state. I don’t want to live like that. I’d rather go through the pain to experience healing on the other side. How incredible that, despite how broken we all are, God continues to use us in each other’s lives!! That’s overwhelming, amazing grace!
I am getting there, LeAnna. You give a very mature and hopeful testimony. There comes a point in healing that you become able to meet people where they are, and don’t need them to come to where you are. I agree with the rest of your testimony and plan for that to be mine, too. I will keep you updated (because I am noisy, unfortunately).
The worst thing for me has been the temptation when I walk through the door to just do like everyone else is: keep my head down and my mouth shut, but then no one benefits. The courage and maturity to BE the change is my goal. Please pray for me, as church is never going to look like me, therefore I am going to have to have enough of my own identity to where I don’t need it to. That goes for any group, by the way. At that point, I just hope I have learned enough grace that people will still feel safe around a, hopefully, VERY different (unique) me!
For you to be safe Laurita, you need to come with no agenda. YOU have an agenda.
Noted.
If I am detecting some “personal” agenda in these last few comments, can I suggest that this blog is NOT the place to carry on any such dialogue, whether necessary or not. This is NOT a place of one-on-one public execution. Please refrain. Take it private if you must.
There is more to it than just fear of exposure. That is certainly true, but we ALL experience that and still we could assemble and deal with it (12 step groups do). The Church, as I tried to point out recently in lectures, is designed with INSTITUTIONALIZED TRAUMA as its theological motivation. It is FEAR OF PUNISHMENT IN HELL, represented in so many ways, that pushes people to conform with the Church, only to discover that FEAR is not enough to overcome the loss of person we experience in the world. And, as far as I can tell, the institutional Church has NO solution for this. It cannot express LOVE of person because it is fundamentally above traumatizing people in order to get them into heaven. More later, perhaps.
Preach on sister.
So insightful and helpful, Skip.
Hi Skip, you’re in my wheelhouse. One question, in dealing with trauma, and talking/processing it, we’re going to “speak badly” about others who did the harm. How does “lashan hara” work here? I’ve asked rabbi’s this and no one seems to answer me well. If God wants us to heal and be in shalom, then we’re going to have to say something negative about an abuser with our speech, right?
Agreed. The question it seems to me is MOTIVE. Am I speaking out of revenge, blame, justification, guilt? Or am I assisting the community in healing? Etc.
Thanks Skip. I agree. Our church is run like an AA group because we have so many traumatized people with severe abuse. I wanted to keep in mind lashan hara but I have felt like God is more concerned with us becoming healed and whole, so that, we are not triggered in areas any more and can more fully obey His commandments.
Most of the time, its about getting out the pain, anger and hurt that people are really putting on themselves. We ingest all these abuses which make us sick. Thank you for the clarification. I’ve been loving these devotions they have coincided with the way the Lord has been leading us. Thanks for the confirmation. Shalom.
You can change their name, not disclose them but share what your experiance of them was. It is possible to own your part and ractions/ responses without exposing perpetrators. (presuming it’s interelational disfunction and not a real crime).
When one has experienced so much pain with trauma, and then talking/processing it, is that speaking badly about the person or about our own experience? I would love clarification on this too.
And.. — Action!!
~ When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long ~ (Psalm 32:3)
“The son said to Him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called Your son.'” (Luke 15.21)
~ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar, and His word is not in us…~ [For His word clearly states: “all have sinned!” – Romans 3.23]
~ I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”; and [??] — You forgave the guilt of my sin! Selah. ~
(Psalm 32.5)
~ I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for My own sake, and remembers your sins no more ~ (Isaiah 43.25)
[Friend,] ~Who pardons all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases? ~ (Psalm 103.3)
(Yes, brother David, Amen!) ~ How joyful is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! ~ (Psalm 32.1)
The Rest of the Story..
(How to Make Heaven Happy)
“So he returned home to his Father. And while he was still a long way off, his Father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, He ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. And the Father said to His servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.…Bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let us feast and celebrate. For this son of Mine was dead and is alive again! He was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate!!.…
(No links please Carl. Just post the video title and people can easily find it) Thanks, Mark
Been out and about, it’s good to come back. I love the opportunity to find again. “the spirit of truth..who comes to reveal all truth” as the progenitor of our discussions. A lot has been said and shared elsewhere about being “True Faced” It is only possible I find with either great individual commitment to truth or the right atmosphere. As Skip -Mr. Ever-clear himself shared “What we have lost in the risk-filled world of emotional trauma is the reality of God as our loving parent, the one who has only our best interests at heart and is ready and willing to do whatever it takes to bring us back to the fulfilling purposes for which we were created.” Holding that belief in God helps us hold a space in our individual and community life for truth and reality to become present. As Thrall & McNicol call it in their sweet little book “True Faced”-(NavPress-04 Thrall & McNicol). ” A room of grace” We need this.We need to create it or find it for it is a major part of growth and healing. We need a place where people endeavor to be “living out of who God says I am”. One enters it this room, this space, by turning the knob on the door called “humility”. Saying honestly “I’ve tried so hard, I’ve supplied all the self-effort the other rooms demand, yet received nothing but insecurity and duplicity. I’ve run out of answers, run out of breath, run out of ability, and so I cry out, God if anything good is to come out of this whole deal you will have to do it. I’ve tried, I can’t, I’m so tired. Please God, you will have to give me the life I am dreaming of…I can’t keep doing this anymore. I’m tired, I feel guilty, lonely, and depressed, I’m sad most of the time, I can’t make life work”…And then to our surprise rather than condemnation and judgment we anticipate ” Everyone in the room laughs the warm laughter of understanding and acceptance and I’m ushered into the fold of a sweet family of kind and painfully real people. There is not a mask to be seen anywhere.” As I walk further into the room , I notice a huge banner on the back wall. this one reads; “Standing with God, with My Sin in Front of Me working on it together….(True Faced pg40-42) Skip thanks for holding and recognizing the need for this room of grace….