Horrors and Their Trauma

Just ten days ago, I received a text from a family member asking prayers for a family related to their business. There had been a car accident on November 20 in which twin brothers (18) and their sister (16) died in a car accident. I don’t know the family, but I do know the surviving family will never be the same.

 

What happened in that tragic car accident is called a horror. All horrors entail an uninvited invasion of loss—death-like—to some aspect of a person’s life with the result that their life is set on a radically different path. Now think of horrors as running along a spectrum from common to gross. The horror could come in the form of a congenital birth defect, or in the form of domestic abuse; it could come in the form of a scammer who bankrupts an elderly couple, or in the form sexual harassment at work.

 

What complicates recovery is the response many people have after experiencing a horror. If a horror is the experience, the effect is trauma. Counselors refer to such victims as trauma survivors because survival is the new reality in which these people experience the world.  Trauma survivors often struggle with doubts about the goodness of God (In light of this, can he can be trusted?); doubts about the possibility of meaningful living (In light of this, is there safety anywhere?); and doubts about whether there is hope for a better form of human life (In light of this, will these memories always haunt me and will life always be this way?).

 

The nature of horrors can be so appalling that the human mind cannot fully take it in at the time it occurs. One author says it this way: “Memories of [horrors] become fragmented, even as they take up residence in the mind where they have a life of their own. Contradictory though it may seem, these memories can be neither forgotten nor escaped, even though they exist as shattered moments of experience” (Kathleen O’Connor, Jeremiah: Pain and Promise, p. 3).  

 

I’ve had my share of trauma survivors in my office who, when working through a horror in their life, involuntarily tremble, recoil, and often cry. Surprisingly, they almost always apologize to me for that, which I then quickly reassure them that they should take their time and continue giving voice to their experience. Just how we see people in the Bible responding to horrors done to them.

 

The most graphic Old Testament example of a life of horrors would be the prophet, Jeremiah. We know that Jeremiah was by nature a tender person, yet God gave to Jeremiah while he was a very young man a message that was completely in opposition to the people. For his entire ministry, everyone mocked and laughed at Jeremiah. As he put it, “I am hated everywhere I go” (15:10). At one point, as the weight of his mission bore down on him, Jeremiah pled with God, “Lord, don’t terrorize me” (17:17).

 

One peak of terror Jeremiah experienced comes in chapter 20 where a priest named Pashhur had Jeremiah attacked and physically tortured. Jeremiah then curses and lashes out at God, “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed” (20:7). Even Job, in all his horrors, never cursed God with his mouth like Jeremiah did.

 

After that, from chapter 21 right through to the end of the book, scholars note that Jeremiah has no chronology. This could be due to Jeremiah’s assistant, Baruch, who re-wrote Jeremiah’s prophecies after king Jehoiakim burned the first edition. Another possibility is that Jeremiah’s letter “may be shaped as it is because Jeremiah wrote it piecemeal in the midst of his turbulent life so that it reads more like what political prisoners and refugees write than what persons writing in settled places and times produce” (ESV Study Bible, p. 1363). In other words, we can read Jeremiah’s book as trauma literature.

 

It is sometimes helpful for people who have suffered a horror, or are in an ongoing horror, to hear this kind of detail from the Scriptures. Yet survivors still have questions. One of which Jeremiah asks: “Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look and take note! Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon her” (5:1).

 

Christians cry out, we have such a man! When the Son of God incarnated himself, he willingly chose to enter the house of horrors as a fellow-sufferer. Right from the outset, Herod, along with others who would follow, sought to destroy the Christ. He endured a lifetime of horrors, and through it all we have a steadfast Immanuel, God with us. As such, he now opens the possibility of justice and truth for all the horrors of this life.

 

Jesus gives us a taste of what’s to come by both condemning horrors and making them right. He cast out demons and he healed the sick and lame. He set captives free, and he brought the dead back to life. But Jesus also redefined and intensified what constitutes a horror with his famous, “You have heard that it is said… but I say to you…” indictments of those in power. To their dismay, the horror-makers will have justice done upon them.

 

If that were not enough, there are tidings of comfort and joy available now to the sufferer. The benefit to Christ-followers is that in his incarnation, the Son of God has suffered as an earthly insider and has general empathy for all of us. Further, the indwelling of Christ’s Spirit in us means that God has specific empathy for each particular Christian. And therefore, he knows from the inside of your particular life what it’s like for you to suffer as you do!

 

Christians in their horrors and traumas have on their side two strong and gentle advocates. Christ in heaven is advocating for us to the Father. And the Spirit of Christ in our heart advocates for us, and to us, helping us grow in Christ to better process, heal, endure, and eventually overcome all that is against us in this life.

 

I’ll close with a stanza from Martin Luther, a man who did most of his work while sick and in hiding. Christians sing these truths in faith, grateful for the first Advent of Christ and eagerly looking for his return.

 

Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side,
The Man of God's own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He!
Lord Sabaoth His Name,
From age to age, the same.
And He must win the battle.

 

Fellow Christian, may the Prince of Peace reign in your heart and over home this Christmas season.