How Scripture Talks About Trauma

How Scripture Talks About Trauma

Trauma is defined as an overwhelming stress event or by dictionary definition “A deeply distressing or Disturbing Experience”

The 2 basic sources of trauma are sinful events (controlled by people) or natural/accidental/circumstantial events (outside of human control.

Examples of trauma by sinful events:

Sexual Assault/Abuse

Physical Assault/Abuse

Mental/Emotional/Psychological Abuse-Reviling

Divorce/Abandonment

Alienation or Unloving

Neglect

Witnessing Abuse or Violence

Living With Drug/Alcohol Addicts

Arrests/Imprisonment of oneself/family member

Examples of trauma by natural/accidental/circumstantial events

Tornadoes/Earthquakes/Volcanoes

Car Accidents

Transitions or Relocations

Encounter/Attack by dangerous animals

Death of a loved one

What does the Bible say about Trauma?

We may not see any verses that have the words “Trauma or Traumatize” in scripture.  We do see words such as “Extortion or Oppression”. Let's look deeper at the definitions of these words.  

Extortion - to use force, cruelty, or threats for financial gain

Oppression - in Hebrew is cruelty, to cause injury, distress, fraud, or unjust gain.

“Oppression” and “Extortion” appears many times in the Bible which have the same Hebrew root word.

As we compare “Trauma” and “Oppression”, the definitions are one and the same when it comes to Trauma caused by sinful events.

Trauma caused a disturbance in the physical brain and changes from traumatic events can be proven in a cat scan.  We may consider this as a “New Science”, but God knew the science a long time ago.  It is not new science, but very old science.

Ecclesiastes 7:7 - “Oppression destroys a wise man's reason” was written in ancient times and breathed by God Himself.   Our “New Science” through cat scans only proves a very old point.   God's word is true.

Healing from Trauma often involves being safe, nurtured, and loved in a safe place.  We see this approach as “newly discovered”

Ancient scripture says in Proverbs 10:12 - “Hated stirs up strife, but love covers all sins.”

Showing love, kindness and compassion heals a person from sins committed against them, even traumatic events. Not new science, but ancient knowledge breathed by God Himself.

This “new science” is only proving what God said a long time ago in His word.

Rodney Calmes

How True Science Proves The Bible, Looking At The Biblical Model For Bringing Up Children

How True Science Proves The Bible, Looking At The Biblical Model For Bringing Up Children

Ross Greene has said "kids act out because the don't have the skills to meet their expectations".  He goes on to state that we need to teach them the skills to meet their expectations and they will do better.

One of my pastors has said in his sermon "It is cruel and unloving to tell a person to be righteous!".  He goes on to say "If we teach them that our righteousness comes from Jesus and what He has done on the cross, and that we obtain our righteousness through faith in Him, that is loving and kind!".

The pastor in general was saying that it is cruel and unloving to place an expectation on someone without giving them the means to meet it.  It is loving and kind to give a person the means and what is needed to meet their expectations. (Those means of obtaining righteousness is through the gospel.)

Too many times parents place expectations on children that the children have no means, skills, or knowledge to meet, and are often punished for not meeting them. This is the American way.

The Bible says to bring up children in the way of the Lord, which is through the gospel.  Teaching them and guiding them.  Placing expectations on them based on what they are taught and have the skills to meet. Doing this with respect for their boundaries and teaching them to respect our boundaries, and the guidelines of the Bible, and allowing them to face the consequences when those boundaries are crossed or the Bible is disobeyed.

Model 1: The American way - leave a child to themselves.  When the do something that irritates you, spank them, shame them and revile them, then tell them that the behavior is not acceptable.  This is called Behavior Modification, which was based on traditional psycology, and defies the Bible.

Model 2: The Biblical model - Connect with your children.  Love them.  Teach them, guide them.  When they do something that you didn't desire from them ask yourself "what lead them to that behavior?  Did they have the skills or knowledge on a better way of handling the situation?  Were they ever taught?". Talk to them, and collaborate with them with Biblical guidance on how the situation could have been handled in a better way.  Allow them to speak and allow them to try to figure it out with your guidance through it.  This will help with problem solving skills.   Once they are taught, and know a better way, but yet wilfully crossed the line, then allow them to face the consequences.

Also understand that discipline does not involve any of the following:

Anger - "the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God" James 1:20

Reviling - "no reviler shall inheret the kingdom of  God." See 1 Cor. 6:10

Violence or wrath - Eph. 6:4 - "Fathers do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord."

Discipline involves teaching, guiding, and training in righteousness through the gospel of Christ and through the scriptures, and allowing consequences that will build them up and encourage righteousness when they cross the line.

Kids will naturally follow our example, if we show them a poor example, they will follow.  Our best way of leading is by example.   Show them the example of Jesus, and kids will follow.  See Proverbs 22:6 - "train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he shall not depart from it."

Also know that the greatest attribute is love.  Without love, everything is meaningless. See 1 Cor. 13

Rodney Calmes

Biblical Perspective On How We Cope With Past Abuse, Sexual Assault, And Trauma

Biblical Perspective On How We Cope With Past Abuse, Sexual Assault, And Trauma

UNHEALTHY METHODS
1.   DENIAL - We deny what happened to us.  We try to pretend it never happened.  1 Cor 3:18a - “Let no one deceive himself.”.  When we go into denial, we deceive ourselves, thus we are living a lie.  Others may try to push us into denial as well, especially perpetrators or families of perpetrators.  This is a very unhealthy way to cope with traumatic events.

2.  “WE DESERVE IT” or JUSTIFYING THE ABUSE - When we cannot deny the event, we may find reasons that it was right for us or reasons that we deserved it or caused it.  Perpetrators or families of perpetrators may blame us for the abuse we got or find reasons that it was our fault or why we deserved or caused it.  We may blame it on one or more of our mistakes or misdeeds, we may blame it on how we looked, dressed, etc.  We may have made mistakes, but we are not responsible on how we were handled because of it.  The responsibility is the perpetrator’s.  Sin cannot be justified.  Sin is not right.  It is never right for anyone to sin against us.  Each person will be accountable for their own sin, including the perpetrators.  The perpetrator's sin will be on his or her own head.  Deuteronomy 24:16 -
"Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall the children be put to death for their fathers; a person shall be put to death for his own sin.

3.  HURTING OURSELVES - in some cases, we may inflict harm to ourselves as a means of justifying what happened to us and “confirming” the justification to ourselves.  We may do it because of the endorphins it releases in our bodies, thus giving us relief from the pain stored up inside us and suppressing it.  This is also very unhealthy.  God created us in His image.  God loves you and He wants to help you overcome the burdens you carry inside.  God doesn't want to see you hurting yourself.  God wants to heal you. This can be very addictive, even more so than drugs or alcohol.

4.  ADDICTIONS (DRUG/ALCOHOL/FOOD/SEX) - All of these may provide pleasure to us.  They may be things we turn to in order to get our minds off our pain.  They may provide a means of escape for the moment we engage in these pleasures.  This is also very unhealthy.  The Bible tells us not to be given into drunkenness, gluttony, or fornication/adultery. See Proverbs 23:20-21, Colossians 3:5

With all this being said, how should we cope?  What are good biblical healthy ways to cope?

"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Matt 6:14-15

Forgiveness is often easy for normal events because the process of forgiveness on normal events moves as fast as the speed of light. The steps needed doesn't go as quickly for traumatic events.  The following healthy steps are needed to be able to forgive. 

HEALTHY STEPS LEADING TO HEALING AND FORGIVENESS

1.  ACCEPTANCE - Acceptance is taken in several steps. 
  A.  Acknowledging what happened.
  B.  Allowing the hurts and pain to come to the surface.
  C.  Processing what happened which may require talking about it to God and to someone who you can trust.  It should not be done alone, you may need someone to help you with this step.  You may need to talk about it repeatedly until you are comfortable with it.
  D.  Don't rush it.  You have suffered a great evil leaving a huge wound.  Huge wounds left by overwhelming events can take a lot of time to heal and process.
  E.  Accepting what happened. Once you have been able to process it completely, you can then make the choice to accept what happened.
  F.  Give it to God.  As you go through each step of acceptance, give it to God along the way.  Now you will be able to proceed to step 2.

2.  FORGIVENESS - Once we have accepted what happened to us, we can now take this step to forgive.  We must understand the following about forgiveness. 
  A.  Forgiveness is NOT denial.
  B.  Forgiveness is NOT justifying what happened to us.  It does NOT make what happened to us ok or right.
  C.  Forgiveness is accepting what happened to us, accepting that it was wrong, and choosing to not wish for misfortune or evil to happen to the perpetrators.
  D.  Forgiveness is NOT making light of what happened to us, but acknowledging that it was a very gross evil violation to us and our bodies, but having the willingness to not take vengeance on the person and let God deal with it. Choosing to love the person who wronged you, but keeping your distance from them.
  E.  Forgiveness is NOT trusting the perpetrators.  It is best to take caution around them. Pray for them to come to repentance.

3.  TRUSTING GOD - How can anything good come from what happened to us?  All science shows that it was bad for our brain development.  Cat scans prove permanent physical changes in our brains from the event(s). How can God make something good from this?  It takes faith. 
  A.  God will direct our paths.  Proverbs 16:9.  We may not be the person we may have been if the events never happened to us, but God will give us what is sufficient to accomplish His will in our lives.
  B.  God uses the iniquities that were committed against us to conform us to the likeness of Jesus.  He will grow us in our understanding.  He will use it to minister to others.  We will understand those who suffered like we have.  God will deliver us, thus will form our testimony from what happened to us for the encouragement of others and lead others to Himself​.
  C.  Others will be healed from the healing God gives us, thus bringing glory to Him.  These things will begin to unfold when we start to trust God and put our faith in Him.

4.  ALLOW GOD TO USE US - This comes from trusting Him and putting our faith in Him.  Much healing comes in this step.  We start to see how God used the garage in our lives and turned them into a huge blessing.  We will experience God's blessing in this step.

These above steps will promote spiritual healing from trauma.  I also advise counseling because there are physical changes in our brains that happened from such events.  Counselors can help aid this by giving us brain exercises through art, motor skills exercises, etc., which can help our physical brains to reconnect from the bottom (survival part) up to the top (thinking, creative parts) to help with enhancing our cognitive abilities.

For all who have suffered traumatic events, I will be praying for you.

Rodney Calmes

What Can Happen When We Allow The Lies Of Perpetrators Into The Church - My Personal Experiences

For those who are praying for me.

That time I drove in the vacinity of my grandparents farm, I was triggered of the things my grandparents did, but that was a small part of it.  I was triggered much more largely on how my family handled it. 

I want to share what I went through when my family said the things they said and what they did after.

When they said that I cannot remember things at 4, when they said it wasn't that bad, when they said that it never had any effect on me, I felt like I was face to face with Satan himself. I heard things like this from a majority of my dad's family, but there are 2 people who called themselves Christians who said this also, which was much more hurtful.  It showed me that they didn't repent.  I felt like those who were supposed to love me doesn't love me.  I was belittled and reviled by them.  They were supposed to be Christians.

The ones who were supposed to be Christians spread their lies through their church in a very convincing way.  They also convinced one of the elders of my church into believing them also. This lead to the following evils:

1.  My testimony was discredited.

2.  People that knew them started reporting everything I said and did to them, stirring more trouble.

3.  I had to deal with my family struggles alone, because I didn't feel safe sharing it, knowing that it could get back to them.

4.  I also was not able to share how God was using me and the joys with that, because my past had everything to do with how God used me.  7 lives saved from suicide, people coming to know Jesus because of my testimony.  People being built up and encouraged, people being able to thrive.  I had to keep all this to myself because someone may report it to my family, and I would be accused of lying.

It seemed like my pastor sided with the elder who was polluted with their lies at first, because he was relatively new.  When another man who was deeply involved with one of those who called themselves Christians for years came to my church, and talked about his struggles with that person, my pastor started to see through their lies.

I never felt completely safe there since this all happened in 2012.  This was an ongoing problem until I moved to Michigan on December 29, 2017.  Michigan was my escape from this.

Why did I not seek another church?   My family knew too many people.  Every Bible teaching church I could think of had people such as elders, Bible study teachers, deacons, or pastors that knew them.  I would have come as a complete stranger with no credibility until I got to know people, and if their lies would have hit there, my problems would have been worse.

There is nothing against the church, the church has genuinely good people, it was the 2 people who called themselves Christians.  A lot leaven leavens the whole lump.  They were very convincing, and anyone can get sucked into their lies.

I am posting this because I want everyone to be aware of what leaven can do, and how destructive little leaven can be to a church, thus leaving survivors alienated and isolated in the very place that is supposed to be a sanctuary.  No one should have to go through this.  I hope by posting this that it can prevent another person from going through this.

I am making this post on my public page called "Support For Those Who Have Been Abused".  Feel free to share this from my public page to spread awareness about this if you feel lead to do it. 

God bless you all, and those of you who struggle with this, I will be praying for you.

Rodney James Calmes