Blog Post
Trauma & Forgiveness
Its a gnarly business
“You haven’t mentioned
the importance of forgiveness for dealing with trauma, I assume you’ll get to it?” Trauma training participant.
I remember a few years ago when a friend’s marriage fell dramatically apart over the course of a few days. Within a week a well meaning Christian woman was telling my friend that what she really needed to do was to forgive her husband for walking out on her and the kids. Already in the throes of acute bereavement and distress, this sent my friend spiralling further and deeper.
Was the woman with the advice right? Maybe, perhaps partially, it really depends on what she meant by ‘forgive’. Did she help my friend on her journey through her particular trauma? Definitely not!
The Christian faith has at its centre God in Christ on the cross reconciling the world to himself through a covenant of forgiveness*. Now that-there sentence deserves a long walk with a cup of your favourite brew! If God has made a covenant of forgiveness with us (and all creation) what does that mean for how we go about our lives, relating to others?
Photo by Liana Rozah on subsplash
When God forgives, forgiveness is a release
from the expected course of things. By rights, humanity’s propensity to harm and violence will result in the obliteration and decreation of everything. God’s forgiveness means that that is not how the story ends. On a personal level that means whatever harm is done to me will not end in my obliteration and decreation; even if I die, God will raise me up to new life. New Creation is a done deal. It also means that whatever harm I have caused will not result in the decreation and obliteration of the ones I have harmed, or myself. Now, don’t hear me wrong, of course there are consequences to all actions, and we do reap what we sow however forgiven we are; but forgiveness releases us from the finality and ultimate decreation that could result. (By the way, I think that when God forgives both the harm done and harm experienced are covered, it is all released from the expected course of things.)
Photo by Liana S on unsplash
It’s been helpful for me to think of forgiveness not so much as something I choose to do or not do, I choose to receive or not receive; but rather as a reality I live in and into. Living in that reality, being forgiven and forgiving are the two sides of the same coin, the in and out of the breath cycle**. That doesn’t make the practicalities easier, but it does mean that forgiveness comes from a different place. It is no longer an intellectual task that needs to be dissociated from the reality of the harm I have endured. It is rather a practical outworking of a greater, deeper eternal reality, it truly comes from a different place.
Photo by Darius Bashar on unsplash
So, what of the practicalities? I have been mulling on the wisdom in Jesus’ teaching on this throughout Matthew’s account of the Good News***. When Jesus addresses those moments we find ourselves being harmed by others one of his goals seems to be to foster the agency, self respect and dignity of the person harmed, affirming their identity as image bearers of God. Jesus advocates responses and processes that expose the behaviour of the ones harming whilst inviting them to honour their own image bearing identity as well as that of the person they have harmed. I have not picked up Jesus teaching anything to suggest that forgiveness involves minimising what has been experienced, compromising on boundaries, or assuming the doormat approach!
Photo by Elijah Hiett on unsplash
So, in the context of trauma, I think forgiveness is about leaning into the grace-filled reality of what God in Christ has done and is doing; the redemption of all that has happened to us and the (often slow) journey of healing towards wholeness. As we let him do his work within us, we will find a growing capacity to let go of (release) our need for retribution, and that letting go will take place deep within us, we will forgive from our heart.
Next time I’ll share a few thoughts on where justice fits in all of this… another knarly thing!
Join me at a Beloved and Entrusted – Christian Training Day to explore this and other aspects of journeying with God through trauma in everyday life, or get in touch about hosting one of these days for your team or area.
* It’s hard to squeeze an entire gospel narrative into a couple of verses but if I had to I would choose these as a start at least – Matthew 26: 27-28, 2 Corinthians 5:14 – 19
** Matthew 6: 12-14
*** Two main examples are the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5 to 7) which is littered with wisdom for when relationships go wrong and people are harmed, and Matthew 18.
Title image photo credit: Photo by Paaz downloaded from unsplash.