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Dealing with tragedy and trauma
When a terrible tragedy or
prolonged suffering occurs in our lives, or to those around us, we all go
through a lot of questioning, grieving and trying to understand this terrible
situation. The issues and needs that are brought to the surface by a tragedy are
far-reaching and can dredge up old hurts and traumas that were not adequately
dealt with in our past history. These fragments of old memories then can mix
together with fragments of new memories, cause confusion and inability of cope,
depression and a whole range of emotional problems. Sometimes it is only
with the help of a professional christian grief-cousellor and a long period of
therapy sessions that all these problems can be dealt with adequately, and the
healing process can begin. But there are also things that we can do to
cooperate with God in our own healing process.
The main thing to keep in mind is
that God allowed this to happen , for reasons only He really knows. If we
can focus in this perspective, it will help us to keep from despairing, as if
the world is out of control and we are all helpless victims waiting for the ship
to sink. So let's take a look at some things to keep in mind when we are faced
with an otherwise overwhelming tragedy...
GOD ALLOWED THIS
TO HAPPEN
For some scriptural
insight on this matter, we can investigate what happened in the life of Job.
If you look in the first chapter
of Job, God is bragging on Job before all the assembled "sons of God" including
Satan, who apparently gets to sit in on these
meetings....
Job 1:8 (TLB)
Then the Lord asked Satan, "Have you noticed my servant
Job?
He is the finest man in all the
earth--
a good man who fears God
and will have nothing to do with evil."
At this point, Satan begins to bring hypothetical accusations
against Job, and desires to have evil things happen to Him, so that Job's
character will be defaced. Notice here, that God, in His wisdom and
for His Own Purposes, allows Satan to do certain of these
things to Job that he desired to do. Among the possible reasons God allows these
things to happen to Job are to verify Job's character, help Job to deepen
his faith, to force him to reconsider his priorities of life, and to help Job to
know God in a personal way instead of just a shallow or religious way.
But even though God allows these things into Job's life to test
him, The Lord sets limits on Satan as to how far he can
go to bring evil into Job's life. It is here that we may replace
our own name in the story of Job. For as bad as it may seem at first, it is
the ultimate character and the presence of Christ in each one of us, that is
being "verifed" by tragedies and times of suffering. As Paul has
written,
1 Cor 10:13
(KJV)
There hath no
temptation(time of testing) taken you but such as is common to man:
but God is faithful,
who will not allow you to be
tempted above that ye are able;
but will with the temptation also
make a way to escape,
that ye may be able to bear
it.
And so we must understand that things that happen to us don't
happen in a vacuum, in an an out-of-control universe, willy-nilly, completely by
accident, unsupervised, with no-one to care or stop them...
GOD IS ALWAYS
IN CONTROL!!!
WE MUST ALWAYS SEE THE LARGER
PICTURE
We may not like what is happening, it may be hurtful, harmful,
traumatic, disgusting, tragic, destructive...all these things and more, but God
always puts a limit on them, and has a purpose for allowing them to happen. And
that purpose always is that ultimately as we go through the trauma and learn how
to deal with it, we will come out the other side stronger and more Christ-like,
having a new desire for purity and Godliness, and having new equipment to
minister to the needs of others who are going through the same
problems.
2 Cor 1:3-5 (TLB)
{3}
What a wonderful God we have--
He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
source of every mercy,
{4}
and the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us
in our
hardships and trials.
And
why does he do this?
So
that when others are troubled,
needing our sympathy and
encouragement,
we can pass on to them this same help and comfort
God has given us.
{5}
You can be sure that the more we undergo sufferings for Christ,
the
more he will shower us with his comfort and encouragement.
WE ARE REQUIRED TO ENDURE
IT
Let me emphasize for a moment, the statement I just made ,
"as we go through the
trauma and learn how to deal with it".
Unfortunately, as with any
traumatic experience, we have to go through it. Since it is God's
will that allowed this to happen to us in the first place, and God designed
and limited the testing for His own purposes, we have to experience it and to feel the pain,
to have our lives and our minds scrambled...we have to cry, pray, ask why, get
angry, feel abused, feel confused, experience loss and lostness...lose sleep,
feel like the heavens are as brass, mistakenly feel that God has abandoned us or
doesn't care about us, or that we could have done more, or "if only I had
done such and such", or "I am inadequate", and a million possible other feelings
and terrors might go through our minds during times like this. And all this with
the ultimate goal that we will be purified like gold is purified, in the fires
that will burn away that which is impure and meaningless, so that the brightness
of Christ will glisten in us that much more
brightly.
Job 23:10
(KJV)
But God knoweth the way that
I take:
when he hath tried me,
I shall come forth as
gold.
It is this harsh refining process that ultimately
creates new riches in our lives, by tearing away the veneer of human
self-confidence, worldliness, pride, secret unconfessed sins, arrogance,
complacency, misdirected life-goals, materialism, all of which our flesh enjoys.
These habits and attitudes tend to accumulate secretly and un-noticed in our
hearts when everything is going well. But God hates all of them and wants to
remove them from our lives, because they are obscuring the inner light of Christ
from shining through our lives to those around us.
God wants us to recognize how much these things obscure the life of
Christ within us. He wants us to crumble into a heap of self-abhorance, one of
complete dependence on the mercy and grace of God. He wants us to realize
that inside each one of us is the ability to commit any disgusting sin that
we abhor in others, that it is true that when we point a finger at someone else,
3 fingers are pointing back at ourselves. But always remember, one finger
is still left in this example, to point up to God, the way of escape, the refuge
from sin and the source of all holiness.
As it is recorded in Job, after all the suffering and
self-examination that Job went through, he finally turns to God and
admits...
Job 42:1-6
(KJV)
Then Job answered the LORD, and
said,
{2} I know that thou
canst do every thing,
and that no
thought can be withholden from thee.
{3} Who is he
that hideth counsel without knowledge?
therefore have I uttered
that which I understood not;
things too wonderful for me, which
I knew not.
{4} Hear, I beseech thee,
and I will speak:
I will demand of thee, and declare
thou unto me.
{5} I have heard of thee by
the hearing of the ear:
but now mine eye seeth
thee.
{6} Wherefore I abhor
myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
Job confesses that the
experience of God that he had previously, was superficial...even though it was
enough for God to proclaim him as "a good man who fears God and will have
nothing to do with evil". After going through all the trauma and suffering and
pain, he describes his former spiritual experience as if he only
had second-hand knowledge about God before. His was a superficial
experience, one based on the teachings and testimonies of others. But now his
experinece of God is real, as if face to face, person to person.
And now his estimation of
his own self has also changed...he sees the Holiness and Omnipotence of God, and
his own loathesome sinfulness by comparison. Much like Isaiah's experience, when
he was confronted with the Holiness of God..
Isa 6:1-5 (TLB)
{1}The year King Uzziah died I saw the
Lord!
He was sitting on a lofty throne,
and the Temple was filled with his
glory.
{2} Hovering about him were
mighty, six-winged angels of fire.
With two of their wings they covered
their faces
with two others they covered their
feet,
and with two they flew.
{3} In a great antiphonal chorus
they sang,
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the
whole earth is filled with his glory."
{4} Such singing it was! It
shook the Temple to its foundations,
and suddenly the entire sanctuary
was filled with smoke.
{5} Then I said, "My doom is
sealed,
for I am a foul-mouthed sinner,
a member of a sinful, foul-mouthed
race;
and I have looked upon the King,
the Lord of heaven's
armies."
WHAT DO WE DO IN THE
MEANTIME
First of all, don't blame, criticise, accuse,
other people, or even ourselves. Realize that just because bad things are
happening to you or a loved one, it may NOT mean that there is some sin lurking
in the person's life who is undergoing
suffering. As in the story of
Job, his so-called friends, rather than actually comforting him, end up accusing
him of some hidden sin or flaw that brought on his suffering. The fact that
God disapproved of these false accusations was clearly shown as God admonished
them for their lack of understanding and compassion with these words:
Job 42:7
(KJV)
And it was so, that
after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job,
the LORD said to Eliphaz the
Temanite(one of the false accusers),
My wrath is kindled against thee,
and against thy two friends:
for ye have not spoken of me
the thing that is right,
as my servant Job
hath.
Rather view a time of tragedy or suffering as a
"wake-up call" for yourself, and for all of those involved. Even though we
may have been growing in prosperity or worldly maturity, God may be calling us
to start growing inwardly, spiritually, in dimensions of holiness, committment
and service. Oftentimes, the means of this growth is the pathway of
suffering.
Job 1:20-22 (TLB)
{20}Then Job stood
up and tore his robe in grief
and fell down upon
the ground before God.
{21} "I came
naked from my mother's womb," he said,
"and I shall have
nothing when I die.
The Lord gave me
everything I had,
and they were his
to take away.
Blessed be the name
of the Lord."
{22} In all
of this Job did not sin or revile God.
ALLOW YOURSELF
TO GRIEVE
Job's first response was to cry
out in grief, but then to immediately fall down on the ground in worship, and
focus his attention on God. He took an attitude of submission to the
sovereign will of God. He sat in silence for 7 days, saying nothing, meditating
and rehearsing all the traumatic events that had just befallen him. I suggest
that in the midst of a traumatic experience or tragedy, we must focus our
attention as never before on the Person of God...in repentence, and humble
submission, seeking a new relationship of closeness to Jesus Christ, calling out
to Him for mercy.
TALK IT OUT
Therefore I will not
refrain my mouth;
I will speak in the
anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in
the bitterness of my soul.
Job 7:11 (KJV)
Job's next set of responses was
to talk and reminisce within a circle of his trusted friends his
feelings, doubts, loss, sadness. Even though his friends didnt really "get it",
and they accused him falsely of sins he never committed, He talked over
everything. He complained about everything, cursed his own existence, and his
own troubles. He expressed all the deep despair and hopelessness that was in his
heart...verse after verse, chapter upon chapter...putting into words all the
pain and anguish that was inside his own heart...not hiding it or bottling it
up. He put it into words and sentences his pain and grief, where he could
look at them and ventilate them, where others could share in the pain
of his trauma.
Here is another suggestion
to anyone affected by a terrible tragedy...seek out a trusted friend or a
very few friends, or cousellors at church or other professionals, and ventilate
all your pent up pain, frustration, anger...all of it. Or go to a private place
and talk outloud and verbally to God. Try to concentrate on your own reaction to
all of this rather than on the tragedy itself. You cannot find any verse in all
of the Book of Job where Job says, "O, my little children, killed by a mighty
wind from God", or any other
reference to the actual losses he suffered, but everything was a ventilation of
his own emotional response to it, good and bad; because that is apparently where
the real injury lies, in the thoughts and doubts and responses of the heart to a
tragedy. And apparently that is where the healing lies also, and not in
concentrating on or remembering the traumatic event itself, but in dealing with
the response that you had to it.
RE-FOCUS YOUR ATTENTION ON THE
SOVEREIGNTY AND GOODNESS OF GOD
Eventually Job got back to
focussing on God, and recognizing the sovereignty of God from His creation and
His goodness. It is then that the real healing and re- ordering of his life took
place. Having talked to himself, his friends, and his wife, he eventually got to
talking TO God, not just ABOUT God. It is this place that God wants us to
arrive...face to face with God, in submission and worship.
Exo 33:11 (KJV) And the LORD spake
unto Moses face to face,
as a man speaketh
unto his friend.
Judg 6:22 (KJV) And when Gideon perceived that
he was an angel of the LORD, Gideon said,
Alas, O Lord GOD!
for because I have seen an angel
of the LORD face to face. 1 Cor 13:12 (KJV)
For now we see
through a glass, darkly;
but then face to
face:
now I know in
part;
but then
shall I know even as also I am known.
May you never have to go through a deep spirit-wrenching tragedy.
But if you must, may your focus be on the Living God who who
gives this gracious invitation by Jesus Christ to all those
who suffer tragedies or are worn out by the circumstances of life:
Mat 11:28-29
(KJV)
Come unto me,
all ye that labour and are
heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
{29} Take my yoke upon you,
and learn of me;
for I am meek and lowly in
heart:
and ye shall find rest unto your
souls.
In Christ....brother bob......<><
IXTHEUS CHRISTIAN GROWTH
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- [nazerene] *Dealing with tragedy and trauma ixtheus
- [nazerene] *Dealing with tragedy and traum... Brother Bob...<><
- [nazerene] *Dealing with tragedy and traum... Brother Bob...<><
- [nazerene] *Dealing with tragedy and traum... Brother Bob...<><
- [nazerene] *Dealing with tragedy and traum... Brother Bob...<><
