The trauma-informed Gospel, Pt 4

Thus saith the Lord

Click here for the entire series, plus bonus supplemental posts.

The trauma-informed Gospel doesn’t look at you and see a person deficient or worthless or broken and try to sell you some Jesus in order to fix you. No, that’s what the serpent in the garden did: told Eve she was lacking and sold her a product to “fix” herself. Unfortunately, a lot of religion parading as Christianity thought that was a great idea and adopted it as their business model method of evangelism.

The Gospel sees YOU in your wholeness. Sees you in your fullness. Sees you flourishing in goodness, truth, beauty, health, power, wisdom, and freedom.

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The Gospel says “Hey!! You’re not THAT stuff – the stuff that’s been hurting you and hurting others through you and keeping you small and tormenting your family – nope, that’s absolutely not you! And you don’t have to believe that it is or behave like it is.

Come with me, I adore you. Let’s put those things to rights. Let’s shed old, faulty stories; let’s heal, let’s grow, let’s flourish. I’ve taken care of everything that that thinks it has an eternal claim on you, you are now free to learn and safe to rest and also to mess up.

It’s not always going to be easy, because learning to trust me will take time, and so will learning to respond differently when you’re triggered and your alarm bells are going off, or when your insecurities are feeling exposed. Relationships can be scary and life is hard, but as you grow in feeling secure in my love and my acceptance of you, you’ll begin to be able to also love and accept yourself without having to fix yourself in order to earn it first. You’ll be able to love and accept others without having to change them.

You’ll make mistakes, maybe even huge ones, and you’ll come to know that they don’t change the truth of who you are, but they’ll show you what inside you wants to be healed. You’ll see the value of the sacrifice of repairing relationships with people, whether you were in the wrong or they were in the wrong or both, but you’ll also learn that neither acceptance or forgiveness equal unconditional access between people. Boundaries are an act of love toward yourself and those around you, they’re even an act of love toward those you don’t like. You will always have unconditional access to me, however.

Your life isn’t going to become magically easy: there will be hard times and difficult situations, but know that they can’t have the final say. I won’t leave you when you’re hurting or angry or despairing. I will be there supporting and loving you. You’re going to learn how to feel, and how to release control. You’re going to learn how to experience joy without fear.

I can’t wait for you to realize how special and important you are to me, and how much I delight in making life work out for you.

Are you ready to begin? Let’s start with this: I. Love. YOU.”