Spiritual Trauma
Close to 15 years ago, I started my work as a therapist in a little tiny office at Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support. I was a baby in the field and beyond my good intentions and instincts, I didn’t have much to go on as I began to meet with my first clients.
At the same time, I was heavily involved in my church and had recently graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary with my Masters in Counseling. I was inundated with the lingo, knew all the right answers that would satisfy the powers that be, and was deeply engrained in social circles that essentially revolved around this particular group of people. We were trying to live like Jesus and do as our church leaders were instructing us according to “the Way” …or so I thought. And yet, this very peculiar thing began to happen.
I watched as my group of fellow therapists at Genesis, many of whom claimed no religion at all, were essentially living this very same way…and doing it much better than the Christians were. They loved and were safe and accepted people for exactly who they were and exactly where they were. There was no pretense, no hidden lingo or vernacular double-checking happening, no jockeying for position of who knew more or was better or less sinful or (let’s face it) knew more powerful people. And all the sudden this group, rather than the church group, began to feel like the people that were actually living the way I believed and had been taught we should be living.
Conundrum.
Fast forward some years and it is time for me to come out of the proverbial closet. It will come as a shock to exactly no one that the people who loved and celebrated me were those therapist friends and the ones who turned their backs…the Christians. For so many people just like me, a story like mine or similar to it has been the source of great confusion, pain, and lament. If a place/group/community that my whole worldview has been based off of rejects me for who I am and who I love, what does that mean about me? About the world? About God?
Throughout this period, a source of incredible comfort was the late Rachel Held Evans. Her words and ideas were a balm to my hurt and scared heart. Consider:
“Imagine if every church became a place where everyone is safe, but no one is comfortable. Imagine if every church became a place where we told one another the truth. We might just create sanctuary.”
What if churches were places where we were all safe to be our unique and human selves? What if the goal was to create a shared space of communion rather than a power dynamic held by the few over the many? Rachel created space for me to consider that maybe it wasn’t me who was wrong. Maybe God loved me exactly as I am because God MADE me exactly as I am. In fact, maybe it wasn’t God at all that I was feeling rejected by, but rather a group claiming to speak for God all the while peddling a message of hate.
Spiritual trauma can feel incredibly disorienting because it destabilizes the foundation upon which an entire worldview is built. It also begins to confuse the actual belief system of someone’s faith with the messages and behaviors of the other humans associated with that belief system, something wholly different than a response from God. In high control religious groups/churches/systems, the dogma of those institutions begins to feel synonymous with the higher power itself. Let’s be clear: they are not the same. What a 35-year-old man with all his biases is preaching from a stage is not the same as the way your Creator feels about you. Just because he is speaking from a stage does not mean he is speaking for God.
For so many with a story similar to mine, this rejection can act as a repellent from all things faith-related, including a connection to the faith itself. It is such a profound loss. It is too painful to go to a church building, it is triggering to hear the music, the lingo and language feels disingenuous on your tongue, and you are left with no way to know how to approach or engage your faith or God. Disorienting. Scary. Painful.
And yet, there is a whole community of people who have had this very same experience. We can begin to heal by healing together. Read the books. Listen to the podcasts. Come to therapy. There is hope and healing and we will only achieve it by taking that brave first step forward. There is more to say on this topic, but enough for today. I will leave you with further words from Saint Rachel:
“Grieve what you have lost. Rage against the injustice you see around you. Laugh deeply with your new friends. And hope! Hope! Even though it’s risky. Even though there’s a good chance you’re going to be disappointed again.” – Rachel Held Evans
Until we see you,
Jessica & The Haven Team
To hear more from Jessica on this topic, you can listen here: Radical Sacred Podcast
