Page 195 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 5

Trauma Recovery Training at a Seminary? Introducing Global Trauma Recovery Institute

Nazi concentration camps as a boy during the When things are going well we can have faith.
holocaust. So this is a man who lived through When we are suffering it is easy for faith to die.
genocide. Throughout his books he tells us not But faith is about believing in things we hope
to assume that it is a comfort to believe that for that are not here yet. Faith is about trusting
God is still alive. Rather than being the solu- that what we cannot yet see will become real
tion, saying God is alive merely states the pro- someday. Evil always wants to destroy faith. It
blem. He struggles again and again with what wants to swallow up hope. It says, “Look at the
he describes as two irreconcilable realities: the destruction I have brought; there is no good
reality of Auschwitz (a death camp) and the and there is no hope of good”. But remember,
reality of God. Each seems to cancel out the trauma brings helplessness and recovery brings
other, yet neither will disappear. He cannot choice. Do we choose life or death; evil or good;
find a way to put them both in his brain at the love or hate and faith or denial of God? Tho-
same time. Either alone could be managed you se things which are evil are the choice of death,
see – Auschwitz and no God, or God and no hatred and the denial of God. To choose such
Auschwitz. But together, how do you manage things is to look like the evil that tried to destroy
Auschwitz AND God? How do you hold geno- us.
cide and God; rape and God; violence and God? Faith in God is a struggle in ordinary life. Faith
I have only found one response to this difficult in God when we have seen tragedy and trau-
problem and that is the Cross of Jesus Christ, ma is a massive struggle. But it is a good fight
for it is there that trauma and God come tog- because it is a fight against those things that
ether. Christ has endured all fears, powerles- tried to destroy us and make us like themselves.
sness, helplessness, abuse, destruction, alienati- Rather than bearing the image of the evil that
on, silence, loss, and hell. He understands trau- was done to us we can choose to look to Jesus,
ma. He willingly entered into trauma for us. He who bears the scars of evil as well, but is also its
endured humiliation, betrayal, abandonment, conqueror and refused to bow while it did its
nakedness, aloneness, darkness, and the silence worst to him. God is alive and still reigns on his
of God, helplessness, shame, grief and the loss throne and he will indeed come someday and
of all things – including his life. He did that for make all things new. Our question is: what will
us. One, he endured trauma so that we would we do; how will we live while we wait?
know we have a God who understands. Listen
to this list and think about things you have ex- Diane Langberg, PhD
perienced – see if they are on this list: He bore is a psychologist whose
our grief; he carried our sorrow; He was hit, clinical expertise inclu-
full of pain; cut; crushed; beaten; He was taken des 40 years of working
away; He was removed from the living; He was with trauma survivors
despised and abandoned. God was silent. Have and clergy. She is the
you felt some of these things? Have they been director of Diane Lang-
part of your life too? When you speak with him; berg, Ph.D. & Asso-
remember that he knows. ciates and speaks inter-
Two, he did so that he might conquer all things nationally on trauma,
evil: death, sickness, rage, betrayal, evil and dar- ministry and the Chri-
kness. He has promised to make all things new. stian life. Dr. Langberg
Why he allows these things now I do not know. is clinical faculty of Bi-
Why we must wait for those promises to be ful- blical Theological Se-
filled I do not know. But I do know who he is minary and core facul-
because of how he lived and died and if he can ty with the seminary’s
conquer death and hell then I will struggle to Global Trauma Recove-
have faith that he will finish that job someday. ry Institute. Her books
Suffering and faith are difficult to hold together, and many other resour-
aren’t they? One without the other we can do. ces can be found at
dianelangberg.com

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