Reoccurring trauma is much like getting the flu. You’ve had it before, you know how your body responds and how high your fever can get before you need medical attention. The cold sweats from the fever send your body into muscle memory. Suddenly you realize that in all this pain, your muscles have experienced this ache before. Your body has longed for relief from the pain, and your mind has wandered while lying in bed. Still, alone and afraid.
You have to remind yourself that this sickness, this ache will not last forever. Soon you will be able to eat more than chicken broth, and drink more than just water. Your body craves nutrients, yet cannot consume them due to the aches and pains.
I think often our hearts crave what is good, though we do not feel worthy of a good meal. The sickness in our souls has to be healed before we feel as if we are hungry for God’s love. His embrace, and his acceptance.
An encounter in his love is like a solid meal consumed in the moment that you are so famished you would give anything for just a taste off of his plate. Once the meal is finished, and your stomach is full, you have the strength to do tomorrow all over again. No matter the day’s events, if you can simply eat off of his plate, you will live.
There are different ways he feeds our souls, all important. All filling.
He is all satisfying. He knows when we need meat, and when we need only broth.
The phrase that the world made up about Jesus is this one:
” He will never give you more than you can handle.”
Let me confess something to you, I cannot handle my life. Like , I cannot even. But he can!
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
1 Corinthians 10:13
The truth of the matter is that as humans we CANNOT handle life’s troubles at all. Not even an ounce of our pain can be cradled into our arms alone, and hushed. Like an infant weeping for his mother only, he would not be satisfied by his nurse alone. He needs the comfort of his mother.
Can an infant feed himself? Bathe himself?
No.
The infant wants and relies on the one that gave him life.
Just as our bodies crave the one that created us. When we strive to fulfill how his love “feels” to our bodies, we can get in a world of trouble on our own.
When we play God’s role of comforting ourselves with anything other than Him, it can be in the end deadly to our souls.
We can try to have peace in our lives, or even try to create an environment in which we feel secure from life’s troubles, but in the end it’s all in vain. It’s false peace. False love. Always resulting in pain.
But when we hand him our trauma, he is always sure to lift us back up.
