Twilight Faith blog

This weekend, I attended a training seminar titled “His Presence in Crisis” through the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association of Canada (BGEAC) Rapid Response Team (RRT), hosted at Willingdon Church. It was simply amazing. I can see it having a huge impact on the rest of my life, and the reason I’m using the future tense is because the information was of such quantity and intensity that I’ve yet to process it all.

The seminar was on trauma and crisis, their many-faceted effects on the human psyche, the call for us to respond appropriately in love to grief and pain, and ministering and offering hope through faith in the midst of crisis. It would be, of course, impossible to share everything with you to the depth and breadth as I heard it, especially there were so many powerful stories and images which are beyond words. The main speaker, Dr. Jonathan Olford, is a clinical psychologist with amazing experiences and stories, both from his practice and from over 10 years as a missionary in Kenya/Africa, who is well-acquainted with the reality of trauma and grief. Below are some of the things that stood out in my memory as particularly significant or interesting.

• Suffering and pain are universal, making them the common language of humanity regardless of what language and words are used to describe them.
• Trauma shatters our basic beliefs about life and forces us to confront ambiguity and unanswerable questions. Memories of trauma are hard for people to “fit in” with other memories, and can spontaneously break into consciousness as flashbacks, or be repressed through numbing.
• There is the analogy of two identical tuning forks, one being a memory of the trauma (or any past event), and the other being a related event in the present. Sounding one tuning fork and standing both on a table will cause the second to resonate with the first, and the first to actually become louder (somehow I feel like this should violate the laws of physics?). Similarly, a flashback of past trauma can result from an event in the present, and this intensifies the present circumstances and causes what seems to be an emotional overreaction.
• If we are to deal with fragile people, we need to have good common sense, be reasonably predictable, have a capacity for genuine and accurate understanding, not insist that people make sense, not insist that people obey, be tolerant of ambiguity and moment-by-moment decision-making, and be Christlike.
• Every opportunity is unique: with some we will weep, with others we with laugh; with some we will share, with others we will say nothing; with some we will encourage, with others we will sympathize; with some we will be bold, with others we will be gentle… to all we bring Jesus.
• Many caring individuals fear coming into contact with the hurting for fear they may do further damage. This is possible. “If you ask for their story, recognize that you are asking for pearls! Don’t be a swine.” Be careful not to diminish their pain or circumstances.
• Unhelpful things:
  • “I know how you feel” (”Really? Tell me how I feel”)
  • “Be strong!” (How are they going to be strong? Why should they?)
  • “You have to get on with life” (How? Plus, they know, they haven’t completely forgotten)
  • “You can always get another…(pet, car, house, spouse)”
  • “The worst is over, it’ll be ok” (Says who? Give hope, but not false hope)
  • Not listening and saying things like, “this lady has lost two children” when she just told you she lost three
  • “Aren’t you over it yet?”
• The ministry of presence during crisis, of “being there” and being the ambassador of Christ, involves providing love, care and empathy, when God seems very far away. Speak to and take care of the issue of the moment — it may not be the most important to you or to them, but it is the most immediate! (I think it’s fairly obvious as well, if we’re pushing our own agenda with the front of caring for others.) We also need to be comfortable with silence, and confront our own anxious feelings about needing to say something.

Many of the things that were said resonated deeply with me, and judging from the sounds people around me were making, it resonated deeply with them too. After all, we all carry our own emotional scars and hurts. But I must always ask, “is this biblical or do I just like how it sounds?” The Gospels and Epistles don’t seem to model emotional counseling, rather, primarily doctrinal teaching and the meeting of physical needs. Why? Because faith should be enough comfort? Because written letters are different from face-to-face interaction? Because people back then already knew what it mean to live in community and bear each others’ burdens? Of course, day-to-day struggles are different from life-shattering, traumatic events, but I’m certain that all of these occur on a spectrum of physical suffering and emotional struggle, and not as distinctly different things. For a life-shattering, traumatic event, we can look at Job, and his response to losing everything and the “comfort” he received from his friends.

Teach me, and I will be quiet;
show me where I have been wrong
How painful are honest words!
But what do your arguments prove?
Do you mean to correct what I say,
and treat the words of a despairing man as wind?

Job 6:25-26

You, however, smear me with lies;
you are worthless physicians, all of you!
If only you would be altogether silent!
For you, that would be wisdom.

Job 13:4-5

“I have heard many things like these;
miserable comforters are you all!
Will your long-winded speeches never end?
What ails you that you keep on arguing?
I also could speak like you,
if you were in my place;
I could make fine speeches against you
and shake my head at you.
But my mouth would encourage you;
comfort from my lips would bring you relief.

Job 16:2-5

I gather that honesty and arguments which diminish the significance of others’ suffering is poor comfort, silence is better, and true comfort is even better. We are called to comfort each other with the same comfort we received from God — and this is not merely the hope of heavenly rest. Are we not also comforted to know that Christ is forever with us, that nothing can separate us from God’s love, that in heaven there is One who even now intercedes on our behalf, that on earth we have the Spirit who is our paraclete — intercessor, helper, friend, advocate, counselor? (Matthew 28:20, Romans 8:26-39, Job 16:19-21) Should we not be likewise to each other, since God is present also in us? It is far better to say “be strong, and I am here to help you” rather than just “be strong!” I think biblical comfort involves a kind of support, emotional and otherwise, that most people have to pay to receive today.

What of comforting non-believers? To them, there is no promise of divine help, but I am confident that if we love with the love of Christ, which defies all reason, such a love shines like stars through despair. Furthermore, our hope in sharing the gospel also compels us. Did Paul become a Jew to the Jews to win them by currying favor? Or rather, was the heart of becoming all things to all people to remove what unnecessary barriers he could to communicating the gospel and love of Christ (1 Cor 9:19-23)? While I was in Kenya, I learned that poverty is more than hunger and lack; it can produce a state of mind in which immediate survival dominates all other thoughts. How well, then, will such a person hear the gospel or words of blessing and encouragement? Is his poverty not an obstacle? What about the person who has never seen anything even remotely like the divine love we preach? How can he believe it exists? Certainly, the Spirit is always at work in the hearts of men though we are not perfect witnesses, but let us do what we can to clear the path. And this concludes my thoughts on the theology of comfort.

The second half of this post concerns a train of thought I began pursuing just days before the training seminar, and the amazing timing and grace of God in this.

The timing is amazing because the days prior, I began to spend a quite some amount of time reflecting on my own mental health (or lack thereof) and reading up on personality. I love asking the “why?” question when it comes to human psychology, including my own. I came across an answer which seemed satisfactory to me, but which prompted a far more desperate question, which I will explain later. First, it is necessary to say that a good deal of my present personality is the result of poor relationship experiences beginning in childhood, and the defensive mechanisms I apparently developed to cope with this fear of relationships, by becoming self-reliant and living in my own inner world. This, by the way, is the very first explanation I’ve ever heard that has actually made any sense to me, as it perfectly fits with everything I know about myself and also explains my puzzling idiosyncrasies, which most of the people I know have been victims of. Even if I explain my behavior now, I cannot and do not excuse myself, but my hope is that as you read, God may reveal and illuminate truths for you about this world, the condition of humanity, and even yourselves.

People generally know me to be very independent and not particularly sociable. I have known for a long time that I usually prefer to be alone, doing my own thing, but could never understand my abnormal aversion to social things. It never occurred to me that I might have created a world of my own within me, and that when I am tired, or stressed, or hurt, or anxious, I turn inwards to find rest and refuge. Then it would make sense that I have little interest in discussing everyday events, TV shows, fashion, peculiarly shaped clouds, and anything “fun” but personally insignificant. If I want to relax, I’ll do it alone. It explains why I care only for deep conversations and discussions of theology or psychology or the like. I know I give off an aura of indifference to most things, and it’s precisely because I am indifferent. It makes sense that things like having a messy room don’t bother me, since I barely even process what it looks like. And walking around alone at night doesn’t really scare me, not because I’m brave, but because my mind is barely even there. Some “advantages” are that I don’t get bored easily, since I always have my thoughts to occupy me. I can also eat the exact same thing for months, probably years, without getting sick of it — probably because I’m only somewhat paying attention to the food in the first place.

But not everything I found strange about myself was so light-hearted. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t form attachments to people, why I never missed them, why I avoided people even though I was lonely. I used to chalk it up to being shy and socially inept, but nothing changed even after I wasn’t anymore. But as I was researching and reading this time, I came across the answer. Oh, the feeling of suddenly understanding what you always knew but never knew! I understand it now to be this — that I have always wanted intimacy, but out of fear of the emotional dangers of close relationships, I keep my distance. I have known that I’m very sensitive to the emotions of people around me, so understandably close my heart when the emotions are negative like judgment or rejection, but it never occurred to me that positive emotions have almost the same effect. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to give what will be asked or expected of me on the emotional level, thus disappointing people and inviting tension. So whether people like me or hate me, I’d rather keep a safe distance. Oh, what defenses I erect to protect myself! I think there are no small number of people who have been hurt by my seeming lack of emotion and interest, the times I’ve spoken my thoughts carelessly, and the fact I do not turn to them for help. Once it was said to me, “it’s good that you’re independent, but I hope you can rely on us too”, and I failed miserably in my response, managing only a “mm, yeah”. I did not know how to explain that it was not mistrust which held me back, but rather that the concept of relying on others was alien to me — after all, I had spent my life protecting myself from others. My inner world has been my safe house, just as some find their refuge with friends and family.

Once I understood these things, I was in turmoil. I wrestled with God in much prayer and tears. How great are the sins hidden in the human heart! It was plain to me that God was not my refuge, for if He was then my life and very personality would be completely different. And yet, it was just as plain to me that none of this had been conscious, I having just made sense of it, and I never chose to experience what I had experienced, and when I did not know God, what choice did I have to protect myself? Even knowing Him now, could I change what had been so deeply ingrained in my unconscious reasoning? What can I do? It is a distressing thing to want to stop sinning but be unable! I am comforted by the words of Paul in Romans 7:21-25:

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Now all of this was in the back of my mind going into the training seminar. I learned many things, and have many things to think about, but the greatest personal impact has come from the permission it gave me to feel pain. Please rest assured this will not be a sob story. It sounds ridiculous to say I needed permission to feel and hurt, but I think it must be less obvious than we think — otherwise, we wouldn’t have to teach people that they must feel in order to heal, and that forgiveness must begin with the acknowledgment of the offense and the pain. I think it’s even more of an issue in the church, with all of our shoulds and should nots. I remember, years ago, I heard someone say, “a sad Christian is a poor Christian, and a depressed Christian is no Christian at all”. Thanks, I must not be a Christian then. I remember admonitions and rebukes, which gently left me feeling lost and confused about myself. They were disconcerting yes, but in hindsight they hurt too, because over time my guilt grew and grew until it dwarfed God’s grace and I said to myself, God is good, but His love was not meant for people like me. But by His grace, which abounds in faithfulness, He revealed to me His surpassingly great and patient love when I no longer believed in it — but that is a story for another day. But please, be careful what comes out of your mouth, because someone just might believe you.

With regards to feeling pain, I don’t think the importance of holding on to the great and precious promises of God in the midst of suffering makes pain or grief any less real. One is not compromised by the other, both are equally true (just as God is perfectly just and perfectly loving, they do not “balance” or compromise each other, but He is both at once). Now since suffering and pain are real, then people have the right to hurt, and there are no emotions that people “should not feel” (theatrics aside). But the future that awaits us is indeed so much greater as to be not worth comparing (Romans 8:18).

Before I continue, I digress to comment on the interesting phenomenon of “tears of joy”. It can be argued that no such thing actually exists. For example, at a wedding, why do some people cry? Is it really because they’re happy? Or is it because now that there’s finally a happy “ending”, they can at last let themselves remember all the struggles, barriers, anxieties, worries and fears that almost precluded the marriage? When family members are reunited after a disaster, do they cry happily, or do they cry in sheer relief and say, “I thought I would never see you again!” We are strange creatures, finding the freedom in happy conclusions to feel sad.

I look forward to heaven, when there will be nothing that causes us to fear, nothing that we must protect ourselves from, nothing which causes pain. On that day, my heart will surely be restored and made whole, and not even unconsciously shall I act out of fear. Thanks be to God who rescues us not only from the consequences of our sin, not only from slavery to sin, but also from the consequences of the sins of others in a fallen world, in which His love is our strength to not harden our hearts. If only my refuge was in God, so that I would no longer be a slave to fear! But God is able to do anything, and by His grace, I may see the beginning of His divine healing on this side of heaven.

Yet I think that perhaps I already seen it, when I think about the two months I spent in Kenya in 2008. This is also mainly a story for another day, but I always recall my time there with a measure of unbelief at the passion which consumed me. The physical and spiritual need was so apparent and so great, and it filled my heart with such compassion that I could see little else. My life in North America faded away, my heart was set on revealing the manifold implications and glories of the gospel of Christ to a “Christian” nation in whatever way I could, my mind was set on learning the language and understanding the thought and culture. Nothing else seemed to matter. By the grace of God, this compassion drew me out of myself, I could give my all, His work was my food and rest, there was no such thing as sacrifice… I was more alive than I have ever been. I think, for me, compassion might be the only thing that can open my heart to others, and it is the power of Christ to conquer the strongholds of fear in my heart.