Nobody wakes up one morning and says, “Today I think I’ll mess up my life and the lives of those I care about, cut myself off from goodness, and live a life I’ll deeply regret later.” But that’s exactly what we often do. You didn’t decide to have issues; you came to be where you are from somewhere. That somewhere matters. You didn’t choose your trauma, but you can choose your healing.

God knows your story. “The Lord records as he registers the peoples, “This one was born there”” (Psalm 87:6). He understands the family of origin you grew up in, the environment that shaped you, the soul nourishment you received (or not), the little and big traumas you survived, the open wounds or healed scars you carry.

Yes, God knows. But do you know?

As Hagar was running from the abuse Sarai was dishing out, God met her and asked, “where have you come from and where are you going?” (Genesis 16:8)

I believe God would ask you the same thing. Where have you come from? Have you adequately addressed the “stuff” you’ve experienced, the lies you’ve come to believe, the wounds you’ve accumulated, and the empty places still unfilled in your soul?

And where are you going? Is the trajectory you’re on right now one that will lead to increasing wholeness, integration, and being like Jesus? That does not happen just by trying harder; it comes through dealing with the deeper matters of the heart.

If what you’ve been doing isn’t working, it’s time to get curious and look deeper. It may be your unfinished business that’s affecting your spiritual formation.

Trauma and Spiritual Formation

There are plenty of Bible stories about trauma and how it affected people and their relationship with God. Joseph was sold into slavery. Moses was born to a people in slavery. David was a hunted man for years. Bathsheba was raped and widowed. Jeremiah was wrongly imprisoned. They had big questions. They were shaped by those traumas.

But note that God took each of those stories of trauma and miraculously brought good out of it – for both the individual involved, and for many others. Joseph’s betrayal by his brothers resulted in him becoming prime minister of Egypt – and saving his whole family line. Moses’ heritage of slavery was the fuel God needed to use him in delivering Israel from Egypt. The years David was running from Saul formed him into the king he became. Bathsheba subsequently became queen mother of Solomon and an ancestor of Jesus. And Jeremiah’s ministry even in prison became pivotal to God’s people then and still is to us today.

This is no spiritual bypass. This is not saying, “It’s no big deal; pray and God will fix it.” There’s plenty of evil in our world, and God grieves with each one who is traumatized as a result. But His miraculous power takes even, perhaps especially, our trauma and turns it into meaning and value. That process is often long and hard, but it becomes priceless.

Your very trauma can become the keystone to your next step in spiritual formation.

What do You do Next?

You didn’t choose your trauma. What happened to you wasn’t your fault. And in addition you may also be experiencing the results of the unhealthy choices you made on your own. But regardless of where you came from, dealing with it now is your responsibility. That may not be fair! You may have been deeply harmed. But what you do about it now is up to you.

Someone asked me this week, “I’ve done some dedicated work to heal from the trauma I experienced. But are you ever done? How do you know if you’re finished?”

I responded with what I would say to you now. Whatever work you have already done, the healing and growth you’ve experienced, is real. Be grateful! And, if there are places in you that feel undone, old stuff that keeps triggering you, behavior patterns you struggle to get out of, there’s more goodness yet for you to embrace. Your very wrestling with the question is almost certainly the Holy Spirit pulling on your heart and saying, “It’s time for another round of healing and growth.”

God is extremely patient. The fact that you aren’t “done” yet is no problem for Him at all. It takes as long as it takes. But He’s also relentless. The Hound of Heaven. He will keep inviting you to another level of becoming, a deeper dimension of healing, a more integrated measure of transformation into the likeness of Jesus.

Healing of Trauma in Spiritual Formation

If you’re still reading this, there’s a good chance God is inviting you into another level of healing and transformation. How do you do that?

You cannot heal yourself. But you can – and must – choose healing. You choose to keep putting yourself in places where Jesus shows up so He can do His work in you. And when He brings something into the light and says, “Let’s deal with this,” you say “Yes.”

To get one step more granular, this almost always looks like:

• Being honest with yourself. Looking under the surface. Choosing to “go there,” to deal with what you don’t want to deal with.
• Letting someone else see you, really and truly letting the walls down.
• Bringing Jesus into the middle of it. No spiritual Band-Aids, no rushing past the hard stuff, but laying it all open before Him and letting Him do His. work.

Bringing the hard stuff into the light disinfects the shame. Experiencing someone else truly seeing you and not leaving the room – that begins to heal the pathways in your brain. And bringing Jesus into the middle of it – well, everything changes when Jesus shows up.

And things will change in your story too when He shows up there.

But He usually doesn’t come unbidden. You must open the door.

A Place of Transformation

That’s exactly what you experience when coming to one of our small-group Intensives at Transformation Place.

If you’ve got some “stuff” that keeps messing with your relationships, your heart, your peace, this just might be the step Jesus would have you take to experience more freedom, healing, and transformation than you might believe is even possible.

Your Turn: Can you see how unfinished “stuff” is keeping you from the healing and spiritual formation you truly desire? What piece are you struggling to find resolution for?  Leave a comment below.

Want more? This week’s podcast begins a regular monthly feature where my partners in ministry Zion and Avery Montgomery and I unpack various core aspects in the transformation process. Listen or watch.

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• You didn’t wake up one day and decide to have issues. You didn’t choose your trauma. But now dealing with those issues is your responsibility. Trauma – little or big – is always a factor in our spiritual formation. It’s time to deal with it. Tweet that.