Four Quarters: Victory over Trauma
Trauma, Trauma, Trauma!
Defined as a deeply distressing or disturbing experience, we have all experienced its life altering affects. Whether it was a sexual assault, physical abuse, mental abuse, or something else, none of us have be exempt from its reality.
At the age of, well that doesn’t really matter, I can immediately recall events from my childhood and even since becoming an adult. Some were a result of poor decision making and disobedience, and then there were times I was the victim of others poor decisions.
Yes, victim! And No, it is not a dirty word.
Use it to describe what happened to you and not to define who you are.
Your healing depends on your ability to separate the quarters in your life that are centered around traumatic events.
The first quarter is pre-trauma. It is the life you had before you were victimized. Many of you might say you had a great life and the rest of you think your whole life was just a crap chute and this was just the crown that made it royalty. If the latter is you, I am sorry and I am hoping that your life has improved since its beginning.
The second quarter, oh no, here comes trauma! You have been blindsided by this terrible experience that is now your filter for all things in your life.
Unfortunately, that filter remains in the third quarter. You survived, but that is all you are doing. Anger & anxiety is at an all time high in your life. You feel sorry for yourself and expect everyone else too feel the same.
Trust is no longer an option. After all, you trusted your assailant and look what they did. They abandoned you, rejected you, molested you, cheated on you, raped you, abused you emotionally, mentally, financially and physically. Some of you experienced loss in the form of death, job termination or sickness.
Whew, that is heavy! Yes, trauma is heavy.
But listen my friend, I want you to get to the other side. This is what I call the fourth quarter of trauma. Your arrival here means that you are ready to end the attachment to the trauma of the second quarter. It will require a few things from you.
The first, survival. Congratulations, you did it, you survived.
Second, accept what has happened to you and be willing to do the work to process and press through it. You can only get better if you refuse to not get bitter.
Third, forgive, forgive, forgive! End of discussion…
And finally, accept the things you cannot change but have the courage to change the things that you can. What happened to you cannot be undone or changed. However, you can change your thoughts and therefore change your life.
If you continue to hold onto what happened in your past, you will be unable to fully grasp what God has in your future.
If you are struggling to overcome trauma, let me coach you through it! You can become stuck by yourself, but getting unstuck might require the helping hand of another.
Life is short, live it free of your past traumas!
Let Us Pray is a must have in your library. It is a simplistic but yet thorough look at prayer and it’s power in the life of every believer. This is a great tool to initiate a love relationship with the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.