Think of a time you heard someone’s story of abuse, neglect, or loss that was more severe than anything you have experienced. Typical reactions are shock, sorrow, and a desire to provide care and justice that counterbalances the hurt that person experienced. Also, you likely felt an appropriate helplessness. What can I possibly do to make this better? Where do I even begin?
As it turns out, the first step of caring for the hurting does not start with their story but yours. In short, you must first receive God’s care for your wounds if you are to care well for the wounds of others.
The apostle Paul writes about this order in 2 Corinthians 1:4. God “comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” The call to care well for others is not a call to pronounce information about comfort but to share the comfort we have received. Paul models this in the following verses as he describes “the affliction we experienced in Asia” in which “we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.” Paul speaks truthfully and honestly about his affliction and the impact it made on him and his fellow workers. He also relays the outcome of this trial spiritually: “But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”
Counselors often speak of “processing” our emotions around grief or pain. If you think about materials we extract from the land, we refer to crude oil versus refined oil or unprocessed ore versus processed ore. In their raw forms, these cannot be used for good. They must go through a process.
Our emotions must also be processed when we have painful relationships or events in our past. When someone sobs at a funeral or screams when a spouse confesses infidelity, these are raw emotions. They are appropriate responses. Depending on the severity of the trauma, the emotions may remain raw for a season. But in this raw state the person is not in a place to be a source of help to others.
Often we neglect these emotions rather than facing what caused them. We believe that “time heals all wounds” and move on with life without processing what we have experienced. This may help us survive and function, but it can become a roadblock to caring well for others. When another person discloses a painful experience or a difficult situation, it may crack open the door to the closet where we have locked up our unprocessed emotions. If we are not able to sit with someone in their sadness (because we have not dealt with our own sadness) or listen as someone vents their anger (because we have unprocessed anger) we can stymie that person’s healing process.
So as you consider what it means to care well for others, bring this question to God in prayer: Do I have experiences of abuse, neglect, or loss that I have not processed? For Rachael and me, some patterns that have highlighted unprocessed emotions are feeling a visceral outrage when a child shows disrespect, feeling the shame of failure for allowing a check to bounce, feeling the need to be the best student in the class, or feeling an inward retreat when another raises his or her voice.
These events begin our journey back to unprocessed emotions. There is no precise roadmap for this journey, but here are some signposts that we can follow:
(1) Name your present emotions
(2) Trace them back to earlier events that elicited similar responses
(3) Tell the truth about those events
(4) Feel the emotions associated with those past events
(5) Share your pain with God and others
This is a difficult road to travel. We are often tempted to minimize the severity of what happened, excuse the way others have acted against us, and undervalue how deeply we have been impacted. This is why, while much of this work begins in our prayer time or journaling, it is necessary to have a counselor or pastor or wise friend to help us process these emotions. We also need this outside perspective to help us identify survival strategies, coping mechanisms, and underlying assumptions that run our lives without us knowing it.
When we allow ourselves to “go there” and process those painful emotions with the aid of others, we find our own healing intertwined with the healing God is doing in those we serve. All of this healing comes from Jesus, the “man of sorrows…acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). He set this course of engaging the anguish of broken lives and it is our privilege to follow him down this path. Take the first step and ask God to identify the healing he wants to do in your life so that you can be an agent of healing in the lives of others.
Excellent post. Thank you. Such sorely needed information to help the body of Christ come together and care for each other and for each of us to first care for our selves by honestly confronting our emotions. “Behold You desire truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.” (Ps 51)
Thank you for being a shepherd.
Thank you for your encouragement!