Vulnerability and intimacy is often the biggest ache, the human need, the natural desire to be known, how deeply misconstrued this place of hope to be fulfilled can become.

Anyone we knew that came into our lives from a place of “love” resulted in bitter discontent, painful disdain and a betrayal that disrupted and tore the fabric of our entire being.

Trauma enters the picture.

What is trauma? Definitely with the reputation of having that buzzworthy tone and meaning. Most certainly has it become that hacky sack word of being kicked around back and forth in conversations and became a blanket statement.

Trauma is ultimately the warning sign, the signal flare, the alarm bell that there has been a cataclysmic shift, something that resounds and echoes in the fiber of our being, the splinter in our brain: “Somethings wrong.”

It’s an unnatural shift, it’s a knowing, a realization, an understanding from the soul to the self; the ability to self diagnose that something has happened as an assault against our identity, our being, something has been forced upon us, something has changed…and not for the better.

Trauma has no barometer for the person. it can seem minute or extreme by comparison but comparison need not be made. Truthfully there is no measuring stick for what is considered “the worst” from one human being to another.

But oh when it hits. There is even the temptation to resent what we now bitterly look down upon as, when we were “naive” our past becomes glorified in the tone of regret “If I had only known better” as if we could somehow scold our past selves for not realizing how good we had it.

Trauma ends up having dates, anniversaries for a reason. Who we were and who we were forced to be after. We remember those glory days. We remember the way it felt to have a life without “it”. We remember when it felt simple. As in some things “sucked” but it wasn’t “this bad.” “Those were the days.”

Trauma is an unwelcome entity. A real sign and a truth that something happened that never should have and it changed us.

The war we never asked for.

But there is hope.

No, we will never be the same.

There is no going back.

There is no returning to a location obliterated by the bomb that went off.

That version of us doesn’t live in our present now. We are changed. It’s okay to grieve it. It’s okay to mourn. It’s okay, not to be okay.

But the truth is, trauma is not the point of no return that means we have been given a death sentence into a life of permanent ruins.

Does it change us, absolutely. Does it end us? It doesn’t have to.

In fact, as unpopular or as abhorrent as it may seem; trauma can actually be used in our favor; work in our lives a teacher.

In all honesty it can feel like an anchor pulling us under the torrential current that promises to drown, to consume.

But it doesn’t have to be.

Maybe it only feels insurmountable because you were never told how strong Christ could enable you to be.

Maybe it seems like an ending because you didn’t realize it could actually be a beginning?

Maybe it felt like your world was ruined but it actually opened your eyes to the truth that life isn’t over till its’ over.

Maybe it wasn’t the death sentence, but a soul awakening?

No trauma is welcome or acceptable. But once it arrives as the unwelcome visitor that it is, is it possible to master it, overcome it, heal and learn from?

To become victorious beyond victimhood?

No one asks for it but when it arrives? There is a battle plan. A way out.

So did closeness come at a cost? Yes.

People are capable of failure.

People come and go.

But closeness with Christ. Closeness to a God that never lets you down? Closeness came at cost but to come close to Him? There’s a promise. “Draw near to me and I will draw near to you.”

The God of the universe is willing to be there.

Is there hope? Absolutely.