Trauma.
This word is used a lot in the mental health world.
I hear and see how trauma has left devastating marks on people. It’s truly heartbreaking.
Today as I was reading, a new thought hit my mind.
Jesus endured trauma.
Jesus was mocked, beaten and murdered.
His loved ones had to watch it all happen, helplessly and hopelessly.
His death was humiliating and excruciating.
The Bible might not use the word “trauma”, but in every way, shape and form, Jesus experienced trauma.
I know some of you have experienced things that are horrible, and hard to even speak of.
Things that other people simply don’t understand or can feel the magnitude of.
But Jesus does.
Because He experienced trauma, too.
All of it.
He chose to take it on so that we would never have to walk through our own trauma alone.
He is the most powerful entity to ever exist. But He made Himself vulnerable to the greatest pain ever, so that He could relate to our humanness.
So that we could never be at a low so low that He hadn’t experienced it, too.
So that we could truly have someone who always understood our pain, because He lived it.
It’s mind blowing, really.
If I’m honest, sometimes I skip over, or “coincidentally” stop reading His word before I get to the part where He dies on the cross... because it’s so heavy.
But I read it today and I realized I don’t like to think about Jesus enduring that pain because I love Him, and He didn’t deserve it.
I also don’t like it because I know it was done for me. And you.
All that trauma? It was for us.
If I stop reading before His crucification, I also miss the part where He defeats death and has victory.
You know... the part where He raises from the dead and then ascends to heaven for eternity? It’s good stuff.
He is in our trauma with us. There is no question about it.
But He also wants to bring us into His victory with Him.
That’s what the cross is, friends.
The place where trauma, pain and agony collide with the God of victory and hope.
He is with us in both the trauma and the victory.
It’s amazing to serve a God who understands pain in a deeper way than we ever could, yet also conquered it.. for us.
So that someday, when we go home, we will never have to feel an ounce of trauma again.
~Kelli Bachara, The Unraveling Blog