Trauma Aware: A Christian’s Guide to Providing Help

Trauma Aware: A Christian’s Guide to Providing Help and Care
I recently sent off a text to my kids. It was entitled, “Trauma I’ve suffered in the last four years.” That text was largely due to my reading of this wonderful book and finally deciding to face facts. More about that in a moment.

Who is Eliza Huie, the author of this book? Well, first, Eliza is my friend. Of course, that does not necessarily qualify her to help you learn about becoming trauma aware and informed. But it should tell you that she is a sister in Christ whom I respect and am thankful for. She has dedicated her life to helping those who need a wise, professional, careful, kind, and most of all, Jesus-loving counselor. And, while doing so has been the motivating joy of her life, it has not come cheaply. Aside from the cost of her extensive training, she has chosen to follow sufferers into the fire as they face and wrestle through the trauma they have endured. Why should she expose herself to the horrors faced by others? Because she loves.

In Eliza’s ministry to the hurting, she believes it is right to approach each individual as an embodied soul. That means that any form of counseling that looks solely to address the soul (though important) while ignoring the body is often both futile and uncharitable. It is futile because it ignores the ways in which the soul and the body unconsciously and unceasingly interact and influence each other. Yes, I am a soul. But I am also embodied, or as Paul put it, I am “clothed” with an earthly “tent” (2 Corinthians 5:1-4).

I do not simply have a body. I am a body. And the circumstances that I experience I experience as both an immaterial soul (mind, will, emotions) and as a physical body with a brain that processes, encodes, and remembers events. Those who ignore the interplay between the whole self (soul and body), while trying to be helpful, will ultimately struggle to bring wholeness to the very people they seek to serve. We are reactive bodies.

In addition, I do not simply have a soul. I am a soul. Any method of help that fails to see that there is an immaterial, spiritual dimension to who I am will also fail to bring the wholeness I need. As an embodied soul, I need the living water that comes only from Jesus Christ as he pours out his Holy Spirit upon me (see John 7:37). I need to hear his Word that brings life, and I need to know what it means to be both forgiven and counted righteous by faith. Every day, those who have suffered trauma and, indeed, all of us, are thirsty and need a deep drink of that life-giving water. We are thirsty souls.

We are embodied souls. Not only is it futile to try to help sufferers while ignoring either aspect of this reality, to do this is also uncharitable. It is uncharitable to speak only to the immaterial soul about matters of faith if we ignore the truth that souls are also clothed with a physical body that acts and reacts, often in ways outside of our immediate awareness or control. And it is uncharitable to treat suffering people as though there is nothing more to them than what can be seen and touched.

We are more. We are more than what can be seen. We are more than what cannot be seen. We are embodied souls. Visible and invisible. Quantifiable and ethereal. Both parts acting and interacting in symbiotic union. Even when those aspects seem to conflict with each other, it is clear that God has made us an exquisite creation!

Eliza has thought deeply about that intricate interplay. And that’s what makes me so glad she has authored this book for you (and me). Throughout the carefully researched chapters, you will see how wholeness can be found and bestowed through wise and informed counseling. What a gift! Now, back to that text about my trauma.

In 2020, my 97-year-old mother died. Although she did not live with us, I was responsible for her care and was with her often, increasingly more so as the end drew nearer. Although Richard, my older brother, had lived with her for decades, he was mentally unfit to be her caregiver. And so, much of 2020 was lived trying to answer the questions, “How’s Mom today? Does she need anything?” Then, finally, as the end of the year approached, her health began to fail in more obvious ways, and I was with her daily. One day a hospice nurse noted that her blood oxygen level had dropped to 66 percent. We were advised to prepare for her imminent death. One of my sons, Joel, came over and, together with the family, we shared communion with her and sang “Amazing Grace” around her bed. She soon fell into a sleep from which she would never awaken here. Because we were amid the pandemic, our only funeral for her was a gathering with the family at her home. She was gone, but that was just the beginning of my difficulties.

In the months that followed her death, we had to clean out her home and sell it. From the proceeds of that sale, we bought a trailer for my brother to live in on our property. Then, eight months after her death, my brother suffered the first of two debilitating strokes, and once he was released from convalescent care, we had to find and move him into an assisted living space where he would be safe and properly cared for. My husband, Phil, and I would go pick him up frequently to take him to walk at a local park. During this time, I had to arrange for his Social Security retirement benefits, Medicare and Medi-Cal, disability insurance payments, become his representative payee, and make sure that any unusual physical problems were cared for. Then, in September of 2023, less than three years after my mother’s death, he died suddenly. I went over to his facility and sat on the floor by his body until the mortuary workers picked him up. That was one year ago this weekend.

Honestly, until I read Eliza’s book, I never stopped to put that timeline together or to think about how I had been affected by the deaths of my mother and brother. I never stopped to think about how I had been deeply impacted by these losses, nor about how they had taken a toll on both my body and my soul.

What have I learned about how this trauma impacted my body and soul? What has this book helped me see? I am frequently on edge. I have discovered myself being physically guarding. I am fear- ful and hypervigilant. I startle often. While this might be the norm for some, it certainly is not the norm for me. I have also always been a person who enjoyed action movies, and onscreen violence never affected me. I cannot watch them now. I find myself feeling afraid and cowering in my seat when I watch the tamest of shows. Even though my mind and heart have been busy with other things, my body has not forgotten. My body remembers what my soul endured: Death is near and can appear at any time.

I am learning to breathe again. And yes, of course, I am going to pursue this further.
So, to Eliza’s readers, I say, “I am so glad you are here. I am glad for the people you will help, and I am glad for the way you will be helped.” And to Eliza, my friend, I say, “Thank you. Your labor of love is not in vain.”