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A Lost Sheep
In his excellent study of the famous Biblical passage on shepherds, ( The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament ) , scholar Ken Bailey provides a bit of context ... -
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The Lost Sheep
Shepherds in Lebanon, and in the Holy Land (in addition to some of my students), have told me that once a sheep knows that it is lost, it tries to hide under a bush or rock and begins quivering and bl... -
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An Account of Modern-Day Slavery
In his excellent book, Woke Church , Eric Mason shares a personal account of watching people being sold into slavery in real-time with his family: “CNN released an exclusive report in October 201... -
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Naaman: A Parable of Leadership
Leadership Trauma is Taking a Toll The word is out. According to Barna, as of March 2022, the percentage of pastors considering quitting full-time ministry within the past year sits at 42 percen... -
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I Know the Way Out
I can’t help but recall here a scene from The West Wing. White House chief of staff Leo McGarry reaches out to his deputy, Josh Lyman, who is struggling with PTSD. Leo tells him a parable: This guy’... -
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Faithfulness in the Darkest Places
Josephine Bakhita’s life is a testament of God’s faithfulness in the darkest circumstances. She was born in Darfur, Sudan, among the Daju people. Her first years were happy, but at age eight she was k... -
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In the gaps, waits, and journeys of life, especially the traumatic and tragic ones, there will likely be many things, which we do not understand. We have been given permission to live with mystery, an... -
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When life caves in, you do not need reasons – you need comfort. You do not need some answers – you need someone. Jesus does not come to us with an explanation – He comes to us with His presence. -
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A Pastor’s Experience of Trauma
Pastor and leader of the 24/7 Prayer movement Pete Greig reflects on the initial moments of realizing his wife, only in her late twenties, needed to have surgery to repair a orange-sized tumor from he... -
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PTSD and Our Core Story
The robbing of our lives occurs when the core story of who we are—created as “very good” (Gen 1:31) and never downgraded, and “beloved” of God (1 Jn 3:2)—is taken through specific memories and twisted... -
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Memories and Trauma Can be Inherited
Some stories, however, have been handed down to us. For some, we were not yet cognizant, and for others, we weren’t even born when experiences, memories, and stories affected our family and communitie... -
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Rejection and Acceptance
In his book The Logic of the Spirit, James Loder talks about a woman with whom he had been in a therapeutic relationship for years. This woman’s underlying issue seemed to be a complete sense of rejec... -
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What is the Shape of Your Pain?
What is the shape of your pain? Is your pain a gaping wound? Is it stuffed into the back corner of a closet, or is it neatly categorized and filed away with annotations that no one but you understand?... -
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Discovering our Common Struggles
Get to know someone really well, and almost without fail, you will discover a person who routinely struggles to get out of bed in the morning. And not just because they’re tired. They can’t get out of... -
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Mental Health Today
We don’t know what we are doing, and I think this is especially true about the way our society deals with mental health. In just the past fifteen years, I have witnessed a massive shift in how evangel... -
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What Created the Fears in Your Life?
In her beautifully written memoir Unafraid, Susie Davis reflects on fear after experiencing a school-shooting as a high-school student. It was after this that Davis began to experience regular bouts o... -
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Times of Crisis: Reappraising and Rebuilding Lives
On November 28, 1942, a fire broke out and spread rapidly through an overcrowded Boston nightclub called Cocoanut Grove (the owner’s spelling), whose sole exit became blocked. A total of 492 people di... -
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Sophie’s Choice: The Hardest Decision You’ll Ever Make
One of the saddest, most depressing movies I’ve ever seen would have to be Sophie’s Choice. I was a kid when it came out, so I didn’t see it until much later, after I was grown. By that time, I had he... -
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The Value Remains the Same
Garry Smalley was a Christian counselor and prolific author. He was known for one particular illustration about the intrinsic value each of us has as children of God. Speaking at a large event, he ask... -
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When pain is this fresh and this awful, I’m not sure much light can get through. You have to wait for some of the initial jolt to subside, to let something settle enough that you can emerge from being... -
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Scalded cats fear even cold water. -
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The Shattered Worldview
Karyn L. Freedman points out that one of the serious effects of trauma is “the shattered worldview.” After a traumatic experience, the survivor experiences cognitive dissonance as a whole new set of b...
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