The reason I bring this up is that there are many people these days trying to sell you on an idea that you were never broken in the first place. While it feels like a favorable answer because it's an easy answer. However, it's also a very dangerous answer because it rationalizes self-destructive and abusive behaviors. Granted, we need to stop equating brokenness with hopelessness, especially in the church since salvation and recreation are such a big part of our theology. But let's face it, if we weren't shaming the broken, people wouldn't be going to this opposite extreme. So let's have a closer look at emotional trauma and its role in our lives.
As I have said before, it can be a cruel world. Getting through it unscathed is near impossible. This begs the question, isn't all this inhumanity a symptom of mass brokenness? As they say, hurting people, hurt people. The traumas we experience in childhood can often seem the worst and the hardest to overcome, since they occur in that critical foundational time, not to mention a fragile and vulnerable one as well. Sometimes it doesn't matter how much we grow and mature, we still see these events from the vantage point of the children we were when they happened. Even when we don't consciously remember them, they often establish patterns of behavior that wouldn't exist otherwise. All these debilitating phobias, compulsions, obsessions, addictions, hypersensitivity, and another neurosis' will affect the quality of our lives. Such things have a habit of spilling over onto the people closest to us as well. This perpetuates this cycle of trauma. The tragic irony of trauma, is we often become like the perpetrators of it to cope with said trauma. Do you really want to be that person?
Now consider this, if we were never broken in the first place, we would have no reason to take issue with those who abused us. If there is no brokenness, then there is no crime after all. Do you really want to rationalize such people’s actions this way? Indirectly you are justifying your abuser if you deny your brokenness. The unbroken should be emotionally strong enough to shake off anything. So they shouldn’t be exuding hypersensitive, or easily offended behaviors. If we were never broken in the first place, we have no reason to be so cautious, implement coping mechanisms, or control people to cater to our feelings. Going on the offensive or defensive like that implies fear. What do the unbroken have to fear after all? If we are truly unbroken then we should be very secure. Yet it’s insecure people who feel threatened by people who think, feel, or value things differently than they do. It’s insecure people who are desperate for validation, acceptance, and approval. Can you honestly call yourself completely unbroken having read this?
If you are holding onto trauma, then don't be afraid to admit it to yourself. An honest confession of where you really are is key in moving forward. If people shame you for it, they are only revealing their own brokenness and phony righteousness. There is probably a reason things just aren't working out for you, and that reason lies within your own heart, not outside you. Yet, our heart is something we can do something about if we have the courage to face it. Yet we often would rather try to take on the futile task of changing the entire world to cater to our wounds, instead of facing our own brokenness.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. -1st John 1:8
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. -Psalm 51:17
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