Peace in the Broken Pieces

(EIGHT MORE RHYMES)

Forty-five years ago, I had just finished my second year of teaching second grade in an elementary school outside Harrisburg, PA. The teachers of that tiny school were invited to a faculty BBQ to celebrate the end of another successful year. Life was good, and I was feeling a bit more confident in my abilities to nurture and teach young kids.

It was June 1977. As I wound through the back country roads to reach my destination, another woman, a mom with kids and pets in her car, pulled out of a parking lot right in front of me. There was no time to apply my brakes to stop, and I ended up broadsiding her station wagon. My only recollection of the accident was of me sitting in the parking lot, covered in blood. I remember running my tongue inside my mouth and discovering I had several missing upper teeth. Because there were no established seat belt laws at the time, I wasn’t wearing one. Instead, my mouth hit the steering wheel and I lunged forward enough into the windshield to cause the glass to bubble and my forehead to be cut up as if a cabbage grater had gone across it (the way my mother would describe my wounds later).

Fortunately for me, the fire chief on the scene collected my missing teeth from the floor of my car, put the teeth in milk, and brought them to the hospital! Doctors actually popped my teeth back into my mouth, wired them together, and put a plaster cast over the top. I was released from the hospital on the same day, and after six weeks of healing, the cast came off and my teeth were back to normal. Until they weren’t. Five years later, when I was a graduate student at Wheaton, the roots started to resorb, and I had to have them pulled and replaced with a permanent bridge. That experience was about as traumatic as the original accident.

The reason I share this story is to emphasize how trauma can unknowingly impact us for a long time. When I reflect on that event, I realize how much I “white knuckled” my way through the experience. A few weeks after the accident, I was working at a customer service job with Sears, a summer job I had committed to well before the accident. I was interfacing many people a day, and there were many conversations that started with, “What happened to you?”

I hadn’t yet grasped how painful emotionally this experience was. No one really processed the trauma with me. I guess I didn’t realize the need for it. I recovered physically and went on with my life, and I’m convinced I would have never made such a gigantic move to Illinois for grad school and California for work if the accident hadn’t happened. I realized that God had a hand in saving my life, and I was able to courageously move into next seasons with Him as Companion.

What I didn’t know is that I carried that trauma in my body for decades, even to the present, as I am now coming up to the last process required in getting permanent implants. It’s been a long and expensive journey, and it’s still anxiety-producing when I plop into the dentist’s chair. I have to make a very intentional move to loosen and relax my clasped fingers.

During this Lenten season, I have read and listened to a number of resources on trauma and how it impacts the body. Many of the Psalms mention directly or indirectly how trauma impacts the body: Psalm 39:2-5, “So I remained utterly silent, not even saying anything good. But my anguish increased; my heart grew hot within me. While I meditated, the fire burned…”; Psalm 42:10-11, “My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’ Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?” Psalm 88 ends with this phrase: “Darkness is my closest friend.”

Whether trauma has come from an accident or from harm done to us by others, remember, it is a place where God leans in and touches our wounds with His love and healing. Whether the traumatic events have come from your family of origin or a more recent heartache and grief, Jesus knows suffering to the point of death and therefore gives the promise of resurrection. He wants us to be whole and free from the shame that often tries to discredit the value of our wounds.

KJ Ramsey, an author and trauma-informed therapist, wrote these words in her deeply touching book, The Lord is My Courage:

“Christ’s arms stretched out on the hard wood of the cross hold every paradox of our personhood and every promise of our redemption. Only the Paradox Himself can hold the entirety of your story, with all its wounds and wonders. I often remind my clients that two things can be true at the same time. Grief does not cancel out goodness. Hurt does not silence all hope. Our wounds bring us to the intersection of grace, where hurt and hope are held in the scarred and tender hands of Christ. Jesus holds the paradoxes of your past, present and future in indivisible love. Every paradox in your life is an invitation to be held, for it is in sensing Christ’s scars that we learn to rise with ours.”

Listen to the next eight rhymes of Lent and remember that He walks the broken and often crooked road with us and provides the healing necessary for our wounded hearts.

Your badge of courage that carries the scars of your life shows the full extent of His love for you.

The purpose of Lent
it’s to give your assent
to His presence, His voice and His mercy.

The purpose of Lent
keeps us aware of the latent
desires, fears, and doubts.

The purpose of Lent
is when God feels absent
and we fixate on what we can’t fix.

The purpose of Lent
keeps your heart intent
on listening for that voice of instruction.

The purpose of Lent
is much like Advent
where we wait to incarnate His Spirit.

The purpose of Lent
it enhances His scent
an aroma that lingers around us.

The purpose of Lent
is to be an agent
of hospitality, generosity and grace.

The purpose of Lent
is for a heart radiant
that disperses His light and His love.
 

Photo by Jilbert Ebrahimi on Unsplash