Chapter 4
Post-Traumatic Strength and Stability
And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 1 Peter 5:10
This was a shock to those of us who grew up in the psycho-babble era, where therapists were gods who cast around letter-label disorders like lightning bolts. Most of us had been zapped by at least one label or another which altered our identity. Sadly, that movement brought such a self-defeated attitude; many of us doubted the power of the cross over our disorders.
Thankfully, after receiving the message of Christ’s finished work, we concluded that our dysfunctional labels need not remain our identity.
- We claimed the powerful promise from Romans 8:37 concerning our sense of powerlessness:
In all these things we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us.
- We subjected our past trauma to the truth found in Romans 8:28:
We know that all things work together for the good of those who love Christ, who have been called according to His purpose.
Paul didn’t write ‘some things’ or ‘the good things’. No, he said that all things, even the least expected or most traumatic things, will work together for our good and for the Kingdom’s expansion project.
We realized that it wouldn’t benefit the Kingdom if its soldiers and ambassadors were traumatized, weak, and frail (either mentally or physically). No military unit would succeed with a platoon of disabled soldiers charging in to take a hill. Fighters in poor condition would be counter-productive to the cause. When charging into enemy territory, only the healthiest, strongest, and well-trained are called up to active duty.
Knowing that God has called us up to active duty, we also trust that He has given us health, strength, and solid training. We have discovered the spiritual law of the Kingdom where trauma turns to triumph and frailty turns to strength.
Finding total recovery in the words of Christ. 