In my previous post, an introduction to this series, The Stuck Spots of Spiritual Trauma, I invited readers to share their own experiences of loss and trauma to their faith and/or relationship with God. I deeply appreciate the courage of fellow travelers who reached out to me in response to my previous blog article. I’d like to share one of these responses below.
I don’t know if I have ever seen God as my enemy, but I have certainly felt like He was lost to me, like He was so distant and removed that I couldn’t feel Him, hear Him, find Him in anything anymore.
I have also felt like His people made me their enemy on a few occasions “in His name,” which is deeply unsettling.
I appreciate these words! Truth be told, I think many believers experience God as “distant and removed,” and perhaps those who don’t claim faith in Christ experience that as well. And when that loss is compounded by spiritualized relational dysfunction, it’s devastating. As I noted in the previous article, gleaned from the wisdom of childhood trauma specialist Heather Forbes, trauma (or loss or hurt) is a person’s experience of it, regardless of how the event appears to an onlooker.
So why make all this fuss talking together about our losses and traumas and dark nights of the soul? To revel in them? Not at all. The way to feel God again is to admit the loss of him in the first place! This admission doesn’t happen in a void or when met with dismissal, judgment, or patronizing behavior. This happens when we sit in the hard places together, holding the tension of hope and pain without trying to erase one or the other.
Thank you again for those of you who responded to my previous article. I can’t wait to hear the stories of more readers and friends.
In this article, I’m going to delve into my first major stuck spot of spiritual trauma: hearing God’s voice.
Before losing Elliot, I was sure I heard God‘s voice numerous times. Looking back now, it’s hard to distinguish if what I heard was really God’s voice, my own thoughts, understandings, and probably desires, a varied concoction of church, other Christians, and Bible passages pulled out of context that turned into a sort of breadcrumb trail to follow. Or maybe it was a lot of all three. I think Evangelicalism tends to equate hearing God’s voice with being a true believer. I know I did. Even Jesus said when he gave us his Holy Spirit, we would know the truth, we wouldn’t have to worry about what to say in times of crisis, and that we would follow him as the way, the truth, and the life. The words of the Bible make hearing God’s voice seem like a natural outcropping of trusting Jesus as Savior.
We bring this idea to new believers: through the Bible, through prayer, and through the voices of others, they will hear some sort of direction in what God wants them to do at any given point in their lives. Coincidences and dreams might be God’s voice, an inner burden or feeling you can’t shake might be God’s voice, a feeling of discontent, OR a feeling of peace might be God’s voice! There is no formula, and no one can argue when a believer says, “God told me to…” I think it’s been put upon us that if you have really accepted Christ, you trust him to guide you. How else would he do this but by communicating with you?
I’ve seen this recently as I interview foster parents in my work and discover what has brought them to foster in the first place. Many foster parents are Christians and come to their foster journey out of a deep love for children and a desire to care for those who are most vulnerable. It is noble. It is worthy, and they are my heroes. But I listen to a very similar storyline as many of these believers come to fostering after other things in their lives have not worked out according to plan. Many begin by wanting biological children, then grow aware of infertility issues, have miscarriages, or, like me, lose even infant children. For many of them, this appeared to be God’s voice telling them that he had a different plan for growing their family. These “closed doors” were proof to them that God was not planning for their family to grow with biological children and that he was telling them to become foster parents.
I don’t know if this is how God communicates or not. I know that before losing Elliot, this was often how I understood God’s communication. If I came to a crossroads in life, I’d take steps toward one direction. If it didn’t work out, I think, “OK, this is a closed door, and God is communicating to me.” Other times, I would think if I had a strong desire to do something and it was a good thing, God probably told me to move forward. Ironically, if there was a sacrificial thing to do and I didn’t really want to do it, that was almost always the clearest sign that God wanted me to do something. In fact, not wanting to was proof of how sinful and selfish I was. He was using my reluctance as a tool to serve him in spite of my own feelings.
Full disclosure: I don’t think there’s any way to know if any of those supposed moments I heard from God were truly hearing from God or if they were products of my imagination, human opinion, human interpretation, and more. I second-guess all of that now. I never thought I would or could. I imagine it sounds potentially sacrilegious to believers who know they hear God’s voice. If that is you, I do truly say I am glad someone does. But since losing Elliot, I can’t fight the fact that I might be spinning a psychological web in my neural pathways rather than actually hearing God’s voice.
Because you see, I did hear God’s voice telling me that Elliot would be okay. Do you understand? Every conceivable fashion I knew, from scripture to songs to dreams to prayers to the words of others to the evidence of miracles, was God’s voice. All the tools and methods I’ve ever been taught or experienced told me that God was speaking to me, and I could and should trust what he was saying.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. The death of my little boy was understandably traumatic. But I knew before then, as I’ve always known, that some parents have to endure the nightmare that is the death of a child. I’ve never considered myself unique in this particular loss. In fact, now that I’ve been part of so many loss organizations, I realize how truly common it is to be a parent who loses a child at some point in our mortal life.
In the 6 1/2 years since Elliot died, I believe I have very, very slowly come to terms with and accepted his death. It happened. There’s nothing I can do. Much as frantic mother love would want me to go back in time and save him, I can’t.
But the stuck spot here, the factor that I have not incorporated yet into the weaving of my life, is how to hear God‘s voice again. That was one of the first things I wrote to God in my journal only a day after Elliot died: “How will I ever be confident in anything I ever think I hear from you again?“
This complicates a multitude of mainstream practices in the Christian church. If you’re a part of contemporary Evangelical culture, you’ll probably know what I mean. It’s very normal in this culture to explain something like deciding to have a baby or deciding to move, take a new job, or serve in a certain capacity as being led by God. “We prayed about it and just felt peace that we were supposed to have another baby.“ Or “I was in a church service, and they were talking about foster care, and I just knew God was calling me to foster.”
I’m not being cynical about any of those impressions from God. I’m simply saying that “hearing God” is stuck in my spirit. A few months ago, I had two job opportunities in front of me, and both had pros and cons, opportunities, and drawbacks. In other phases of my life, I would have probably gone with the one that just felt like I was most at peace with and believed was God’s voice. Or perhaps, if some coincidence, dream, scripture verse, or conversation collided with a vague similarity to one of the jobs, I might’ve taken that as a sign from the Lord.
But instead, all that agonizing over which job to pursue did was highlight the fact that I couldn’t seek God for direction. My stuck spot froze me, and I couldn’t ask God for any wisdom. If I so surely heard him telling me he was protecting Elliot for the purpose of Elliot’s life on this earth and I was wrong, why would I trust that I was hearing him tell me to take this job or that job?
But the trigger of decision-making became even more raw. Let’s say I really heard Jesus say, “Yes, this is the job I want you to take.” I think it would have enraged me. Why would he tell me a definitive truth about a job when I didn’t even hear him correctly about my child’s life?
So, you see, this is a stuck spot for me. The prayer part of this is another whole ball of trauma wax. I don’t know how to pray except to just ask God to be with me. I don’t often ask him for direction to go this way or that. I ask for his comfort and for his presence. To be very honest, if you ask me to pray for you for a certain situation, for an illness, for a job, for direction, I might do so, but with a stuckness in my spirit. More likely, I’ll pray for God to be with you in whatever next thing happens in your life. But it’s inauthentic for me to pray for a specific outcome because I’m still stuck here.
I guess the comfort I hold in my stuckness is that he’s here with me, too. It’s like someone who’s had a very traumatic experience will freeze up if presented again with that same experience. Perhaps someone who nearly drowned spends a lifetime becoming rooted to the ground anytime they get too near water. So, I’ll try not to be too hard on myself. Because where I drowned was in hearing God’s voice and in prayer. Attempting to do either of those causes me to freeze up.
And yet, isn’t it something unexplainable and comforting to say that I feel very wrapped up by him when I’m most frozen?
As with all my stuck spots, the wonderful paradox is that Christ inhabits my frozen, stuck spaces with me. This is the hope, and this is why I don’t lose heart. It’s really just me, and maybe concerned onlookers, who are hurriedly trying to un-stick me. Not Jesus. He pulls up a chair where I’m stuck and reminds me with compassion, “As long as it takes.”
I guess in that way, I do hear his voice.
So if you have found yourself (or currently find yourself) void of a mode of communication you once perceived from God, know you are not alone. You are surrounded by others who are finding that faith is often defined by not knowing and not hearing-that’s kind of what makes it faith, isn’t it? But mostly, you are surrounded by the unceasing presence of Christ, even in the silence, even in the dark.
In the form below, I would love to hear about your experiences. A message you leave in this form is private and will only be seen by me; it is not public or visible anywhere else. Please note that I may use your words in other articles and/or books, with a pseudonym. By commenting, you are granting permission for such usage. I may also contact you to ask follow-up questions.
Question: In what ways has “hearing God” or prayer changed throughout your spiritual journey? What events led to a change in how you talk to God or perceive him talking to you? Please also feel free to share anything else about your journey.
Raw and Filtered 
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