8 mins
Healing wounds
IF God loves us, why do we suffer? It’s one of the questions that most Christians ask at least once in their lives – and for many – on an almost daily basis when faced with horror worldwide.
For Pearl Liddle, Trauma Healing Programme Manager (Bible Engagement) for the Scottish Bible Society, it’s a question she has worked hard to engage with, and to help other people come to terms with, using a Bible based approach.
“Bible-based Trauma Healing began in Africa in the early 2000s when a group of Bible translators, church leaders and mental health professionals got together to produce a resource that would enable the church to help people suffering the trauma of war helping them to find hope and healing in God’s Word,” she said.
“By 2012 the Trauma Healing Institute was established by American Bible Society using the book Healing the Wounds of Trauma which is available in over 150 languages and is used all around the world.”
Pearl is currently training to be a master facilitator. She has seen the programme working for herself.
“The programme has been running here in Scotland since 2018. We have over 100 facilitators being trained to run healing groups within their own churches and communities. We’ve run six initial training courses and one advanced training course.
These are residential courses running from a Monday evening through to a Friday lunchtime, and the facilitators who have gone through them, now run over 40 healing groups.”
But what does Bible-based healing do, and how does it answer that basic question – why does God let us suffer?
“Bible-based trauma healing does what it says,” Pearl says. “It brings a group of people who have been damaged, or are feeling broken in some way, together in a safe place, where they can help each other heal.
“It uses a holistic and bible-based approach, and recognises that trauma affects every part of a person; their mind, their body and their spirit.
“We use all kinds of techniques and approaches, including art, stories and questioning to help people engage deeply with themselves, with God and with each other through the Bible.
“We work through five simple points–
• If God loves us, why do we suffer?
• How can the wounds of our hearts be healed?
• What happens when someone is grieving?
• Taking our pain to the cross.
• How can we forgive others?
“When people experience loss and suffering, their hearts can be wounded. So that these wounds can heal, people have to be able to express their pain and grieve their loss. The Bible helps us realise we can bring these feelings honestly to God in lament, and by taking our pain to Jesus and experience the love and healing God brings.
“Many people feel helplessness, fear, loss, isolation, hurt and grief and this programme gives each person the chance to share with others, to read the Bible and see how God can help them by bringing healing, love, compassion and forgiveness. “The healing groups range in size. They can be as small as four people and go all the way to 20.”
Pearl adds: “One of our participants summed up their experience like this.
‘The group has been a useful and comforting resource for me at a time in my life when I was extremely vulnerable and questioning why a particular event had occurred and had caused me such sorrow. It was a huge support to meet weekly with others who had all suffered a real wound of the heart, and a strong bond developed between us as we began to trust each other, talk openly knowing that everything was said with utmost confidentiality. It was reassuring to discover I was not alone, going crazy or feeling so hopeless and helpless.’
“This is the kind of help that people can get through engaging with Trauma Healing,” Pearl says. “Even now, with the new normal thanks to Covid-19, we have been able to adapt and deliver our courses and groups online, using platforms like Zoom. We’ve had around 25 Zoom groups already this summer, focussing on the impact Covid has had on people’s health and well-being.”
The Rev Carolann Erskine is minister at Dunfermline: St Ninian’s.
She’s an ardent supporter of Trauma Healing.
“Some experiences in life are so painful, they cause deep and lasting suffering. That suffering is what we call trauma and can be difficult to put into words. Trauma shatters dignity and destroys choice. The effects of trauma and the pathways of healing are similar regardless of the source of the trauma. It is a deep wound of the heart and mind that takes a long time to heal. It hurts every part of us: our relationships, our bodies, our thoughts, our faith and can be experienced by individuals, families, churches, communities and nations.
She’s been heavily involved in healing ministries throughout her life.
“I’m a senior accredited Pastoral Supervisor,” she says, “and an active member in the Scottish ASPE group. I have a passion for the wellbeing of clergy, often having courageous conversations with people, caring for their soul in their role to enhance best work practice. I’m also an NHS trained community chaplain (CCL) based in a local GP surgery and a member of the Guild of Health and St Raphael. Since childhood, I’ve been captivated by the healing ministry of Jesus Christ; how it was that with a word or a touch, he healed people and transformed their lives. As I continued to grow in life and faith, I trained in the Christian Listening Ministry with the Acorn Trust to help people heal their wounded history. As Healing Group Co-ordinator in St Matthew’s Church, Perth, I became increasingly interested in the healing works of Christ seeing this ministry as a part of everyday church and community life.
“About three years ago, I came across an article in the Scottish Bible Society magazine about this course being offered. In all honesty, I could not believe what I was reading. For the longest time, I seem to have been waiting for a course like this that would help me to upskill so that I could reflect upon my own journey of healing and also help others become drawn to healing in a way that pointed to the Lord and to the relationship that people could have with him. Grateful for the opportunity through study leave, I attended these facilitated Bible study courses in Nethybridge and Falkirk with amazing tutors from the Trauma Healing Institute in America.
“The statistics are impressive,” she says. “Recent global statistics from the Trauma Healing Institute show the following: over 1,300,000 lives positively impacted, 16349 trained facilitators, and the course is available in 150 countries in 150 languages.
“Around the world, many people experience suffering and have been deeply wounded in a variety of ways through accidents, domestic abuse, rape, suicide, divorce, addictions or crime etc. In this ruptured world, suffering can often be a lonely journey. This Bible based course provides a safe space where people’s stories are sincerely listened to, often grieving, lamenting and bringing their pain to the cross, we learn how to help us to forgive, rebuild and transform our lives with resilience. Individuals often find that the church still has a great deal to offer God’s people including the recent addition of the chapter on ‘Healing from the distress of Covid-19’ helping us to flourish in a broken world as we explore the effects of this crisis on people whilst reflecting on God’s love and care for his people.”
And anyone thinking about attending a course or a session need not worry about not fitting in. Trauma affects everyone in different ways, in particular because we have all had different life experience. What one person might be able to brush off and leave behind, might devastate another.
“Leading this participatory course always involves risks because we can’t predict what stories people will bring from their own wounded history,” says Carolann. “But these are risks worth taking. We have seen and heard of some very tender moments when people have disclosed a hurt or a trauma being carried from long ago and sometimes disclosed for the first time. Some people with wounded hearts relived their experience whist others tried to avoid anything that would remind them of their trauma which may have lain uninterrupted for years. Both of these reactions are normal in the journey of healing. People are always invited to talk about their trauma(s) and are also invited to listen to others. In time, over the course, we found that everyone became ready to share an honest understanding of what happened to them.
Pearl Liddle
The Rev Carolann Erskine
“Trauma always involves grief, but we can experience grief without trauma. When we are traumatised, we can feel overwhelmed with intense helplessness, anxiety, fear or horror. Sometimes, we can also be traumatised secondarily when listening to someone else’s traumatic experiences but, not all behaviours are the result of trauma and not all emotional pain is trauma.
“The church does not have all the answers but this programme brings church and organisational leaders together to discover how communities could become better places to live as we contribute to the wellbeing of those whom we are called to serve. If we can create a safe space for healing and allow the story of resurrection to come to life with grace to enfold, nourish and sustain us, we will waste our hearts on fear no more.”
The Trauma Healing Course is not a counselling session, it is a programme model which uses sessions and materials to cover particular subjects in a particular way, using Bible-based teaching and comfort.
This article appears in the October 2020 Issue of Life and Work
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