Note to the reader: I have found it isn’t common to find devotional literature that makes someone healing from trauma feel seen while also feeding them Christ.1 So this season, as a lay counselor, I am sharing these weekly liturgies for each week of advent, hoping to give words to their struggles, their fears, and their experience. In these, I aim to fix the reader’s gaze on the triune God, the one who walks with us, who sits with us in our darkness, and who alone can make us whole. Please share if you think this would serve someone living life after trauma. I wrote this especially for one healing after complex trauma.
Week 3 - Love
An Advent Liturgy for Life After Trauma - Week 3: Love
This week’s liturgy is a series of short prayers, paired with deep breaths. These days leading up to Christmas hold a lot of heaviness and grief, especially for those healing from complex trauma and emotional pain. Your nervous system might be overwhelmed, and your capacity to experience the care, safety and deep love of the Father may be very low.
You may not have great mental ability to read or pray long prayers. If that’s the case, try sitting quietly for a few minutes. Breathe deeply. Think back on this past week. What were three ways the Father fed your joy?
Now, come to him and pray any of these short prayers, even as you go throughout your day:
(Breathe in)
Abba Father
(Breathe out)
Help me to believe and abide in the truth that you can not (and will not) forsake me1
(Breathe in)
Jesus, Worthy Savior and Dearest Friend,
(Breathe out)
Increase my faith so I can rest knowing I am the one whom you love 2
(Breathe in)
Spirit of God
(Breathe out)
Strengthen me to taste the love of my Father in my heart, without a hint of shame3
Triune God, you hold the whole world - including all of me, my whole story, all the people I love. I entrust all of it, all of me, to you.
Father, I lay my head on your chest, and sink into your embrace.
Jesus - hidden with you4 in the embrace of our Father - your Father and my Father5 - my pain is yoked to you now. You have consecrated it by making it your own.6
Spirit, knowing my pain is now consecrated through Christ, help me face it without shame.7I depend on you and trust in your mercy as I live by faith.
Triune God, keep feeding my faith in the Christ who came to reign in me forever, by whose sufficient merit I have a love that is an endless waterfall. Your love drowns out all other voices so I can only hear your voice, “You don’t wear me out, your deepest needs never outmatch my supply, my delight in knowing you and being one with you will never, ever stop.”
Thank you Father,
Amen
inspired by Psalm 22: 1 and Matthew 27: 46
inspired by John 20:2
(inspired by Romans 5: 1-5 and Ephesians 3:16)
Colossians 3: 1-4
John 20: 17
Isaiah 53
Hebrews 2: 11