December 9th, 2023
An Advent Liturgy For When You Are Healing After Trauma and some joy sharing
Happy first week of advent, friend!
I hope you enjoy this week’s collection! Here’s a Table of Contents to help you peruse the content to your liking:
Joy Sharing - where I share short reviews of resources I have benefitted from these past few months
In Case You Missed It -summaries and links to my latest writing
An Advent Liturgy - For The One Healing After Trauma
Triune God of mine,
I bless you this first week of advent. I bless you for the hope that is certain and sure, even when I am in a season of grief and of healing.
You know all that trauma has taken from my body, from my mind, from my soul:
How threatened my body still feels and how safety (physical and emotional) feels elusive, and fragile.
How dissociated and stuck my mind can be, how I struggle to think and to string words together, and how reality can sometimes feel like a disconnected set of puzzle pieces.
How my soul sometimes despairs, how the voice of the Accuser can be so loud and persistent, hunting me down, condemning and how I sometimes confuse it with your voice.
You know me so well - the questions, the doubts, the anger, depression, anxiety, perplexity, loneliness. And you know my history - all the loss, suffering, darkness, hurt, all the hidden parts.
I bless you, triune God, for my Father. The one who the Son has revealed to me1. The one who is my home, my refuge, who invites me to “unforced rhythms of grace.”2 How I love you Father, for you are my shield, my stronghold, helper and deliverer.
I bless you God that Christ came for me. That he entered time and the story of the world - even my story - to drink its reality to the fullest and also bring his redemption as far as the curse is found. He suffered under emotional, physical, spiritual and psychological oppression so that he could be not only my sin bearer but also my pain bearer.3
He is my better hope4, my great high priest who has forgiven me, who has released me from all captivity, including the one I lived in to survive deep suffering.
He has cleansed my conscience5 - the conscience that was malinformed, and the conscience that learned to avoid condemnation by depending on obedience, on striving and not on Christ. Jesus is now always praying for me, and is able to save me so completely as I keep coming to my Father through Him.6 There is no pain, unmet need, false belief or sin that he is not able to bear for me, heal me from, forgive me from, renew my mind in.
I bless you for the Spirit who delights in his ministry to me. He proclaims good news to my weary soul - a soul feeling deep poverty - and reminds it of the riches of grace that are already mine. This Spirit whose ministry is to bind up broken hearts, and proclaim freedom and release from darkness.7 The one who proclaims gladly that there is now only favor from God to me, and that he is my vindicating God.
He comforts all who mourn and provides for everyone who grieves among his people
a crown of beauty instead of ashes
oil of joy instead of mourning
a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair
And so at the end of this first week, I am so grateful that as I wait for on you for more healing, more growth, greater degrees of freedom, I can truly rest. Because you are already here. Your presence with me is all. There is nothing but mercy and grace in store.
There may be suffering ahead on this journey but I don’t avoid it by depending on me, or on my anxious compulsions to be okay, to try to fix myself, to vindicate myself, to find safety through my ability to survive. I just trust in the mercy that comes from the certainty of his sure delight.
Christ, my great high priest and better hope, ensures that
nothing but grace,
nothing but deep love,
nothing but tender mercy binds me to the heart of my Father.
So I bless you, my triune God for giving me yourself. A Father to hide in; a Jesus who is my better hope, my better trust, my better life; and, a Spirit who is near and teaches me how to pray.
I remember Christ’s first coming and celebrate and rejoice for these great news of great joy: I am his, and He is mine. He is all I need to be okay.
Amen
Joy Sharing
Sharing resources is a form of love language for me. A way that I spread cheer - not just at Christmas but year round. It has been 4 months since I last shared resources, so bear with me with this longer list of goodness.
A Quiet Mind to Suffer With: Mental Illness, Trauma and the Death of Christ by Andrew John Bryant - This memoir is about a pastor with severe OCD, who experienced a mental breakdown and is now living post trauma. He has found in Christ - in his death and resurrection - a better rescue than he ever imagined. As one who at times struggles with intrusive thoughts, and still with some traits of religious OCD, I heavily highlighted this book. In sharing his own story, he answers the questions, how is Christ my life when my mind is plagued by intrusive thoughts and deafening anxiety? How is Christ’s death all I need when I am at my lowest - when I can’t lose anymore due to my mental illness? How is Christ himself with me, how is he my friend and companion in the darkest seasons of my mind? He repeats ideas a lot, but I think it is a helpful literary device, especially for someone struggling with mental illness, and needs to explore the same glorious gospel truths from different angles. Just as when you are holding a diamond in the light, looking at it from many sides to admire it.
Parables of the Christ Life by Lillias Trotter - THIS book! I read it almost completely on a retreat I went on by myself this fall, and it was *exactly* what I needed to meditate on. Lillias Trotter was a gospel worker living in North Africa. She took metaphors and parables from plants and flowers in NA to explain how the life of Christ invades us, and grows in us so that more and more we live the Christ life instead of the self-life. It was exceptionally helpful in giving me a framework and words for the journey I am on and the work Christ is doing in my own soul.
Neurodiversity in brain wiring (autism, ADHD, OCD, dysgraphia, dislexia, misophonia) is being more recognized and diagnosed not only in children but also in adults. Simply put, neurodiversity is about how our brains process information. Late diagnosis in adults are increasingly common. I am convinced that counselors, therapists and mental health practitioners need to educate themselves about this topic because the likelihood of having a neurodivergent client is very high. If we don’t have the tools to identify and understand their brain wiring, we will miss something vital in caring well for them. In the last few months I have read these books about neurodivergence- especifically about autism - so I can grow in empathy and wisdom in loving well:
The Autism Partner Handbook - How to Love an Autistic Person by Joe Biel, Elly Blue and Dr. Faith G. Harper - this book was really helpful information about autistic brains and how to see the world from their perspective. The authors are not believers and hold to beliefs about gender issues that are not biblical. But I think it is still a valuable resource, providing an opportunity to really listen to autistic voices (one of the authors is autistic) and to how they experience life.
Friendship, Love, Autism by Michelle and Andrew Preston - this is the first book in a forthcoming series. In this one, Michelle and Andrew tell the story of their friendship, how it blossomed into love and how they discovered Andrew was autistic. They share the whole process - what led Michelle to start suspecting this was true about her boyfriend to how they received the diagnosis and how realizing this about Andrew has been such a gift for their relationship.
On Autism, Faith, & the Gifts of Neurodiversity by Daniel Bowman Jr. - the author is both autistic and a believer. This collection of essays on autism is a beautiful window into the autistic brain, into creativity, and faith.
Blood Brothers: The Dramatic Story of a Christian Palestinian Working for Peace in Israel by Elias Chacour - I have recommended this book to so many! It is an incredibly powerful story of an Arab Christian during the first “nakba” or catastrophe (the first displacement of Palestinians in 1948) and how the Lord grew in him a heart to work for reconciliation between Arabs and Jews. The author, Elias Chacour, is the one telling this story. Even though he is from a branch of Christianity I had never heard of, he is undoubtedly a lover of the true Christ. I fell more in love with Jesus after listening to this story on audio.
My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel by Ari Shavit: Full disclosure - I haven’t read this one yet, but a friend I trust highly recommended it to me. In my effort to grow in understanding the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, I want to hear voices from both sides. So I am putting this book here for you, in case you too are interested in getting both perspectives - the Arab and Israeli - of a conflict that not only shapes the history of the region I live in, but that also has a particular bearing on the American church.
Two Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage by Madeleine L’Engle - I really enjoyed this memoir about writer Madeleine L’Engle’s marriage to her actor husband. It kept me great company as I went on errands. There is something so hopeful about hearing someone tell their story when they are in their 60’s and 70’s and can look back and trace goodness and light in it.
How to Stay Married by Harrison Scott Key - I saw a few people online raving about this book, so I was intrigued. I’ll be honest: the tone of the book took me a bit to get used to. I struggled to understand how someone writing about something so painful as an affair would write with such snark about his wife who hurt him so deeply - I first misheard it as bitterness. But the more I listened, it was clear that this tone is part of their marriage, of their culture as a couple. Scott Key is funny, I will give him that. His wife also includes a chapter in the book from her perspective. I appreciate their nuanced look into their stories separately and the interplay of those stories in marriage. His lessons at the end - of what he has learned about how to stay married in the face of deep suffering- are gold.
Christ the Sum of All Spiritual Things by Watchman Nee - Watchman Nee was a Chinese church leader and writer in the 20th century. While some of his teaching was problematic, this little book (a compilation of some his sermons, actually) is a powerful long look at Christ.
Best Friends and Mean Girls by Dannah Gresh & Susy Weibel - I am reading this with my middle daughter as we keep navigating friendship in the elementary ages. She is enjoying it, and reminds me of our Sunday afternoon mother/daughter club.
Song
Christ is Lower Still - this song about how Christ meets us at our lowest places of suffering and brokenness, has been really, really meaningful to me this season. “In your wounds I find room for all of mine.”
Sermon
Ventura Baptist Church sermon - “Why can we rejoice in suffering? Because we have a great high priest.” A friend shared this with me after a conversation where we wrestled with “how does Christ understand this particular suffering? How does he suffer with me in this struggle?” I listened to this sermon more than once, stopping it at key times to meditate on some his thoughts. I wish he would have explained certain things a bit more, or connected dots in different ways, but I was still greatly encouraged by it. We have a great high priest able to help us and save us completely, in part because he suffered the whole constellation of suffering, pain, oppression we do.
In Case You Missed It
How Union with Christ is Saving My Life - Earlier this year I wrote this article for Reformation Fellowship Magazine and forgot to share it with you. “When well worn paths in my brain determine how I respond to both sin and suffering, I find joy remembering the life of Christ is mine. The old me, the one that lives defined by the seen world and its brokenness, was crucified at the cross. The new self - with Christ’s likeness and potential - is my truest, lasting self (Ephesians 4: 24). Fear and anxiety don’t define me. Christ’s trust does.”
When God Feels Unsafe - I recently wrote this article for Journeywomen, in a series meant to speak into the felt needs of those in ministry.
“The devil knew if he succeeded in attacking Christ’s ability to live and die as the Son of God, he would succeed in defeating God and the spread of his kingdom. But he didn’t (praise God!). Christ conquered that test in the wilderness on our behalf.
My friend, does that comfort you? Yes, the devil knows how to strategically target the pathways to the comfort of the Spirit, especially as you seek nourishment from the Lord and as you minister to others. But Christ is not only familiar with these temptations, he also conquered them in you and for you.”
Thank you so much for reading this far!
I hope to be back next week with another liturgy for the second week of advent, written especially for those on a journey toward healing after trauma. If you know of anyone who might be helped by these, please share.
Much love,
Aylin
Matthew 11: 26-27
Eugene Peterson’s take on Matthew 11: 28, as written on The Message
Isaiah 53
Hebrews 7: 19
Hebrews 10: 22-23
Hebrews 7: 25
Isaiah 61