Content warning: The following article mentions abuse as well as specifically sexual abuse.

“I’m evil. My mom said I shouldn’t have been born and my dad’s face showed absolute disgust for me while sexually abusing me. Everything that happened is my fault, and even God hates me. I get sick to my stomach when I have to pray to God as ‘Father’ because it reminds me of the pain I experienced from my dad, but I’m told God loves and cares for me. I’m so lost and confused. None of it makes sense.”

She said the words with sadness and despair, filling the room with heavy silence as her statements held trauma and deep anguish.

When spirituality and trauma collide, it creates a huge vacuum in the soul, a void that nothing can fill, along with mixed emotions of pain, despair, longing, confusion, and lost hope. Holding space for a person to express deep pain and traumatic experiences may come naturally for some in ministry positions, but it can also be extremely challenging to know how to respond without retraumatizing the person across from us.

Our instinct might be to immediately offer Bible verses about God’s love or refute someone’s sense of themselves as evil with words of comfort. However, these are the exact responses that minimize or discredit the depth of confusion that a person who has experienced trauma is feeling.

As we begin to recognize what trauma is and its effect on spirituality, we become more comfortable and cognizant of stepping back and allowing questions or doubts to hang in the air without judgment, empty words, or glib answers.

What Is Trauma, and Why Is It So Impactful for Spirituality?

The definition of trauma for this article is: any event that feels threatening and overwhelming to a person’s sense of safety and well-being.

As children, our understanding of God is heavily influenced by what we see, feel, and experience from our caregivers. Adults are the visible example of an invisible God. When a child is raised in a faith setting where they are taught that God is loving or protecting, but then they experience abuse from the caregiver, this creates dissonance in their mind and soul about who God is (or what I call “spiritual attachment”). From a neuroscience lens, the brain creates deep neural networks that associate God with pain, distrust, fear, or anger, reflective of the experience with the caregiver who represents God. This association is often subconscious and buried beneath guilt, shame, and self-loathing.

One man confessed to me that God was “not safe” because his mother and father were cruel and abusive, but they took him to church and were model “Christians” in front of others. His neural network created the belief that God was untrustworthy, punitive, secretive, and fake, just as he viewed his parents. Any mention of God as a parent figure caused him to shudder involuntarily and withdraw into himself. When our relationship felt safe enough, he was able to discover the source of his shame and guilt, which resulted from distrust of God and hatred of going to church. He felt everything was his fault and had deep self-loathing until he realized that he equated God with his parents, and spirituality in general made him anxious, stressed, and guilty about not being a “good” Christian.

How Attachment Patterns Shape Understandings of God

Attachment issues, in my experience as a spiritual director and social worker, play a huge part in the intersection of spirituality and trauma. I discuss this in depth in my book “Healing Deepest Hurts,” but I will explain it briefly here. Attachment patterns develop based on our interactions with our caregivers and follow us into adulthood.

Secure Attachment

In securely attached individuals, there is a sense of being cared for, valued, and attended to in daily life. Life isn’t perfect, but an underlying feeling exists of belonging within a family. This most often translates to believing in God as trustworthy, loving, and caring, who will provide and protect.

Anxious Attachment

Anxious attachment is created when a child experiences a caregiver who sometimes attends to and cares for needs—emotionally, physically, or mentally—but sometimes is distant, inaccessible, or dismissive of those needs. Unpredictability and anxiety becomes the norm. This attachment style equates God with distrust, confusion, and unreliability. Will God hear prayers and be concerned, for example, or will God be dismissive and disinterested?

Avoidant Attachment

Avoidant attachment occurs when a caregiver is not able or willing to provide or care for a child, creating a lack of attunement or connection for the child. Therefore, the child has to become self-sufficient in order to survive. In this situation, God is often seen as removed, cold, distant, and uncaring; therefore, the person relies only on themselves for safety and security, overriding any dependence on God.

Disorganized Attachment

Disorganized attachment reflects an environment where the caregiver expresses love and concern but is also abusive, which creates disorganized and confused feelings for the child. The pain felt from the caregiver does not make sense with the moments of feeling loved, so the neural network creates both an anxious and an avoidant response. Sometimes there is hope for love and connection, and sometimes there is fierce independence, causing a disorganized, unpredictable response in relationships, including with God. Does God hurt those God loves and cause pain?

Attachment patterns can include a combination of styles, and people often work through childhood woundings on their own or with help from others. But when trauma is involved, it creates unique and deep wounds that are not easily addressed.

Attending to Trauma in Ministry Settings: Best Practices for Leaders

What happens when these situations of trauma arise in a ministry setting? There are some key things to pay attention to when working with someone who has experienced trauma, which might help the individual to break their silence and start a healing journey. Below are some best practices to follow.

1. Know Your Limitations

Recognize when a referral is needed if you are uncomfortable or feel out of your depth. Working with attachment issues and trauma is best done with a therapist or trained professional.

2. Notice Body Language

When you see someone fidgeting, rocking back and forth, hugging themselves, making themselves smaller, becoming aggressive in their stance, or constantly looking around, these are signs of the person’s danger and threat detection on high alert (sympathetic nervous system response). Even in a mild environment, the person may feel activated and feel the need to self-protect. You may also hear a change in tone of voice, refusal to speak, or actions reflective of a child. These are also signs that a person does not feel safe.

3. Build Trust

Listen without judgment or advice. Be a place of safety where you are more curious than anything else. Check in with how their body feels: Do they feel tightness in the stomach? Do they have a headache? Check in with their state of being as well without trying to fix anything: Are they anxious? Worried? Angry? Just be fully present and calm.

4. Pay Attention to Your Words

A key part of working with someone is to avoid activating trauma by using language that is hurtful. Words can immediately retraumatize due to association with pain and fear, so be cognizant of using language that might seem harmless and restorative to you but might actually be damaging. Some key words to look out for are: “submission,” “surrender,” “confession,” “God as Father,” “sin,” and “forgiveness.”

5. Respect Boundaries and Maintain Neutrality

Put aside your own beliefs about God. Allow the person to express feelings and thoughts without correction. Accept that they may not be in a place to pray or talk about God because it’s too painful. Let them control the conversation, as this gives them a sense of power and control, which is important for those who have experienced little to no agency in abusive situations.

6. Practice Self-Compassion

As you hear someone’s story, allow questions or doubts to emerge within yourself and know that it’s okay. Let yourself feel pain, sorrow, anger, or rage. You may wonder why God didn’t intervene in a given situation or have other disconcerting thoughts while listening. Talk with others whom you trust and make sure you are not carrying the burden alone while also respecting and maintaining confidentiality. Know that this is hard work and emotionally taxing. Be sure to do something that brings you joy soon after a difficult conversation to bring balance to your own mind and spirit.

Healing Is Possible

We know God is in the healing business. As we walk with others on painful journeys, we can be sure that the Spirit is at work, restoring and bringing wholeness in small but powerful moments. For the woman who thought she was evil, she gradually began to believe a different narrative about who she was, who God is, and how to relate to others. Her healing journey is in process, but her heart is opening to the belief that God delights in her and she is a worthwhile human being. Change and healing are possible with time, patience, trust, and courage.

Further Resources

• “Anatomy of the Soul” by Curt Thompson (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2010)
• “Healing Deepest Hurts: When God Feels Distant and Hope Seems Lost” by Karen Bartlett (Plano, TX: Invite Press, 2024)
• “Trauma in the Pews: The Impact on Faith and Spiritual Practices” by Janyne McConnaughey (Glendora, CA: Berry Powell, 2022)
• “What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing” by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey (New York: Flatiron Books, 2021)
• “When Spirituality and Trauma Collide: A Guidebook for Practitioners of Soul Care” by Karen Bartlett (Plano, TX: Invite Press, 2023)

Featured image is by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash