Trauma Bonded Series – Episode 1

This is post 1 of 3 of our Trauma Bonded Series! Let’s get to it, we all go through hard times. We all have stories of people who found a way to treat us like doormats before they ever attempted to treat us like people. We all know what it feels like to be valued by what you can do and not who you are. We all have moments in time when we might experience trauma and that trauma can inform how we build our lives if we allow it to.

When I was in high school I dated this boy who was a little older than me but when I met him I just knew he was the one… until he wasn’t. But I met him and built a relationship with him because we had one thing in common. We had been hurt the same. We built a relationship over a common pain. We knew exactly how to interact so we didn’t cause that same pain again and we knew exactly how to care for each other in a way that allowed us to hide each other’s wounds without helping to heal them. 

When you’re wounded the only thing you want is a safe place to rest. 

Until you find Jesus, until you get into therapy until you meet the right friend group, no one teaches you how to heal you just kind of go with what you know and do the best you can.

Trauma shapes us, trauma can make us, and sometimes trauma breaks us. And trauma can give us the lens through which we see the world.

Lives built-in unhealed places only perpetuate generational curses and cause more damage than they do good. 

Let’s go to scripture. Let’s start with God’s covenant to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 God promises that Abraham will receive land. That a great nation will come from him, that he will be blessed and God will make his name great. God promised to defend Abraham, bless him, and bless every family that comes from him. 

Remember that covenant now fast forward to Genesis 16, we know that Abraham was married to Sarah. Abraham and Sarah were old. Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 years old. But God told them that they would have children, Sarah laughed at the thought b because of her age and they carried on with life.

Not long after God delivered his promise of a child Sarah started getting impatient. Sarah brings in her slave woman Hagar and then shortly after Hagar finds herself pregnant. Hagar gave birth to Abraham’s son Ishmael. Abraham loved his son but as Ishmael grew Hargar started getting uppity! Sarah’s servant began to turn her nose up to the woman she served. Sarah was not having it so she immediately asked Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert. And Abraham did precisely what Sarah asked.

As they were in the desert their water dried up and Hagar placed Ishmael under a shrub In Genesis 21:16-17 the bible says:

Then she went and sat down across from him at a distance of about a bowshot; for she said to herself, “Let me not see the death of the boy.” So she sat opposite him and lifted her voice and wept. 

And God heard the voice of the lad. Then the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said to her, “What ails you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.

Genesis 21:16-17

God heard Ishmael even though the bible says that Hagar was the one calling out to God. Ishmael was bonded to the covenant that God made to Abraham. He was bonded through the trauma of his birth. 

The circumstances that surrounded Ishmael being born and growing up with Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar were traumatic. Ishmael was the son of Abraham but he was also the trauma. But the pain surrounding his birth is what bonded him to the promise. Ishmael and Abraham were bonded not only through blood but through the trauma that brought him into the earth and because of that bond, God had to keep his word!

Remember God said I will bless the families that come from you, God is not a human that he should lie, so when he said it he meant it!

Ishmael was saved not because his mother called on God but because God called on himself. God remembered his promise and the words he spoke to Abraham that extended through Ishmael. God’s word is a guarantee so when he says he will bless you it’s done when he says he will expand your territory it’s done, when he says everything that comes from you will be blessed IT IS FINISHED! 

God only acted because he gave his word that he would. When god gives you his word… You can stand on it! It’s a guarantee!

God gave his word to Abraham but when it came to us, he gave of himself. He gave THE WORD through who all things were made and without him, nothing could be made. (John 1:3) The one who was the word in the beginning and who will continue to be the final word. The creator of all things the overcomer of all things. The walking word, Jesus Christ!

Jesus was the one who came to earth and bonded with us through the suffering of the cross. Jesus’ trauma bonded to us through the cross. He will never leave you, forsake you or abandon you.

We are bonded to Jesus through his pain and not our own. Through Jesus, we have the ability to take our trauma back to him because he understands. When you trauma bond to Jesus you become bonded to purpose. That’s how you accomplish the things of God. When Jesus came he said what he said. When he said “it is finished” he meant it. You’re guaranteed the promise because Jesus is your inheritance. The pain isn’t yours anymore, it’s his. His Yolk is easy and his burden is light (matthew 11:30) And that’s how Jesus wants it! 

Like Ishmael, you will be saved because a promise was made. When you’re bonded to Jesus, takes your trauma and gives you a purpose. When you walk in his intended purpose for your life, you rip people out of the darkness. When the darkness is weakened and enough light starts to shine the principalities can’t hold together. 

When you’re trauma bonded to Jesus darkness can’t win.