"TRAUMA"

Pastor Miah White 

Christian spirituality, without an integration of mental, physical, and emotional health, can be deadly—to yourself, your relationship with God, and the people around you. Pastors and Mental Health Professionals must partner in care to promote mental health awareness. It is well overdue for the church community to bring awareness and recognition to the importance of psychological well-being. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It determines how we handle stress, relate to others, and make decisions.

Most Christians find that pretending is safer than honesty and vulnerability. No one wants to appear weak. Many of us were actually taught to never show signs of weakness. It’s easier to wear a tough exterior, and to pretend that you have it all together than to be honest about what is really going on inside. We hear and tell people that strength lies in your ability to smile through tears and suffer in silence. This couldn’t be any further than the truth. Strength is being brave enough to talk about what’s hurting you on the inside and opening oneself up for healing. I believe now more than ever that the Lord is highlighting the need for healing from trauma, and He is bringing insight as to how emotional health will bring freedom to His people. The church must prioritize mental health awareness and the benefits it will bring to truly having spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally healthy people. You will find out that spiritual growth, though apparently growing on the outside, can be stunted because of the lack awareness mentally and emotionally. There are things on the inside that we know exist, but ignore, because acknowledging them would mean that we were not as holy as we want to portray, or that we did not have it as together as we wanted ourselves to believe. 

Mental health is one of the most vital and important areas of deliverance ministry that we cannot overlook. While it is important to cast out demons, it is just as important, if not more important, to minister to the emotional wounds and mental state. These are the most common reasons that deliverances can fail. The goal is not to forget a hurtful event or trauma, but to receive healing for that event. When we look back upon a healed wound, we can see it in a different way, because it has been healed and is no longer painful to look back upon. Therefore, it is important for the church to partner with mental health professionals as well as making sure that there is awareness. Therapy and any type of rehabilitation process or facility is the training of managing a heal state. 



Our current difficulties tap into unhealed and unresolved traumatic events of the past. Every one of our memories carries with it a stored emotion, and a lot of these emotions are undesirable and damaging if we do not do the work that is needed mentally. Having Jesus, and a therapist is a winning solution to bring exposure and healing to trauma. What we have found is that the lack of mental health awareness coupled with biblical guidance leaves an unnecessary struggle, and people become convinced that their inability to commit and build healthy roots had been authorized by God. They flounder and stay trapped in cycles of lack and despair! Don't stay trapped!

Pain demands a response. For every blow You live beyond, you become a more formidable foe and a force to be reckoned with. True healing allows you to see that every hurt helps you if you process it correctly. Unfortunately, you won’t ever be free from pain, but you can be free from the prison it creates. Experience it, respond to it, release it, and be free of it! Our souls need saving not only from Hell but also from the many dark attacks that may come our way during life. The pain of healing is better than the pain of hiding. If we want better results for our people, we must focus on our internal systems. Partnering and providing resources that present opportunities for true health and wholeness. As James Clear wrote in his book, “Atomic Habits”- You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

Pastor Miah White 

Lead Pastor 

The Worship Center STL