Video Transcript: Comfort, Strength, and God’s Peace: The Chaplain’s Role in Trauma and Recovery

Henry - So welcome back, everybody. Today, we're going to talk about comfort,  strength, God's peace, the chaplain's role in trauma and recovery. So you been  through your career as a chaplain. You've seen crisis, and let's talk about the  nature of crisis.  

Tom - Ministry, well, like the first bullet point there says, trauma breaks normal  life, so many, so often, life is proceeding, quote, unquote, normally, and then  something happens. Could be an accident, could be an unexpected death. It  could be a natural disaster or man made disaster, like we talked about last time,  like we talked about last time, and suddenly everything that someone thought  was normal in life is upended, and the things that they thought that they could  expect did not turn out to be true. I mean, many people, whether they will say it  or not, think, well, as long as I do the right things and as long as I'm the right  kind of person, my life will be fine. And then something horrific happens, and  that there's a death of a child, or there's an accident of some sort, and so it  breaks into life, and it disrupts all the mechanisms that we have that we think  are going to keep us moving forward. And it's very hard to recover from trauma.  It everything that we are, much of what we may have believed about the world  suddenly seems to no longer be true. And a very common response of people  is, if God loves me, then how could something like this, whatever this is, have  happened? Therefore, maybe God doesn't love me. Why doesn't God love me?  Maybe I'm a bad person, so maybe this trauma is God punishing me for being a  bad person, or, you know, they can go on and on and on and on, trying to figure  out why these bad things happen, as we talked about last time, does more harm than good, because people are not at a point where they can process that kind  of information. Some things just need to be endured for a while before you can  begin to make sense of it, if you ever can make sense of it, because there are  things that happen that we this side of heaven will never be able to make sense  of, and yet we are called upon to minister to other people in the midst of those  things. So one of the things that you know, in order for me to give hope as a  chaplain, I have to know where my hope comes from. Wow, I can't give what I  don't have. So if I'm going to be called upon as a chaplain to respond to  disasters or crisis of any kind, I have to have a pretty good theology of hope.  And where does my hope come? My hope comes not from that my bank  account is going to stay solid, that the economy is going to stay good, that  everybody I love will always be healthy. My hope comes from my relationship  with Jesus Christ, and I have to keep going back to that, because all the things  that the world tells me to put my hope in are going to fail at one point or another. So it's really, it's really vital for the chaplain in their preparation for doing ministry and trauma in ministry and disasters, is to know, what do I believe? There's an  old song. How does it go? I won't sing, don't worry. But I something like, I know  who I have believe it, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've 

trusted. We both know that. We both sort of know it, yeah, sorry, but it's the hope comes from God, yeah, not from circumstances that take place around me and  again, like we talked last time, presence is so much more important than words,  because people aren't at a point where they can even start to hear those words  yet.  

Henry - So what you're saying is basically this trauma breaks normal life.  Chaplains officiate hope, but the hope has to be real in them. We're not ritual we don't do incantations. We have rituals, but the foundation of the ritual is hope.  Jesus is risen from the dead. He is our hope. He is our everything. And that  presence is more than words. You're not going to try to figure it out for them right now and let them know what they got wrong or right. It's just you're there.  

Tom - and even when they ask questions, and they will ask questions, why did  this happen? Why did this happen? Sometimes we feel, as chaplains, because  we're representatives of God, that we have to explain what happened in a way  that will satisfy them, where the truth is that at that point in the trauma, nothing  

we say is going to provide a satisfactory answer. That's right, and God doesn't  need us to defend him or explain him. He needs us to show his love to people  who desperately need to find it.  

Henry - So there are some serious occasions that chaplains may confront and  deal with and walk into or bring themselves to overdoses, suicides, accidents,  school lockdowns, ER deaths. You become that calming, spiritual presence. Just pick one of them. I know we're going to go into future classes, into way more of  details here, but let's just take suicides. How would you now being in the in the  military? I have another good Chaplain friend who said that common suicides  can happen in the military, and you have to address that. So how do you bring  hope to that,  

Tom - that that's a really like all of those would be whichever one you pick. So  thank you for picking a really hard one. They they're all difficult. One of the  issues with suicide is it affects so many different layers of people on so many  different levels. Okay? So you have the person who, for whatever reason,  thought that life was was not livable anymore, that the only hope that they had  for their pain to end was to die. So you have that person that you're thinking  about. You have their immediate circle, mom, dad, husband, wife, kids, fiance,  shipmates. You have everybody who they worked with. You have their friends  from high school. You it gets, you know, the circles get bigger and bigger and  bigger, and there's so many people. And again, there is no explanation. I have  had parents say to me, please tell me why. Let's just say Joey, please tell me  why Joey did this. And the truth of the matter, as far as I can figure it out, is Joey

probably doesn't know why Joey did it. How could God have let this happen?  Well, then you get into some very tricky theological issues that those parents are not able to even start to think about, if they ever will be. What responsibility does God have for the actions of a person? Could God have stopped it? Many  believers think he could have and then he didn't. So how, what does that say  about God? So you just the more you try to explain it, the more the the less that  explanation is going to be helpful, right? And I have found that sitting next to a  person, weeping with a person, telling the person how sorry I am, sometimes  telling them that God tells us that He weeps over the dead of his the deaths of  his people. A big, a big concern people have with suicide is, Can God possibly  forgive my son, my wife, my husband, for doing this, that you can kind of talk  through a little bit. But again, it's it's being present with them and surrounding  them with people who love them and care about them and who help them to get  through the next minute so they can get through the next hour, so they can get  through the next day.  

Henry - So you are doing a suicide class, which is fascinating and very  interesting. I'm sure we want you to do it at Christian leaders Institute, because  this is really a very difficult but needed subject to address if you're in ministry, if  you were to look at the topic of suicide. Is in your mind, is suicide increasing in  the I know you've done this class? What sort of like the couple of highlights of a  class like that? What are some of the subjects you get into?  

Tom - Well, one of the things that we talk about is how anyone could be at risk  for suicide. Okay? So while we often think stereotypically, what kind of person  takes their own life, and we tend to to make them, we give a negative view,  right? What the person must be a loser, they must be a failure. They must. Be  mentally ill, something like that, right? Well, when, when a parent's child dies by  suicide, and the parent knows that that's what people are going to think about  their children, that makes it even worse, because their child isn't a loser. In their  mind, their their child isn't a loser. People, suicide is an overwhelming whatever  happened in that person's life was so overwhelming they felt that they did not  have a good choice to keep on living. And we will never be able to go back and  analyze all the things that did or didn't happen in that person's life, there's a lot  of guilt on the part of family and friends, because I should have seen something, I should have done something. We can only do, what we can do and what we're  aware of. And usually in these kind of cases, we had no idea what was coming.  So one of the things that we try to do is, is help the family members to  understand that their ability to have changed things was very, very limited.  Gotcha to try to reduce the guilt. You can't take away the guilt, but to reduce the  guilt, because they're going to feel very guilty about what happened, especially 

parents with with children, I should have seen it. I should have known. I should  have  

Henry - there is a hint, yeah, but I missed it. And and  

Tom - you know what? Sometimes there are hints, but it's like Monday morning. You knew whether that quarterback should have thrown the pass or not, but it  sure wasn't clear on Sunday. And this is a much more important topic than that  in retrospect. You know, looking back, there may be things, but usually there  aren't, and we can't hold ourselves responsible for things we have no control  over. But again, that's not even a conversation that I would have right in the in  the days after the event. What I would do with in a situation is surround that  person with people who will love and care for them, be close to them, listen to  them in their grief and pain, allow them to mourn, allow them to be angry with  God. Allow them to be angry with themselves and with other people, and just  slowly, bit by bit, start to work through that, and knowing that that is not God's  will for our world, for people to take their own lives, but very bad things happen,  and it's a it's a painful world that we live in.  

Henry - The Bible addresses great sadness. Jesus Himself wept the shortest  verse in the Bible. Job's friend sat in silence, fascinating Paul in the storm, Acts  27 so we could also talk about laments. There's lamentations. Many of the  psalm are, why? Oh, God. So in some ways, we don't have to fight the  sadnesses that occur. We just do not want to sort of give the pat answers, and  because we don't know why we can still bring it's like the tsunami in the end we  walk with you in this season.  

Tom - Yeah, and the and the pat answers are not going to satisfy any way, and  they are more likely to offend than they are to heal. So that calm presence and  listening be a listening ear. And sometimes you will have someone who is so  angry at God they don't want to pray, right? Sometimes, yep, sometimes they  will be receptive to praying. And even if people don't want to pray with me in that situation, I will ask them, but is it okay if I pray for for you after after I leave or  after you leave? And they have always said yes to that, and even if they said no, I would still pray for them after they left.  

Henry - So let's talk about this. Three Chaplain gifts, comfort, be present, instill  strength. Speak gentle, timely words peace, guide them to the next step. That  third one, guide them to the next step.  

Tom - And I would say, guide them initially to the next small steps. Okay? And  as time goes by, the steps can get a little bigger, but initially it's, how do we 

survive today? How do we get through the funeral? How do we get through well, and even before the funeral, how do we go to the to the funeral home and pick  out a casket? Okay? Whereas yesterday, we were planning, you know, our trip.  To whatever, and now we have to go to a funeral home. If you know the family,  offer to go with them. If you don't know the family, find somebody who does  know the family that's going to go with them. Help them make those small  decisions. Help them make good decisions. They have to be their decisions, but  help them to make good decisions. I've, I've gone to funeral homes with people  who are mourning the death of someone in a traumatic death, who somehow  thought spending 10s and 10s and 10s of 1000s of dollars on a funeral was  going to make things better. And so you have the you know, you help them, let  them make their own decisions, but give them some guidance on because,  especially with young people, their families have never gone through a funeral  before. They don't know what's expected, what what they should or shouldn't do. And then, as you get through that, that first day or two, then how do we get  through this funeral? How do we make this celebration of this person's life in  spite of the way that they died? Right? And in a funeral, different pastors will  have different opinions about this, but when I've done funerals for people who  have died by suicide. I don't pretend that this didn't happen, right? Because  everybody there knows it happened. So I talk about the grace of God is  unconditional, the grace of God no matter what, and and then I also talk about, if someone is facing those kind of issues that that's a concern for them, please  talk to someone, because everybody in this room wishes he or she had talked to someone to just to address the the elephant in the room and the reality that  there are people who are sitting there who are probably thinking, if they chose to die by suicide, maybe that's a legitimate choice for me, but it, but it's, it's a very  difficult thing to minister in and and it, I'll add it to your practical tips here, While  you got it already there self care. Make sure you're taking care of yourself  throughout the process. You can't be the only person supporting that family,  right? Because that's just too much for you to do on your own. Get other people  in the military. One thing we do is, when there is a suicide, an officer is assigned  to that family, and that becomes their only job for as long as they're needed, that they just take care of the needs of that  

Henry - family, not five families, but one  

Tom - family, one family. Yes, they take care of the needs of that that that one  family, and they are their support. But then we as chaplains make sure that that  person who is the support for that family is also being supported, right, and not  just by the chaplain, right? 

Henry - You know, in some ways, this area of family support, you know,  supporting a family of suicide, and that is probably something Christianity could  do better, to be honest. I don't know if we, you know, I'm just reflecting truthfully  that I look back in my ministry, there were several suicides over those years and  and just listening to you today, I think we did like 85% you know, you know.  Honestly, I look back and, oh, that, you know, I wonder, if we too quickly jump to  answering the questions. Sometimes I wonder. Sometimes I you know, some  things you did really well, you know, bathe them with people and food. And I  think, you know. But other things. I mean, as I really feel like this is an area  where it is difficult, and maybe some people have more of a gift to do this than  others, and that would be something important if you know you have  insensitivities. Who do you know that you can have help you things?  

Tom - Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things is, when there's a suicide, there's  there's two things. One is you have lost a person who you love, yes, and that's  traumatic enough as it is. But then the manner of the death is also extremely  traumatic, right? And it can be difficult for someone just to mourn the death of  someone they love because of the way the person died, right? And so we can  give them permission to just mourn the loss of the person they love and to and  to not focus on how they died or why they died, but just mourn the fact that  they've died, right? And that's. Have the issue, yeah, and that, you know, then  with with much more time and probably more counseling than you will be able to give them, as a chaplain, you can help them work through some of the some of  the elements that are going to stick with them forever about the manner of their  death.  

Henry - So here again, we come back to this theme. You carry Christ's peace,  his presence into chaos. You are not the healer, but you know the healer. Show  up, stay, stay, be still. Let God move. It's just holding back. But while you're  holding back, it doesn't mean you're not imparting. You're just bringing in the  presence of God. But in fact, I feel trite saying just bringing in, I mean, the  presence of God is really what you're doing. Yeah. Okay, again, very emotional  topics, but very practical in a world looking for hope.