Faith to Not Forfeit

A Call in Counseling

Over the last year or so, I've become increasingly prayerful and mindful about the clients the Lord sends my way.

Are there similarities between them? What are they dealing with? What themes keep showing up? What do I find myself repeating throughout the day?

These are common questions therapists ask because they help us identify our "niche." But for me, they've also become spiritual questions. I want to understand what I need to study, where I need to grow, and how I need to prepare so I can be as effective as possible with the people entrusted to my care.

As I continued to ponder these questions, I eventually landed here:

I support people who are cycle breakers in their families — people who have experienced some form of childhood or intergenerational trauma and are intentionally healing from it so they can create something different.

That made sense to me. It captured much of the work I was already doing, and as many of you have probably figured out by now, I talk about intergenerational trauma quite a bit.

So I thought I had figured it out.

Then, a couple of months ago, a longtime client made the decision to move out of state.

During our termination session, we were both tearful as we reflected on all the Lord had done in their life over the years. As they were getting ready to leave, they said something I wasn't expecting:

"I remember at the very first session you told me, 'I'm gonna get you to see who you really are.'"

I was taken aback.

First, because it made me wonder what else clients remember me saying that I have completely forgotten.

But also because — that's a huge promise to make someone.

I cannot reveal someone's identity to them. I cannot heal their deepest wounds. I cannot undo what happened to them. That kind of transformation requires the work of the Holy Spirit, not anything I possess in my own power.

But I could also understand what I'd meant when I said it.

Because one of the commonalities I've noticed, both in myself and in many of the people who sit across from me, is that somewhere along the way, we stopped seeing ourselves clearly.

We don't always know who we are.

We don't always know that we are purposed.

And trauma can play a significant role in that.

When Trauma Starts Talking

Trauma can be understood as the lasting emotional, psychological, physiological, or relational impact of an experience or series of experiences that overwhelms a person's ability to cope, creates a sense of threat or helplessness, and disrupts their sense of safety, self, or connection to others.

And trauma isn't limited to something that happens directly to us. Witnessing traumatic events can affect us deeply as well.

According to data from the National Comorbidity Survey–Adolescent Supplement, the average age of first exposure to a potentially traumatic event is approximately 9.2 years old.

Think about what is happening developmentally around nine years old.

At nine, a child's thinking is becoming more sophisticated, but it is still largely concrete. Self-concept is developing, and questions surrounding Who am I? are becoming increasingly complex. Children are beginning to evaluate themselves in comparison with others. Emotional regulation is developing, while relationships, belonging, acceptance, and loyalty are becoming increasingly important.

Erik Erikson placed children around this age within the developmental stage of Industry vs. Inferiority. The underlying question is essentially: Am I capable? Am I competent?

During these years, children are forming beliefs about themselves and the world around them:

I'm capable. I'm valuable. People like me. I belong. People are safe.

But they can also form very different conclusions:

I'm not good enough. Something is wrong with me. People leave. I can't trust anyone. I have to take care of myself. My needs don't matter. I have to perform to be loved.

Here's why that matters.

At roughly the same developmental period when many children first encounter potentially traumatic experiences, they're also actively constructing beliefs about competence, belonging, relationships, safety, and themselves — without yet possessing the mature abstract reasoning or independent emotional regulation needed to fully understand what is happening to them.

Children make meaning from their experiences. And sometimes the meaning they make becomes more enduring than the experience itself.

A child who is abandoned doesn't simply experience someone's absence. They may conclude, I'm not worth staying for.

A child who is constantly criticized may conclude, I'm never good enough.

A child whose needs repeatedly go unmet may conclude, I shouldn't need anyone.

A child who grows up around chaos may conclude, I always have to be in control.

Those conclusions can become beliefs. Beliefs can become patterns. And patterns practiced long enough can begin to feel like identity.

That's why, by the time many clients arrive in my office, I'm not only speaking to the 20-, 30-, 40-, 50-, or 60-something sitting in front of me. Sometimes I'm also speaking to the wounded nine-year-old — or five-year-old, or thirteen-year-old — who experienced something they weren't developmentally equipped to understand without somehow making it about themselves.

And somewhere along the way, what happened to them began telling them who they were.

That's when the question changed for me.

What am I actually supposed to be doing with the people the Lord sends me? What is He calling me to help facilitate? What's the message? What's His heart toward them?

And I believe part of the answer is this:

He has called me to facilitate healing and change so that His children can become empowered to walk in the purpose, promises, and fullness of who God has called them to be — rather than remaining bound by what trauma, shame, fear, past mistakes, or painful experiences taught them to believe about themselves.

And recently, as I read the story of Abraham, I saw a beautiful picture of what that can look like.

Abraham Had a Promise

We're first introduced to Abram in Genesis 11, but his story really begins unfolding in Genesis 12.

God tells Abram to leave his country, his relatives, and his father's household and go to a land that He will show him. And with the instruction comes an extraordinary promise. God tells Abram that He will make him into a great nation. He will bless him and make his name great. He will bless those who bless him, and through him all the families of the earth will be blessed.

And Abram goes.

But here's what I love about Abraham's story: the man who receives the promise is not a perfect man.

A few chapters later, Abram becomes afraid that he will be killed because of his wife Sarah's beauty, so he tells her to say that she is his sister. Fear influences his behavior. Yet God intervenes.

Abram continues his journey. He experiences God's provision. He accumulates tremendous wealth. He sees God move on his behalf. But there's still a problem — he doesn't have the son God promised him.

By Genesis 15, Abram starts asking questions. How exactly is this promise going to happen when I don't have an heir? He begins imagining another solution: perhaps one of his servants will inherit everything.

But God corrects him. No. His heir will be his own son. God even takes Abram outside and tells him to look toward the heavens and count the stars, if he can. "So shall your offspring be." And Abram believes Him.

But then time passes.

When We Try to Help God Keep His Promise

By Genesis 16, waiting becomes difficult. Abram and Sarai know what God said, but their circumstances don't seem to match it. So they develop another plan. Sarai gives Abram her servant Hagar, and Abram fathers Ishmael.

In other words, they attempt to accomplish through human strategy what God had promised to accomplish through divine power.

And if we're being truthful, I think many of us understand that impulse. Waiting is hard. Uncertainty is hard. Not knowing how God is going to do what He said He would do is hard. And for those of us shaped by trauma, surrender can be especially difficult.

Trauma often teaches us to survive through control. Plan ahead. Anticipate what could go wrong. Don't depend too heavily on anyone. Protect yourself. Make something happen. Have a backup plan for the backup plan.

Sometimes those strategies were genuinely useful. They helped us survive environments where safety, consistency, or trustworthy care weren't guaranteed. But survival strategies can become problematic when we carry them into places where God is asking us to trust.

Abram knew what God said. But for a moment, what he could see became more convincing than what God had spoken. So he tried to secure the promise himself.

And yet even Abraham's failure did not cause God to abandon His covenant.

Thirteen years later, God appears to Abram again. He changes Abram's name to Abraham. He tells him to walk before Him faithfully. He reaffirms His covenant and makes clear that Sarah will give birth to the promised son.

And eventually, in Genesis 21, Isaac is born. The promise Abraham and Sarah waited approximately 25 years to see fulfilled is finally in their arms.

Think about that. Twenty-five years of waiting. Twenty-five years of questions. Twenty-five years containing faith, fear, obedience, doubt, mistakes, consequences, and moments when they tried to take matters into their own hands.

Their story is not one of perfection. It's a story of God's faithfulness in the middle of human imperfection.

And then comes Genesis 22.

When God Asks for the Promise Back

God tells Abraham: Take your son. Your only son Isaac. The son whom you love. And offer him as a sacrifice.

The promised son. The son Abraham and Sarah waited decades for. The son through whom God said descendants, nations, blessing, and covenant would come. God asks Abraham to put him on the altar.

And Abraham gets up early the next morning and goes.

That's astonishing to me. Because the Abraham of Genesis 22 is very different from the Abraham we saw earlier. In Genesis 16, Abraham tried to manufacture the promise because he couldn't understand how God was going to fulfill it. By Genesis 22, Abraham is willing to surrender the very thing that appears necessary for the promise to happen.

That's growth. That's trust. That's faith.

When Abraham and Isaac arrive at the mountain, Abraham tells his servants: "Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you."

We will come back.

Abraham isn't speaking like a man who believes God's promise has been canceled.

And when Isaac notices that they have everything necessary for a sacrifice except the sacrifice itself and asks his father where the lamb is, Abraham responds: "God will provide for himself the lamb."

Then Abraham prepares to do exactly what God commanded. At the last moment, the angel of the Lord stops him. And there, caught in a thicket, is a ram. God provides.

But Hebrews 11 gives us an even deeper glimpse into Abraham's thinking. It tells us that Abraham reasoned that God was able even to raise Isaac from the dead. In other words:

Abraham was so convinced that God would keep His word that even when his circumstances appeared to contradict the promise, he refused to reinterpret what God had said.

And that is the part I can't stop thinking about.

Abraham Didn't Disqualify Himself

Abraham had history.

He had lied out of fear. He had doubted. He had become impatient. He had tried to accomplish God's promise his own way. He had made decisions that produced real consequences.

But when God asked him for Isaac, Abraham didn't respond as though his past had finally caught up with him.

He didn't say, I knew God would eventually take this away because of what I did.

He didn't assume, This must be punishment for Hagar.

He didn't decide, Maybe God changed His mind about me.

He didn't allow his previous failures to reinterpret God's character or God's word. He believed God.

And I wonder how often we do the opposite.

God says one thing. Our history says another.

• God says loved. Rejection taught us unwanted.

• God says adopted. Abandonment taught us alone.

• God says forgiven. Shame keeps producing evidence for our condemnation.

• God says free. Trauma tells us we're trapped.

• God says trust Me. Our nervous system remembers every time trusting someone wasn't safe.

• God calls us forward. Fear reminds us what happened the last time we tried.

And without realizing it, we can begin living according to what happened to us instead of what God has said.

The Only Way to Lose Is to Forfeit

I once heard someone say:

"The only way the enemy can win is if you forfeit."

That statement has stayed with me.

Now, I don't mean that our fear or failure somehow makes us powerful enough to cancel the sovereignty of God. Abraham's mistakes did not nullify God's covenant. And I don't mean that every specific promise God made to Abraham belongs directly to every believer today.

I mean something different.

There are things Scripture clearly says about those who belong to Christ. We are adopted. Redeemed. Forgiven. Made new. Set free. Given access to God. Created for good works. Called according to His purpose. Given His Spirit. Invited to walk in freedom, obedience, love, authority, and abundant spiritual life.

And yet we can live as though none of those things are true. We can surrender our participation in what God has invited us to walk in because another voice became more convincing than His.

That's what I mean by forfeiting.

And sometimes that other voice sounds remarkably reasonable:

You know what happened last time. You're not ready. You're too damaged. People like you don't do things like that. You've made too many mistakes. Don't get your hopes up. Protect yourself. Stay where it's safe.

And here's the tricky thing about trauma: those thoughts don't always feel like lies. Sometimes they feel like wisdom — because at one point, some of them may have helped us survive.

This Is Where Healing Matters

This is one of the places where I believe mental health work and faith can meet beautifully.

Therapy isn't about pretending painful things didn't happen. It isn't about replacing Scripture. It isn't about doing the work of the Holy Spirit.

Good therapy can help us uncover the beliefs, wounds, protective patterns, and relational expectations that have quietly been telling us who we are for years. It gives us an opportunity to ask:

Where did I learn this? What happened that made this belief necessary? Was it true then? Is it true now? And does it agree with what God says about me?

Sometimes the nine-year-old version of you came to a conclusion that the adult version of you is still living by. And sometimes God is calling the adult you somewhere that the wounded child in you is terrified to go.

That's why healing matters. Because healing helps us recognize the difference. It allows us to have compassion for the parts of ourselves that learned to survive, while also refusing to let survival become our permanent identity.

And sometimes our deliverance is a process. Sometimes God changes something instantly. Other times, He walks us through it.

Sometimes freedom looks like a breakthrough at an altar. Sometimes it looks like telling the truth in a therapist's office for the first time. Sometimes it looks like setting a boundary. Sometimes it looks like grieving what you never received. Sometimes it looks like learning that disagreement doesn't equal abandonment. Sometimes it looks like allowing someone to love you without waiting for them to leave. Sometimes it looks like recognizing a thought you've believed for 30 years and finally asking, Who told me that was true?

None of those processes diminish the power of God. They may actually become places where we experience it.

Faith to Not Forfeit

Abraham's story reminds me that faith isn't the absence of a complicated history. Faith is choosing to believe God in the presence of one.

The Abraham of Genesis 22 still had Genesis 12, Genesis 16, and every mistake in between behind him. But his past no longer got to determine what he believed about God's future.

Maybe that's part of our work too. To identify the places where trauma has been speaking. To confront the places where shame has been speaking. To recognize where fear has been making our decisions. To notice the places where we're still trying to control an outcome because trusting feels too dangerous.

And then, over and over again, return to what God has said.

Your past may explain some of the ways you learned to survive. It does not have the authority to name you.

Your mistakes do not have the authority to name you. Your abandonment does not have the authority to name you. Your rejection does not have the authority to name you. Your trauma does not have the authority to name you. Your shame does not have the authority to name you.

God does.

You have an identity that existed in the heart of God before trauma ever had an opportunity to speak. And if you are in Christ, your wounds, mistakes, trauma, and choices do not get the final word about who you are.

You have been chosen, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, made new, and called according to His purpose.

You may read those words and believe them theologically while struggling to experience them personally. That's okay. Sometimes healing is the process of bringing what we know to be true about God into the places within us that learned to expect something different.

Abraham had to learn to trust the Promise-Giver more than the circumstances surrounding the promise.

So do we.

Don't forfeit your identity because of what happened to you.

Don't forfeit your calling because of what you did.

Don't forfeit obedience because fear tells you how badly it could go.

Don't forfeit freedom because bondage has become familiar.

Don't let a wounded version of you make every decision for the healed version God is calling forward.

You have a purpose. You have been called. And the things that happened to you may be part of your story, but they don't get to write the ending.

Have faith to not forfeit.