Our praise team was practicing the worship song “The More I Seek You”, and I was becoming emotional. Although some might consider these lyrics a bit too graphic and personal to sing to God, (laying close enough to feel someone’s heartbeat – that’s mighty close!) they were just what was needed to slow down the “trauma disc” playing in my mind.
The more I seek you
The more I find you
The more I find you
The more I love youI want to sit at your feet
Drink from the cup in your hand
Lay back against you and breath
Feel your heartbeatThis love is so deep
It’s more than I can stand
I melt in your peace
It’s overwhelming(The More I Seek You, Zach Neese, 1999)
“Trauma disc” is the term Ted Roberts uses in his book Pure Desire to describe the subconscious place where our minds store painful memories and emotions from past abuse, violence, tragedy and loss. That disc is accessed when a sound, a smell, a touch, or an event somehow jolts our subconsciousness into action. Bottled up emotions and memories surface to replay as if they are happening all over again.
Willpower won’t stop the disc’s spinning.
Prayer, scripture, worshiping, and talking all help. But the disc will play until the disc stops.
When my trauma disc plays, I often feel the need to be held in strong arms and to lay my head against a strong chest. I feel guilty about that longing; after all, I am a middle-aged man. But I also recognize in that longing the cry of the weak, wounded and weary child searching for security in the arms and heartbeat of his dad.
The lyrics “Lay back against you and breath / Feel your heartbeat” give me the vocabulary to express my heart cry to my Heavenly Father.
As we played and sang these lyrics in our practice, and as my tears flowed and I admitted my pain, I eventually heard my Heavenly Father’s quiet, simple, and non-condemning reassurance “You are all right.” I didn’t immediately realize how deeply God was comforting me, but the trauma disc did begin to slow. I began to know that despite the emotions from the past playing in my mind, I was OK.
I had felt His heartbeat of compassion.
A father does not despise his child’s tears, his child’s pain, and his child’s need for comfort. Scripture pictures God in His love storing the tears of His children. And scripture promises that all those tears will eventually be wiped away. That’s the Father love I crave.
This love is so deep
It’s more than I can stand
I melt in your peace
It’s overwhelming
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Me too… This is really powerful, Mark.