Living in Disconnection: Sin, Shame, Trauma, and Healing What’s Within

Editor’s Note: We were interested in getting an excerpt from Chuck DeGroat’s forthcoming book Healing What’s Within: Coming Home to Yourself and to God When You’re Wounded, Weary, and Wandering. Instead of an excerpt, Chuck wrote a summary, which we’re happy to share with you today. The book will be released in October.

Disconnection from oneself is the essence of trauma.

He’d said it in passing in a podcast conversation, but these words from the preeminent physician and trauma expert Gabor Maté reminded me of why contemporary conversations about trauma are so deeply connected to the biblical story.  

Trauma.

Perhaps you’ve heard. Folks are talking a lot about trauma these days. It’s a word we often use flippantly. We cry – “that was so traumatic” – when our football team loses in the final seconds. We call the wild roller coaster ride at the amusement park “traumatizing” when our heads are spinning at the end of it. You’re also likely to see the word on the cover of self-help books these days. But don’t let its misuse or overuse deter you from serious curiosity.

That’s because trauma isn’t just a contemporary conversation. It has deep roots in what CS Lewis might call ancient memory, and profound intersections with what Christians call sin, shame, alienation, estrangement, injustice, and more. Gabor Maté’s passing comment is the tip of the iceberg of a story as ancient as time.

Scripture begins with a story of profound union and communion – intimate connection – between God and his creation. Humans are created in-and-for communion and connection – with God, with each other, with themselves. As image-bearers, we’re designed with immense dignity and profound worth. We’re created for profound belonging. And we’re fashioned with a purpose. All of these are core blessings – your divine inheritance. It’s as if God is whispering over you, “You’re worth it. You belong. You matter. That’s your birthright as my image-bearer.”[i]

Today, we’d notice echoes of what psychologists call secure attachment in these first pages of the story, where the location itself – Eden (which means “delight”) – reveals the heart of God’s love for humanity and a most safe and secure home to flourish within.  

But this life of shalom is interrupted by a slithering snake with its own agenda.

Did God really say? it mutters, its target the seen and secure hearts of God’s beloved children. Can you really trust God? Is God’s design for you really good? Are you sure you’re not missing something? Are you certain God isn’t holding out on you? Might it be time to take matters into your own hands?

We’re not told in Genesis 3 how long Adam and Eve deliberated after being targeted, surely confused, disoriented, their hearts already torn. I’m curious about what happened within as these questions simmered. How did shame begin to take root, the insidious lies prompting quiet whispers within of worthlessness, of alienation, of purposelessness? How did they experience this wounding arrow through the heart? When did fear and desperation begin to set in? When did it feel like grasping for the fruit might provide the relief their hearts required?

Genesis 3 is often recounted as a story of humanity’s arrogance. They sinned, we’re told, and we’re implicated in it, all of us somehow incriminated in an ancient tale of a power grab. But what is often ignored is that humanity’s first parents were targeted, deceived, gaslit, and harmed. They were pummeled by a force of deception that challenged their very security, identity, and treasured place in God’s economy of things. Death was the ultimate consequence of eating the fruit, revealing the deceiver’s murderous intentions. The slithering serpent aimed an arrow at their hearts and pulled the trigger.

It’s worth pausing to consider this. Adam and Eve didn’t wake up one day and design a power grab. And the growing shame that led them to grasp for the promised relief the fruit might offer didn’t appear out of thin air. The slithering serpent targeted their glory, their goodness, their God-given, image-bearing birthright. The wounded hearts of Adam and Eve grasped for the fruit alright, but I wonder if their grasping was really born out of arrogance or if was a matter of existential desperation. I’m curious about the conditions under which their appetites began to change. It’s worth slowing down and reading between the lines.   

I’ve more often heard the doctrine of original sin associated with this story, but it may be more rightly named as an original or primal wound.[ii] This isn’t to minimize sin, as we’ll see in a moment. But trauma is the Greek word for wound, and it won’t be surprising to the reader that I see in this story the roots of traumatic self-alienation that linger within us all. Disconnection from oneself is the essence of trauma, says Gabor Maté. I’d add that disconnection from oneself, God, and each other is the essence of trauma. It’s shalom vandalized. It’s delight desecrated. It’s Eden lost. It’s life exiled. All through a deception perpetrated by a master gaslighter manifesting in a fatal choice born out of a lie.

And disconnection begets disconnection. The first chapters of Scripture speak to the cost of alienation and estrangement – self-protection, hiding, blame-shifting, self-righteousness, violence, envy, lies, adultery, murder, rivalry, rape, arrogance, displacement, genocide. These are the consequences of a life of disconnection. This is how we cope outside of Eden. And here is where we can talk about sin more fully.

Indeed, the 1,185 chapters between Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22 illustrate what some might call “living in sin.”  Sin, you see, is living under the illusion of separation, is abiding under the spell of the serpent, who sews doubt and stirs shame, beckoning us to seek worth and belonging and purpose elsewhere when its already ours. Sin is life lived in a numbing detachment, which becomes habitual as we acclimate to an existence outside of Eden. Sin builds towers of confusion. Sin manipulates, abuses and enslaves. Sin divides hearts and people. Sin names God as a reality but doesn’t live in vital connection to God. Sin lives under the lie of the serpent that God can’t be trusted and God’s image-bearing birthright within us isn’t enough.

That’s not what people typically call sin, though. In fact, we’ve lost the plotline, minimizing sin’s magnitude, boiling it down to a set of expressed behaviors, often defined by what a particular religious tribe dictates. For some, sin might mean drinking a beer. Or skipping church. Or entertaining a lustful thought. But this misses the point, as Jesus shows in Matthew 5. It turns faith into a game of behaving well rather than connecting deeply, into a game of being right than being in relationship. It misses the wider vision for flourishing, for neighborly love, for reconciliation, for life lived out of the fullness of union and communion with God that God longs for.  

This is why the ministry of Jesus is seen as scandalous among moralizing Pharisees. Jesus didn’t nitpick behaviors. He asks a core question, over and over again: “What do you long for? What do you want? What are you really hungry and thirsty for?” Jesus didn’t come to get us to behave better. He came to awaken our hearts to Beatitude-life. To inaugurate a Kingdom in which love’s primacy would be restored. To tabernacle among us, re-Edening the world. To heal traumatized bodies and restore wholeness to divided hearts. To repair the primal rupture. To expose the serpent’s lie. To vulnerably enter into our wounded (read: traumatized) world, suffering with us and for us, “becoming sin” (2 Cor. 5) for us by enduring the ultimate disconnection within his own wounded (read: traumatized) body, so as to reconcile us and all things to unending union.

And Jesus sends his Spirit to dwell within us, restoring connection, and empowering us to live in this new and better story. We once grasped the fruit, but now we bear fruit – love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Gal. 5:22-23). The vision here is for a life much larger than mere “sin management,” as Dallas Willard said, as sin management is just another way of coping amidst traumatic disconnection. Here we begin to imagine what might happen as people experience reunion with God, and reconnection at their depths. Here we see stories of reconciliation. Here we see repair amidst ruptures and injustices. Life in the kingdom of God is ultimately a life of restored connection, where Eden’s promise is animated in the lives of God’s image-bearers. And sin’s power dissipates amidst vital connection.

If the slithering serpent’s arrows targeted human worth, belonging, and purpose, here we begin to see what happens as wounded hearts are healed, as we live lives grounded in our divine birthright. Here, you’re not chasing worth, but living from a deep sense of your own wholeness and worthiness in God. The exhausting chase gives way to humble security, as you now bear witness to the innate worth of others. Here, you’re not chasing belonging, but resting in Love’s embrace. The nagging aloneness gives way to humble love, as you are eager to make room for all who long for the embrace. Here, you’re not chasing purpose, but know in your bones that you matter, that what you bring to the world is unique and good. The aching futility gives way to humble service, as you offer your gifts with a meaningful sense of vocation from your core, true self in God.

With all of this in mind, it’s so vital to speak wisely and well about what trauma really means, particularly amidst its popular proliferation and widespread misuse. Through this sacred story, we see the disconnective effects of trauma, the roots of shame, and the conditions within which sin manifests and multiplies. We see how each of us is implicated in the story, and we’re invited to ask ourselves how disconnection shows up in our lives. Perhaps, we might even hear God’s kind “where are you?” as he compassionately invites us out of hiding and self-protection, and into intimacy and union once again.     

Trauma was once more narrowly defined in terms of the symptoms of wartime psychological wounds or the harrowing effects of natural disasters, but today we know better. Many live lives of habitual disconnection. We know today that it’s not just the Big-T traumas – the obvious abuses, the devastating disasters. It’s the small-t traumas, too – the unmet needs amidst what seemed to be a perfectly normal childhood. It’s the lingering loneliness one copes with through a seemingly manageable addiction of workaholism that only creates further disconnection. It’s the besetting shame eased by religious perfectionism. It’s the generational trauma visiting the children and grandchildren with often baffling symptoms of deeply embodied wounds.

And, as we’ve seen, it’s an ancient and primal trauma of life lived within the 1,185 chapters between Eden and the Garden-City to come. In the care I’ve provided for people over nearly 30 years of pastoral work, therapeutic work, and more, I see the toll of life lived exiled from home as profound. This conversation invites us to explore what habitual disconnection looks like in our lives, our churches, our communities. It invites us to widen and deepen our understanding of the scope of sin – of life lived under the conditions of self-exile. It invites us to name not just what’s happening, but to become curious about the simmering disconnection underneath it all. And it invites us to exercise our imaginations for life in the Kingdom in its abundant fruitfulness and freedom.

Exploring our wounds is not merely a therapeutic exercise. It’s a theological exercise. If disconnection is the essence of trauma, then we’re invited to explore what our own lives look like – and the shared life of our churches and communities – when lived within the traumatic conditions of our exile from Eden. We’re invited to ask how the effects of disconnection bear on our sense of vital connection to God, how the effects are seen between neighbors, and how they’re experienced within each of us.

And, we’re invited to see that the work of healing will need to be shared. Healing can’t be relegated to a therapist’s couch, as helpful as that may be, but requires our shared commitment to a healing homecoming, to ourselves, to each other, to God – around tables, in churches, within our places of work, in spaces of learning, and more. What we know about trauma is that its power dissipates when we connect deeply, when we’re seen, known, and loved. This is our healing path, if we would take it. 

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[i] Worth, belonging, and purpose are three aspects of the imago dei biblical scholars have reflected on. On worth, see Pratt’s Designed for Dignity. On belonging, see Grenz’s The Social God and the Relational Self. On purpose, see Middleton’s The Liberating Image.

[ii] I first read of a “primal wound” in the writings of Richard Rohr, and later discovered earlier instances of its usage in two books, both called The Primal Wound, one written in 1997 by John Firman and Ann Gila and the second by Nancy Verrier in 2003.