We are living in a time where there are immense amounts of trauma and brokenness. The past year and a half of fighting the COVID pandemic has been merely one illustration of that. Add on to that racial tensions, political arguments and local allegations of sexual exploitation by some of the people we should be able to trust most with our children. These are bringing light to issues that hold people in darkness.

This trauma and brokenness bring about pain, wounds and long-term scars which can alter how one views the world. When one has experienced trauma or brokenness, the results can lead a person to live in fear which leads to hiding in darkness. Your neighbor down the street, your coworker next to you or the student you pass in the halls may be living in a form of darkness as they hold onto these scars. So, what do we do from here then?

If we really want to help people who are hurting and broken, then we need to create opportunities to enter into the darkness and sit with people while they weep. We need to find ways we can listen as people try to describe the pain they have gone through.

As a pastor, I often sit with people as they share difficult stories of past and present abuse. I listen to the story of a spouse who was abused. I see the pain of a woman who was repeatedly assaulted as a child. I hear the cry of one who was abandoned by the ones that were meant to protect them. My heart breaks because I know I do not have the power to heal them. There is nothing that I can do to remove the pain and the memories. However, that does not mean that there is no hope. I share with each person the one thing I do have — the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I share when I was dead in my sins with no hope, He came to save me. When I was lost in the darkness and alone, He searched for and found me. When I was feeling like I had been beaten up by the world, He shared His life with me. This may seem overly simplistic, but oftentimes the simple answer is the best one.

Jesus can enter into the trauma of others because He was traumatized and broken. In talking about the treatment of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah said that “his appearance was so disfigured that he did not look like a man, and his form did not resemble a human being.” Isaiah also said that “he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows who knew what sickness was,” and that “he himself bore our sickness, and he carried our pains.”

At Cornerstone Church we aim to be a church where you can come, in your brokenness. We don’t ask you to get it all together or put on a false version of yourself. We seek to be safe, where you can come in your brokenness and be welcomed. This brings us back to the basics — together we walk out of the darkness and into a marvelous light.

Something incredible happens when a hurting person shares the darkness they have been afraid others will gape at and be disgusted by — they are no longer alone in it. Light begins to enter into jagged darkness and is the first step of healing. We were not meant to carry these heavy secrets alone. Together we can walk to the foot of the cross where we see our Savior, who voluntarily took on the worst trauma one could endure so that He could enter into the trauma we experience today.

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Steve Bensema is the lead pastor of Cornerstone Church.