God Offers Life In Spite of Trauma

How God Offers Life in the Midst of Trauma

Scott Uselman opened his heart to our church family this Sunday, speaking plainly out of Jeremiah 27 and out of his own life story. It was a morning set on the question: Can God really bring life out of the shadows of trauma? The answer that Jeremiah gives, and that Scott Uselman echoed with honesty, is yes, even when that doesn't sound possible. The heavy word of the Lord through Jeremiah meets us in our actual stories, where pain and loss visit us early and often.

A Message Born in Prayer and Experience

Scott Uselman didn't bring this message lightly. He had wrestled with it in prayer, literally awake in the early morning, jotting notes as the Lord pressed this subject onto his heart. That's how trauma works too: it wakes you up before the sun, demanding to be faced. He said it openly:

"I decided that what would I think the Lord want me to talk about is trauma. And um there's a lot of that. I don't I'm just going to go ahead and put some disclaimers out there to you. Certainly am not making light of trauma."

He told stories from his youth, from shoveling snow off the Indiana barn court to play basketball because the game was sometimes all he had, to naming his griefs out loud when nobody else would listen. "Nothing ever goes right for me," he remembered telling himself, until he was burying the hard things instead of living. What he couldn't have known as a boy is what God would one day call him to as a pastor, how God would use all that broken ground.

Facing the Lies Trauma Tells Us

Some of us, Scott said, have come to believe the lie that what we've suffered excuses us from responsibility or lets us surrender hope for the future. He's watched this play out in the lives of students who have every reason to feel stuck, kids carrying real trauma and using it as a reason to bow out of life before it has even started. He challenged that surrender:

"Your trauma is not an excuse for you to sin. Your trauma is an opportunity to do what is right in spite of the trauma."

He sketched out, for the hurting, just how much life might still be out ahead: "You're 14. ...You've got 68 more years to take hold of life in spite of the trauma that you faced."

Jeremiah 27: Hard News, Unexpected Life

Bringing us into Jeremiah 27, Scott Uselman showed that God's word sometimes comes not to take us out of hardship but to shape us through it. Judah, under threat from Babylon, was commanded not to fight the coming yoke, but to bear it, even to serve the foreign king. It is not the answer anyone wants. Yet, God’s heart is still for good.

"God does these things. The Lord uses trauma. He just does. He teaches with trauma."

Jeremiah acts out the message by wearing a yoke, a symbol of subjection to Babylon, in front of kings and envoys. The people, desperate for some glimmer that their loss will be quickly reversed, are disappointed. The message is not, "Escape," but, "Live faithfully where you are placed, even under hardship."

Life Is Possible Under Bondage to Harsh People

Scott wrestled with this truth himself, not wanting to say it but unable to avoid it when he saw what the scripture actually said:

“God offers life in spite of trauma because life is possible under bondage to harsh people. I really struggled with that one. I did not want to put that down. ...But it's what scripture is telling us.”

The yoke was not for nothing. In the pain, God was shaping his people, keeping his promise, even if the way was through discipline:

"Everything God does is good. Amen. Do you mean everything? We'll see."

Trauma, the message insists, does not have to become a self-justifying prison. The yoke might be heavy, but it need not be the end.

Responsibility Is a Gift While in Poverty

The story did not leave the exiles empty-handed. Jeremiah told those heading into poverty and uncertainty that they would keep their lives if they accepted their place, worked their land, and held fast to responsibility. Scott Uselman pressed this into our everyday living:

“Responsibility that God gives you is actually what's going to deter you, take your eyes off the fact that you're in bondage. It's going to give you some type of purpose. ...Trauma tells you you can't do what you're created to do. It's a lie from the world. Don't listen to it.”

He connected that truth to his own journey, remembering loss but also how the act of choosing, even in poverty, began to heal him. “If I hadn't taken hold of responsibility as a parent, I would never have been led out of the trauma that I was in.”

This is the paradox: the call is not to seek comfort, but to pursue contentment and duty as God guides. “Work is actually a gift from God.”

Hope Sustains Us During Extreme Hardships

Where does energy come from in a season that seems endless? Scott remembered popcorn suppers and the ache of feeling stuck in all the things he could not change. He brought it home:

“Hope will sustain people during extreme hardships. And you know what I've learned over the years? that when I face hardships, I have hope in Jesus Christ. And I'm generally shocked at what I'm able to withstand because of the hope that I have in Jesus Christ.”

Jeremiah pointed the eyes of the people forward, even losses that seemed gone forever, God had not forgotten. God would restore. This is not always the hope we want, but it is a living hope. If we trust God with our story, we find energy to take the next step and believe that our loss is not the end.

Trauma Draws Us Back to the Lord

Finally, the purpose within the hardship: God’s discipline, Scott said, is not wasted, nor is it senseless. Even the worst griefs are not the final word. The design is not for destruction, but for restoration, a turning back to God himself.

“God offers life in spite of trauma because it is designed to bring us back to the Lord. That's what it does. Trauma brings us, it is supposed to bring us to the Lord.”

He was careful to remind us that turning to God does not invalidate seeking help in therapy or with medicine. “I'm not a doctor. ...If you're taking medicine, you you continue to take medicine. But I want to tell you something. ...There's only one person that can help you get over the experience of trauma and that is Jesus Christ.”

Our stories are not erased, nor are our scars, but God can and does redeem them so that we become a new people, able to love rightly at last.

Living It Out: Taking Hold of Life In Spite of Trauma

This message calls us to something both harder and better than a way out, it is an invitation to take hold of whatever life God places in front of us, in whatever season or suffering we now face. If all you can do for today is take out the trash, or pull some weeds, do that small act with faith. Christ meets us there. Begin again.

Discussion Questions

1. Where have you felt the yoke of trauma keeping you from pursuing life? What “responsibility” today might God be asking you to take up, even before you feel strong enough?
2. Scott Uselman spoke of hope sustaining us through loss and hardship. Where do you find hope holding you together, and where do you still feel the struggle?
3. In what specific ways has a painful event or season called you back to God or reshaped your understanding of what it means to follow Jesus?