When You’re Healing From Trauma: Psalm 139:14

Love your Legacy Devotional ~ By Tay

Opening Prayer

Jesus, what happened to me changed me.

I am not the person I was before, and sometimes I grieve her. Would You show me who I am now, underneath the damage? I need to know I am still me.

Still Yours. Still wonderfully made.

Amen.

Scripture

Reflection

Think of a house after a bad storm.

The shutters are gone. A window is cracked. The garden is a mess of branches. Anyone driving past would see the damage first. But the foundation? The foundation is exactly where it always was, solid under everything. The storm changed the story of that house. It did not change what the house is.

Trauma changed your story. Not your worth.

David wrote this psalm as a song of wonder, and he put the wonder right where we least expect it. “Fearfully and wonderfully made.” The word fearfully means with awe, with reverence, the way you would handle something precious and powerful at the same time. You were made with awe. Not assembled. Not mass-produced. Made, the way an artist makes.

Here is what trauma tries to steal. It tries to convince you that the damage is the design. That you are broken goods, a ruined version of who you were supposed to be. But the psalm says your making came before your wounding, and your making has the final word. What God crafted in you is older than what hurt you, and it will outlast it.

Notice David does not say “I was wonderfully made.” Past tense, back when things were good. He says “I am.” Present tense. Right now. In the middle of whatever you are carrying. The wonder of your making is not a memory. It is a current fact.

He ends with the quietest, strongest line: “I know that full well.” Not I feel it. Not I can prove it. I know it. Some truths you hold the way you hold a foundation stone: not because you can see all of it, but because everything standing rests on it. Your worth is a foundation stone. The storm rearranged the furniture. It did not move the foundation.

You are still fearfully and wonderfully made. The damage is real, and so is the design. Both can be true, and the design gets the last word.

Journaling

1. What part of yourself have you been grieving, the “before” person you miss?

   You might start with something like: I miss how light I used to feel, before I learned to be afraid.

2. Where has trauma been trying to convince you that the damage is the design?

   It might be something small and gentle, like: I catch myself thinking I am just a broken person now, like that is all I am.

3. What would it look like to say “I am wonderfully made” in the present tense today, damage and all?

   You could gently say: it would feel like standing in the storm-damaged house and choosing to live in it anyway.

Closing Prayer

Jesus, my Maker,

Thank You that what You made in me is older than what hurt me. Thank You that my worth is a foundation stone the storm could not move. Help me know it full well, even on the days I cannot feel it.

The damage is real. The design is realer. I am wonderfully made.

Amen.

Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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