Providing Biblical Trauma Interventions to Residents of a Baptist Children's Home

Abstract

This project seeks to create and implement a biblically-based guide to help teenage residents of a children’s home who have been affected by trauma understand the comfort of God, learn to seek him in their suffering, and understand their traumatic responses in light of the larger theme of suffering in Scripture. Four passages of scripture (1 Pet 1:3-9, Ps 55:1-23, Rom 8:18- 25, and Ps 73:1-28) are exegeted to provide a biblical foundation for the guide developed in this project. Then the impact of trauma on children is explored, and trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, a leading evidence-based secular approach to healing, is evaluated according to the biblical theologies of human personhood and suffering. An alternative, biblically-based guide for helping those who have experienced trauma find deeper healing in the Person and work of Jesus Christ is presented.