Barbara: Hi everyone- welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God. Today's guest is Laura Champagne. I met Laura in upstate New York as she has been a military spouse for 10 years and was on active duty herself for 11 years.
Laura grew up in several different states, mostly on the west coast, lived in New York and is now in Missouri. She grew up in a 4-square Christian Church and then explored different life and faiths situations as a teen and young adult after a traumatic experience when she was in a great deal of emotional pain. She recommitted to Jesus as an adult.
Laura is currently a college student and a Mary Kay consultant. Her dream is to serve the Lord in whatever capacity she can. Welcome. Laura, how are things for you in Missouri today?
Laura: They are wonderful. Thank you for asking, Barbara.
Barbara: Our topic today is faith after trauma. And for the first time ever since starting this podcast, I want to offer a trigger warning, which is a term that I learned in social work.
And that is to honor where people might be in their own lives. In terms of, if you, as a listener, have a traumatic history that you're just aware that we're going to be talking about some things today, mostly about faith and emotional healing, but we're going to just be using some language that might trigger some feelings in you.
So we just want to be really open and transparent about that. We're going to offer a prayer at the beginning of this conversation, regarding this topic. Laura, thank you so much for offering a prayer for us right now.
Laura: Thank you. So father God, we just come into your presence right now with thankfulness in our heart that you began a good work at us and you will bring it to finish. I'm so grateful for the healing that you've put in my life. And I know there are many people out there that are hurting and need healing.
And so father I'm really quickened in my heart on the scripture where you said that we overcome the enemy by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. And it is by that blood of Jesus at the cross, that you shed that blood for our healing. And so Lord, I just pray for everyone who might be listening today, that my testimony would bring healing to their hearts, to their souls and that they could walk in victory from this day forward, in Jesus name. Amen.
Barbara: thank you very much, Laura. We have a Bible passage today from the book of Proverbs, and I actually can't remember that we've ever read something out of Proverbs previously. So if you have a Bible with you, when you want to follow along with us, it's a little bit to the left of center. So it's in the old Testament, the Hebrew scripture, and we have today for you, chapter three, verses five through eight from the new international version that I'm going to read for you now.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to him and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.” Laura, why is this verse so precious to you?
Laura: so much of God's word is precious to me, but this particular one I love to lean on because I don't want to trust in myself. And so many times we live in a world where it screams, trust yourself. And I want to trust the Lord in my life. And if I lean on my own understanding, I'm just going to go in a path that's going to be very unvictorious and destructive for me. So I want to give everything to the Lord every day, because my understanding can really go crazy on me and he promises the straight path for me.
And the Lord has so much for me and I want to walk in his wisdom, not my own. Then of course it goes on a lot of people know that first part, but I was blown away later on in life. And that second part. Where it says when we do fear the Lord and shun evil, well, there is health through our body and nourishment to our bones.
I'm kind of a health person. I really like to be healthy. And so I spent so many years in so much pain in my heart from what I'm going to share. And there's just so much freedom and healing, and forgiveness and trusting the Lord.
Barbara: And we humans might not be able to see that we're either going off the path or sometimes we kind of know, like, I am not on God's path right now. Or the stress of life where the temptations of life kind of get in the way of staying on that path.
So we have a process of healing that we're going to be talking about, but often healing does start with tremendous pain. And how does your life grow through that healing. So what is it that you would like to share with us today, Laura?
Laura: So some of the things I'm gonna say is kind of shocking, but just remember that God is the God of the past, the God of now and the God of the future. So I just want anyone who's listening to know that we don't have to live in the past.
But we do need to address things if we're still living in the past in our hearts. So a lot of people may have experienced trauma in their home. I came from a very good family- my mom and dad both loved Jesus, had me in church as a child. I just didn't understand Jesus. So then, life happens and people struggle in their walk with the Lord. And as a teenager, my parents were struggling in their walk and we stopped going to church.
And as a teenager I had an idea of Jesus and I love to Jesus, but I just didn't understand who he was. I remember as a teenager going from private school to public school and I really was pretty gullible, and we have to be careful what kind of friends we have in school- they kind of led me in a different direction. And I was just kind of led with them because I wanted friends, you know? And I went to a party with them and I drank alcohol and smoked marijuana. And I remember telling these what I thought were my friends, not every one is your friend, but I thought they were my friends- stay with me, please. And they did not. And there was a young man, same age as me. We were all 14 and he raped me.
He was very aggressive and very violent about it. And I remember them carrying me to their house afterwards and they dropped acid and were laughing at me all night long and I was in so much pain. So you got to remember 14 year olds don't know how to logically process things very well. And so it was just traumatized and just in pain and not understanding what just happened to me. And I was a very much afraid. And when you've been raped , I was a Virgin by the way. And I thought it was me. I shouldn't have been there. I shouldn't have smoked marijuana. I shouldn't drink alcohol. You know, this happened because I was at a party, all the things that a teenager or any woman generally would process in her head, was it my fault? And it wasn't, this is where my mindset was. And I was afraid to tell my parents is I came from a good family, you know?
And I didn't want to hurt anybody. So I just lived in my own pain, not understand this. And so in my unlogical mind, I thought, well, I want nothing to do with boys my age. And I felt dirty, so I acted dirty. I don't know why, but that's just how I acted. So from that point on some of the signs that were happening in my life was that I was sleeping with men.
I thought in my head, I can't have anything to do with boys my age I was hurting so bad that I started self mutilating, you know, teenagers, they start getting acne and I was getting it on my shoulders and my arms and my face. And I just started picking my arms, especially this was my way of hiding. And numbing out the pain. I just didn't know what was going on with me. I just know I was hurting at the time and my parents saw it changed in me, but they didn't know what was going on. Other than the friends I was hanging out with was bad influence.
So they did what every parent would do, to try to control their child's lifestyle, and they did great that way, but the problem was I was still hurting and that proceeded to continue on. And I'm just going to fast forward to when I was 16, I went to another party.
That lifestyle that didn't change. A person just justifies their pain and starts hiding in alcohol. I didn't smoke marijuana after that cause I kinda thought, well, drugs kind of stink. I'm never doing that again. You know, that's the way they did it. But alcohol really help numb the pain at the time. So I didn't have Jesus or leaning on Jesus at the time because I really didn't understand that he was a healer to me.
And I fell in love with a man who ended up becoming the father of my son. I had him at 17, but when I was 16, this rape was different than the 14 year old rape. I didn't know that boy. I knew this man, you know, and rape can come in all different forms.
Barbara: People can be raped by not only people they're dating, but even within a marriage relationship, there can still be raped.
Laura: Yes. Cause it was no, no matter how much they said no, it happened. So then more confusion started to happen in me, and I was screaming inside. What's wrong with me? I just didn't understand it. But at the same time I was behaving in manners that were just unacceptable, dressing unacceptable, acting unacceptable, going out with men. He took me into an underground world in San Diego that people don't know exist. And as a 16 year old, it scarred me, like, you can't take back what you see. It was just awful. And I think it took me longer to heal from that than the actual rapes, if that makes any sense. Cause the physical abuse healed, but anything that's going on in your mind, it takes a while for that to heal. So when I was there, I was like, I kind of felt like a mouse in a snake. Do you know, just sitting there ready to get eaten, just destroyed and very scary for me. And I would say that that all three of those incidents were all part of my trauma that I experienced and just didn't go away. And I had this hate for men and yet I had this love for people.
It was really strange, I still loved people, but I really just didn't understand men at the time and why they were doing what they did to me. I remember moving up to the high desert at the age of almost 20. I got an apartment and I just wanted to start fresh.
I met my husband, my daughter's father and of course did the same pattern that I was used to, sleeping with him right away. And so it didn't really go away, thinking I could start over. Didn't really help. I continued in my patterns. And I remember in that marriage, just thinking maybe I should become a lesbian because I was just so angry toward men.
And I was in Mary Kay at the time and I recruited 29 Christians. God is good, I tell you. And they were all telling me about Jesus. And there was one particular lady named Jo Ward. I'll never forget her. She told me, come on over to my house and teach me Mary Kay. Don't forget your Bible. And she proceeded to the share the love of Christ and she showed me with her lifestyle as well. And I'm really grateful for her. She taught me how to pray. And I moved because my husband at the time was in the air force. We moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, and somebody invited me to the church that was down the street. I thought it was actually Jehovah witness church cause it was called Northwind temple, but it was actually a Pentecostal church. There was about 5,000 members. So it was a mega church. And I walk in, I was just blown away.
Now God has a sense of humor. There was an evangelist speaking that day that I came as a guest. And she was a female and she was dressed in a, I'll never forget, a leopard outfit. And she proceeded to grab a man out of the audience that had this Jesus' image of Hollywood. Like, this is what I was stuck in. Jesus is this white Jesus with blue eyes and a trickle of blood at the cross- wrong vision of Jesus in my heart. I just had this Hollywood idea. And I believe in him, I just didn't understand him. And she proceeded to go through the crucification of Christ and how they beat him, tore his beard off and, you know, whipped him.
And he was just a massive bloody mess. By the time he went. He was carrying that cross and couldn't carry it. Somebody else carried it. He died on the cross right away. I mean, he was beat for my transgressions and I'm telling you, Jesus became alive to me that day. That's the day that Jesus became Lord to me.
And I felt like an obese person got off of me and was sitting on me. I was free and I had been reading the Bible and recruiting Christians and stuff for a couple of years at that point, but the Bible wasn't making much sense to me cause I was trying to understand it in my own understanding.
And I needed the Holy spirit and the day I was free- now, the healing still needed to take place from my trauma, but I was free. Jesus became Lord in my heart that day. And Jesus promised us to give us the Holy spirit who is our comforter and our counselor and
Barbara: our advocate.
Laura: And it was that day that I began my journey of healing, nearly everything was new and the Bible became very fresh to me. And now I was reading this living word. That's active. In my life, I was reading it with the help of the Holy spirit instead of me trying to figure it out, you know? And so I was starting to gain understanding.
And of course, then he retired and we moved to Connecticut and I was on fire. Jesus really was involved in everything and I remember a pastor named Toby Quirk. I'll never forget him- a retired vet, he was a pastor and he started a small group and I was in this small group and a lot of them were like, why are you here? I look kind of normal to them cause they were either drug addicts or prostitutes. It was a harsh group. You know what I mean? Just a group of Motley crews.
Barbara: siblings in Christ.
Laura: God loves them so much. But I was like this housewife that to them, I was like normal, but I wasn't, I was hurting. I was so much pain and they didn't realize that. And when I started sharing what happened to me, one of the ladies who was one of their prayer warriors. She said, Laura, stick your hand up and look at your fingernails. She says, I see you like a cat. And she just started looking at her finger nails and she said, God is declawing you so that you won't reopen those wounds anymore. And that really just stuck with me because our God, he wants us healed. You know, he wants us well and he wants us to have life and having an abundancy and he has saved us for a reason.
There's people out there, they need to know Jesus in our sphere of influence. And so I needed to get well for me so I can shine for Jesus. Barbara, I share with you the Johari window. So I learned in the same grouping, it was like a 12 step program, but for Christ. And I remember him teaching there's four panels. The first one is, I can talk about this to anybody, I'm totally transparent in this area.
And the second panel is, I only speak this to my closest friends. And the third one is why does everybody see this in me? I don't see this in me. Why am I having these patterns in my life and I don't see them, they say, why are you act that way? I don't see I'm acting this way. So our friends and family can share a lot into our lives if we're open and teachable, that's that period.
And the fourth one is the unconscious where only God knows what's going on inside you in that area, and the Holy spirit can heal that area in you. I really believe that God put that in every human being, because there's only one thing that can fill that in that's Jesus Christ. And we're always feeling that with all sorts of things, drugs, alcohol, all sorts of habitual sins, eating.
It doesn't matter what it is, even being a workaholic. It doesn't matter. We will try to fill that hole with anything in our life and it's really just one place. And that's Jesus. To heal. So so the healing started and I'll tell you , the more I got in the word, the more healing there's so much promises and God's word and healing to place.
And so the key to that healing was forgiveness. Forgiveness is very hard, especially for yourself, you know, To forgive yourself and to forgive others. And at that moment, when I was going through that healing the Holy spirit of course, was calling me to forgive. I cannot be forgiven by the father if I don't forgive others. And so I needed to forgive those individuals, the one that raped me at 14 and the one who took me into that underground. At first, it was more of a I forgive, but I didn't have any feelings or emotions that went with it. It was just more out of obedience, you know?
Okay. I'm just doing it. God. Okay. I'm doing it. But I don't feel like I forgive, and it took a while. I can't remember. I'm sure it took months. I remember I journalized a lot. Writing out prayers and forgiveness for those individuals. And just continuing in that.
And as I worshiped, I would just remember them and say, forgive them, Lord , just like Jesus says, forgive them. They know not what they're doing. And just holding on to God's word through that process, it became easier. And easier. And then I found myself so healed. I was capable of talking to somebody about my life and it wasn't affecting me anymore.
I mean, I remember it. I have the scars of it, but it's those scars aren't hurting me anymore. And I remember there was a woman that came to the church and she was addicted to drugs and I gave her a big hug. She was a very large woman and she was judged and treated not very loving at the church she had went to before our church. And the first thing I did was give her a big hug in my way of greeting her. A week later, she came over to my house and put her paraphernalia in my hands and said, I don't do drugs anymore. Will you pray with me? She became my prayer partner for two years and we both had a book called prayers that avail much for mothers and we would pray God's words. Every day together.
And do you know that I was capable of being delivered from picking at my arms at the same time? And so God wants to heal, restore everything about you, so that is my story. And God is always working in our life.
Barbara: Thank you so much for trusting me, Laura, and for being willing to share the story with the prayer, that it can help someone else on their own journey of healing. And I want to just reflect back that first, I'm so sorry that this happened to you and I'm so grateful for your testimony of this journey.
Through many years, nobody's saying, well, you should just heal immediately or for give for immediately. Now, if this is a possibility for you, sometimes there are miraculous healings. So that's not my place to say, but just in terms of we're talking about judgment and grace and forgiveness, that I don't want anyone who has survived an assault to feel that sense of self-blame and people get assaulted, even if they haven't been drinking, if they haven't used any type of drugs, if they haven't been wearing provocative clothing, because society does tend to blame the victim. So I just want to honor that and really lift that up.
We do judge ourselves, but to not feel, Oh, it's my own fault that this terrible thing happened to me. And I also want to honor that different people came in at different times in your life. And then at some point you became available to help different people. At different times in your life, as well as a prayer warrior and as a friend and probably in many roles as well.
And one word that you said to me before the recording, you used the word accountability, and I'm curious if you have a couple of examples during your faith journey, what did you mean? Are there different kinds of accountability? How can that be helpful and not judgmental?
Laura: Accountability is so important because of the fact that you're not alone. I feel like the enemy, he's always shooting arrows at us. And if we're living in this mentality of an Island of ourselves, then we're going to just get assaulted by the enemy’s lies. And when you have somebody you're accountable to, you can edify one another and speak truth to each other and encourage one another in prayer and you aren't feeling alone, you know?
I think accountability is important for anything. I think men need to be accountable to the men in the church, for all aspects, and the same for females. I will seek out that church mama that has lived her life and positive into me, things that I need to know. You know, we really should look up to the church, the women who have walked with Christ.
Barbara: Our spiritual mentors.
Laura: we need mentors in our life. So I really believe that accountability just keeps you on the path because we literally can veer off all the time or alone. But if we have these accountable partners in our life, people that we can pray with, we're going to tend to stay on the path and this journey with the Lord.
Barbara: Thank you so much. And I don't always read the same passage in different translations, but I absolutely love the message translation. And it's not a word for word translation, but I would just like to read the passage that you had selected from Proverbs chapter three, verses five to eight in the message version, because the language is just a little bit different and I still honor the original one. There's nothing wrong with the original one, but the message says, “trust God, from the bottom of your heart. Don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go. He's the one who will keep you on track. Don't assume that, you know it all. Run to God, run from evil. Your body will glow with health. Your very bones will vibrate with life.”
Laura: So I didn't share the period at the end of the sentence, when it comes to forgiveness. Of the person [who raped me when] I was 16 years old, the father of my son. So forgiveness is powerful. God is a loving God. And years later, fast forward, 22 years later, he flies into town from all the way across the country, 2008, as a born again, Christian, says, I can't walk with Jesus, not one day without asking for forgiveness for what I did to you. I was a selfish man. And he asked my parents for forgiveness.
He crawled right up on that cross. He asked my son for forgiveness. He asked all of us and we had communion together. Only our God can do that. I mean, I would have never thought when I was praying and asking for forgiveness for my sins, but also for his, for what he did to me.
And just praying and worshiping Christ and thinking about him and asking the Lord to forgive him, had no idea that that would happen, ever. And so God is into healing everyone, not just the person that has experienced the trauma, but the selfish person that did it, too.
Barbara: Do you have any words of wisdom if there's someone who is really at the beginning of their healing journey, after a traumatic experience? And there are many different types of trauma, of course, and not everyone's healing processes is the same either, but do you have any thoughts on some different ways of helping and embarking on that healing journey?
Laura: Sure. Just trust me in this- dive into God's word. You know, there's so much healing in his word and to start giving it to the Lord and asking him to bring people into your life. But if you're submitted to a church family, this will also help. And there are also counselings out there that are great to go to.
I'm an advocate for Christian counselors that are not necessarily just in the church, but there are counseling places that you can go to there the counselors have the pastoral degree and the psychology degree to help bring healing to you, give you the tools you need, which I didn't do until 2000.
So remember, I went through a lot of healing in the church, but there were still things I needed healing on and patterns that I was still having in my life. And so if you can connect with one of those, that would be great, too. Just going to Bible study and asking your pastor, for maybe small group.
Barbara: I can have a bunch of resources also listed on the 40 minutes of faith.com website. Even if they're not resources that you personally experienced as well, because I know that there are nowadays resources for people even immediately after say a sexual assault or something like that.
And again, that's not coming from a place of judgment because I know yeah. That even going through the reporting, even going to the hospital could feel retraumatizing for people that you're reporting it. They're asking you all kinds of questions, things like that. So that's entirely up to each individual person.
Laura: Yeah. And if a person is just been, they should go to a hospital, I didn't know that back then. And the early eighties, we didn't understand that, go straight to the hospital, but that is important to do if you've just been traumatized, to have the rape kit done, report to a police officer, that kind of stuff.
Very important. Do you still need to do those legal aspects? Cause if you don't, that person could rape somebody else again. So it's really important to get the law in there , if you just recently happened to you, getting the help you need.
Barbara: And I know Laura, you're much more familiar with the army, even though I'm affiliated personally with the army, but I worked for the air force and they had two different kinds of reporting after an assault, you could do a full report or a restricted report. Does the army have something like that as well?
Laura: Oh, absolutely. A lot of people didn't know if it's a restrictive report, you didn't want to expose the perpetrators, then you could keep it restrictive. That doesn't mean that you couldn't change it later. But a lot of times the person that just got traumatized, they just don't know how to process all that.
And they just want to be left alone. And so you want to protect that person while they're going through that process. Command will not know, only advocates and the chaplain, and it's just completely a hundred percent confidential. But then when the victim process that goes through it, then they can change that later.
Barbara: And I know that's some technical information that might not apply to everybody outside of the military context. Any other thoughts, Laura, for folks around the healing and faith journeys after trauma?
Laura: Just get as much help as you can, be accountable. I think that when you start to expose those things, that's when healing starts to take place, you've got to bring it out. Don't, don't live inside yourself because that's where you're not healthy. You know, you're just all by yourself. You've got to give it to somebody and start that healing process. Get people praying for you and ask for the Lord to help you forgive the person who's done that for you. So stay in God's word, go to church, worship. When we worship there's some beautifulness when you're worshiping, even through your pain.
Barbara: Yeah, thank you. And I also just want to echo what you just said about it's easy to want to just stuff it down and to ignore it. And it sounds to me like you tried that for a while. You did share with us that you were acting out in some ways, but who wants to remember that stuff? So as a licensed social worker, I'd say the counseling process might also be just as scary as the hospital room, if someone's saying, what happened in your past, but would you say that unpacking it was painful, but was it worth it afterwards?
Laura: It was absolutely. I like what you just said, unpacking it. You might cry, but it's okay. Just let the Lord heal you, no matter what, just say, okay, Lord, let me go on this journey.
And let's live here. Be honest with the Lord Jesus, because there are some people who might be angry at God. Why did you let this happen? Go through it and know that God is big enough. He doesn't need your forgiveness, but you know what? You go ahead, forgive God. Just run to your father, no matter what reason with him and just let him heal you because our minds can just be so messed up and we just are logical. We just don't get it a lot of times. And so just giving it to the Lord and trusting him. That's why I like that verse so much because I know my mind and my lifestyle is going to mess it all up.
But if I just trusting him through that journey, he's going to get me through. All everything I might not understand. And I'm confused about, he's gonna let me know when I'm standing, it's going to help me understand.
Barbara: I really also want to support that I'm not saying never be angry at God. I wonder if that might be messages that some people have had. We're taught to obey God, to fear God, things like that. So how can it be okay to be angry with God? But that then later through the years of your life, you found peace and reconciliation with God. In addition to someone who had hurt you very badly.
Laura: people might not necessarily be angry. Oh, I can't be angry at God. He's God, but you're lying to yourself when you're sometimes I'm like, okay, God, I don't know why. I didn't just give that to you. You already knew that. Why am I hiding my anger from you? Because God really wants us to be really real with him because they already know we're hurting, you know? And, and I would be lying to say, I'm angry with you right now.
Because even today, even though I haven't got the trauma that happened to me as a child, even today, something might happen and I'm like angry and I'm like, why am I angry? Wait a minute. I haven't really been spending some time with you, father. And that's why our journey is a daily one, you know? Step by step. He doesn't expose anything too far from us because we just can't handle it. We need one step at a time and he lights my path one step at a time
Barbara: and it's biblical precedent. I can say with great confidence that you are not alone. We are not alone. People have been hiding from God since the garden of Eden. And the Psalms are full of pain and anger at God, and many other books of the Bible, especially some of the prophets, why is this happening God? And so remembering God's faithfulness is part of the journey, even in times of feeling abandoned, perhaps.
Laura: Amen. Faith and forgiveness are together. We really needed to forgive and forgive fast daily, because that helps us walk by faith. It really does instead of fear, because fear is the opposite of faith. That's great.
Barbara: It speeds the process, but I can't thank you enough, Laura, for your time and your honesty and your generosity in hopes that anyone else might pick up a few tips from this.
Laura: I do pray and hope that whoever's listening will do what it takes to get healing. And they just trust the Lord in this journey. I've been praying all week now for healing of whoever's listening. I do want to see you healed and walking in victory in Jesus.
Resources:
Proverbs 3:5-8
Prayers That Avail Much by Germaine Copeland
https://www.celebraterecovery.com/about/cr-ministries
https://www.healthynumbers.com.au/using-the-johari-window-to-really-get-to-know-yourself/
https://spoonuniversity.com/healthier/3-important-things-you-should-know-about-suicide (hotline numbers)
