Thomas the Traumatized (and a Way Forward when Stalled)

Sometimes we feel stuck.

Who doesn’t, on such days, long for movement—for some sign of momentum? Yet we may keep circling the same issue. Maybe it’s a job whose days we trudge through; I’ve known seasons like that, yearning for a new opportunity. Or maybe a relationship seems caught in the same bruising patterns, replaying old hurts and disappointments. We long for growth that seems far off.

Our experiences of slowness and setback not only hurt, but hem us in. They shrink our sense of what could happen. In those moments, life can feel as though it’s contracting around us. Such moments leave us restless, even desperate for at least a glimmer that change might be possible.

Thomas experienced something of that. Thomas, the disciple who stands center stage in one of the resurrection stories in John’s Gospel, shares in that ache of stuckness.

That’s not how we normally think of him.

He’s been given a less-than-flattering nickname for ages: Doubting Thomas. But I think it more accurate to call him Despairing Thomas. Thomas the Stopped-in-His Tracks. Thomas the Traumatized.

The other disciples in the story are talking with bated breath, with a glow of wonder, saying, “We have seen the Lord!”—the risen Lord! (John 20:24). And Thomas doesn’t buy it. I think deep inside he wanted to. But he can’t allow himself to believe.

So I want to offer another way to view his story. Not just a movement from doubt to belief but also from despair to reconnection. From trauma to repair. From reeling from hurt to glimpsing the resurrection as real, as able to help. I see in John’s account Thomas opening to an encounter that could change things, change him.

For as the drama unfolds, Jesus offered him a gift, a glimpse of a new way to live precisely when he felt stuck, felt unable to move. For I would argue that Thomas isn’t just skeptical. He’s locked up, shut down. And yet, I’d argue, not totally closed off.

And I see promise there for us, too.

No Accidental Detail

I don’t think it’s an accidental detail John shares when he notes how Thomas wasn’t there with the other disciples to start with. Did he go off alone to nurse in private his shredded hopes? Did he find it painful to spend time with these friends—dear as they were—who reminded him of the loss? “Helplessness and isolation are the core experiences of psychological trauma,” Judith Herman wrote in her monumental Trauma and Recovery.

What Thomas suffered while watching his Jesus die counts as trauma. Crucifixion was designed to instill horror in those watching it. It was dehumanizing and shameful. It stripped the crucified of agency, rendering them helpless, utterly hapless.

And those witnessing it, especially when it’s someone you loved, would feel the crush and overwhelm of grief. For a time, the disciples would still entertain the painful tortured images imprinted on their memories—a stunning reversal of what they’d put hope in. Life looked like it was going nowhere.

Thomas and his fellow disciples had given up everything to follow Jesus, but Jesus did not inaugurate the kingdom people expected. Instead, he was brutally executed. And for all Thomas knows, Jesus is still dead. Very dead. And so also, then, is his own calling. His ministry. His plans. All stalled. Stuck.

Thomas on the Threshold

Maybe Thomas is saying to himself, “Why bother to hope for anything other than today’s cold, ugly reality?” It feels like there’s no help to be had. He’s off by himself, at least till this moment. A moment when something enters his deadness. When there appears a “wow” moment. For as we’ll see, he’s not only Thomas the Traumatized, but also Thomas on the Threshold.

And I’m suggesting something hopeful for us, in the middle of our feeling of being stuck. Our feeling like we’ve had a gut-punch of doom and the dismal when reading the latest news. Or anxious from results from a medical test we didn’t expect.

To my surprise, with a little research I discovered that psychologists talk about how getting stalled will affect you: this feeling that life is on hold, moving too slowly or not at all. They have a term: functional freeze mode. Quite a term, that! This is not just frustration but also a loss of motivation. It’s hard to rouse yourself to do something, or on especially bad days, anything. Functionally frozen.

So there might be fear, uncertainty about moving ahead in, say, a relationship or a project or a task. What’s the use anyway? Or, Why bother? we say with a shrug.

One reason Thomas and others are traumatized is because something happened to them that they couldn’t change.

In our settings, this resignation gives a different feel to our personal goals, our family life, our bodies with the normal diminishments of aging. Or when we look at a hurting, violent world, maybe we get bewildered by the bloodshed and injustice, so much so that we worry that God has skipped town (or planet earth). And we feel baffled.

And what goes on inside affects the seemingly little things: There’s a letter or email you should write but you postpone it yet again. A cause that could use your insight or volunteered help, even just a neighbor needing a casserole. A hurting friend needs your undivided attention but you are tending a wound in your own soul and you hesitate.

Or you carry around an old hurt, a rejection from those close to you, thinking you cannot expect anything more than being ghosted.

And in our faith—we can get in a rut there too: Feeling distant from God, wondering if God has left the premises.

But I see hope in our Gospel. Thomas keeps asking. And he keeps watching.

A Corner to Turn

A part of him is willing to have opened in front of him a doorway out. His questions feel to me less like doubting defiance and more like an aching for a corner to turn. And Jesus met Thomas there at the place of his discouragement and disconnection. Jesus guided him back to faith. Back to a relationship.

So, we read, “A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, [there’s stuckness!] … Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’” I wonder how Thomas could even begin to picture peace amid his beaten-down hopes. But Jesus, the incarnate God, got physical. He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.”

Such a tenderness there. Yes, Jesus does say, “Do not doubt but believe,” but I’m not seeing Jesus chiding Thomas. Rather, he’s inviting him to look again, to see the reality of Jesus’s return from death for what it is—reality.

And he speaks through the ages to our discouragement and stuckness. Forever after, we glimpse rays of dawn in the dark deadness of despair. And this speaks to the hard personal things, too.

In my book, Fully Beloved, I decided I would share some personally vulnerable stories. Some grew out of brokenness in family relationships, out of a time, for instance, when I was a young adult and my parents rejected me. I had gone off to grad school, and they sent a letter asking me to send back my house key.

I told the story to underscore how human how estrangement is part of what it means to be human. What has struck me has been how many people have told me how they too have faced broken relationships, moments of feeling isolated, cut off. I have heard of traumas large and small.

But I also tell such stories to point to how God’s love meets us in those hard experiences. Even in the traumatic moments. For divine power is at work.

If Jesus was indeed set free from the grip of death through the power of God, he’s able to speak peace to our agitation and our wounding. Able to jar us loose from our stuckness.

Christianity is about a living God, active in Christ, who can do more than we can by ourselves. Maybe you feel locked in a room like the disciples, scared, wary.

Maybe you are so used to struggling that you’ve stopped expecting anything to change—reluctantly concluding that this is just how life will be.

But now, post-Easter, the way forward isn’t about what some call toxic positivity, papering over pain with a too-easy optimism.

The way forward is about what happened to Thomas. He encountered a risen Jesus. And that changed him. Most of the time, that’s how change happens for anyone; we let the divine presence catch our attention. We stay long enough in God’s closeness to be noticed and known and steadied. We give him room to draw near. We let a word of peace fall on our ears.

Until, almost without noticing it at first, something begins to shift. There’s hope again for movement.

Perhaps that’s how the path ahead can begin again for you, too.

I’ve loved the responses I’m getting to my new book, Fully Beloved. Interviewers and customer reviews tell me it has moved my readers, sometimes to tears, often to a deepened and renewed faith. (See a sampling below.)

Also, I’ve written an online exploration of the Trinity and Scripture, The Word ‘Trinity’ Isn’t in the Bible … So Is It Really Biblical? Feel free to link and read and pass this resource along to a friend!

How my book has helped readers:

  • “Fully Beloved is not only a worthy and engaging cover-to-cover read, it’s quite valuable on nightstand rotation in small bedtime doses when I need a boost.”

  • “The author masterfully balances emotional depth with intellectual rigor, intertwining engaging storytelling with thoughtful theological exploration. I find myself eager to recommend this book to friends navigating various stages of their spiritual journeys, especially those who may be experiencing periods of doubt or transition in their faith.”

  • “If you’ve ever felt that quiet restlessness in your faith or questioned your worth and identity, this book will meet you right there. And more importantly, it will point you back to a deeper, more secure understanding of God’s love.”

  • “Readers will appreciate the focus on growing closer to God, embracing both faith and brokenness, and finding joy even in difficult seasons. … Fully Beloved is an uplifting and reassuring book that leaves you feeling seen, valued, and deeply loved.”

  • “I got this for my mom after we lost her aunt, … whom she had been caring for over the past several years due to a prolonged illness. It’s been a really emotional time, and she told me this book brought her some comfort when she needed it most. She mentioned that the writing feels genuine and relatable, not overly heavy or difficult to get through. It seems to strike a nice balance between acknowledging grief and offering some hope, which is exactly what she needed.”

Tim Jones