Us Four S’more: What would make the biggest difference for you when it comes to support, healing, and justice?
Sticky questions, personal answers:
The Religious Trauma Network’s team mashup.
What would make the biggest difference for you-or for those around you-when it comes to support, healing and justice?
Rebekah Drumsta
My knee-jerk, slightly snarky answer? “Well, duh—if nothing bad ever happened, there’d be nothing to heal from.” But that’s not reality. Hurt is part of being human.
For years, my wounds sat under the surface, simmering. What changed the temperature was finding someone—then a few someones—who saw my strengths before they saw my flaws. Sure, we talked about the messy parts of me, but they didn’t put me on some “improvement project” assembly line. No fixing. No sanding down the edges. Just space—space to process, to grow self-awareness, to discover who I was outside the noise.
This was nothing like the world I’d known. Back then, “character flaws” were blown up like transparencies on an old overhead projector—examined, picked apart, “worked on” endlessly, yet you were never “good enough,” so keep trying.
Nearly two decades later, those years of realization, relearning, and reclamation have been a rollercoaster of grief and joy, loss and new beginnings. But when I ask myself what would have made the biggest difference, the answer is one small word with seismic power: Trust.
Trust that I was doing the best I could.
Trust in the voice or gut feeling I heard inside instead of fearing it.
Trust that others—even those wildly different from me—were living from their own lens of right and good, with no intention to pull me into evil.
Coming out of a fundamentalist, evangelical background, that feels radical. We were taught to distrust—the “sin nature” narrative, the quiet suspicion that people outside our circle were out to deceive us. It was an exhausting, hypervigilant way to live: always assessing, always guarding, always waiting for the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Stepping out of that world, I learned something quietly beautiful: most humans aren’t trying to lead you astray. Most are just doing their best. Love and kindness aren’t a trick. They are the thing.
But trust is complicated when betrayal has been the familiar script—family, leaders, friends. Trust once broken can make you swear off of it. Yet I’ve learned this:
Trust doesn’t promise you won’t get hurt.
Trust doesn’t shield you from disappointment.
Trust doesn’t erase risk.
What trust does is lift the weight from your own shoulders. It loosens the clenched jaw. It lets you look at strangers and actually smile. It reduces the lie that everyone is your enemy.
So I’ll leave you with a thought: What if the game-changer we’re looking for isn’t more proof, more certainty, or more defenses—but simply the courage to trust? Trust yourself. Trust others. Trust that we’re all just humans doing our best, and that’s enough.
Our world has become so polarized. We love our labels and boxes. We feel safer when we “know,” when we can be "sure" we’re right, when we can build alliances with people who look, think, and believe like we do. And too often, that safety comes at the expense of dismissing—sometimes even ridiculing—those outside our sandbox.
It’s another form of control. It’s human nature—we cling to certainty because chaos and the unknown feels threatening. But what if the real revolution isn’t holding on tighter and winning the I’m right fight—it’s letting go and daring to lay down your armor in the liberating act of surrendering to trust.
Janyne McConnaughey
I thought for several days about this question, only to come to the most obvious conclusion—that someone—anyone—in the church had helped me understand the impact of trauma on my body. That includes my brain, but more importantly, it includes the impact on my nervous system. There were so many sermons about being wonderfully made in God’s image without any context of what that meant, except judgmental admonitions to not defile our bodies by sin or substance abuse. That focus does so much harm to the one who was defiled.
After eight years of healing, when the opportunity arose to explain to ministry leaders why dysregulation was not a matter of conviction or the result of sin, I jumped at the opportunity. What I wrote was what I needed. From the responses I received from other survivors, it seemed it was also what they needed. It is freeing to understand that the impact of trauma on our bodies and life was not our fault and that trauma-based healing could reduce and in some cases eliminate the daily struggles.
The support I needed would have been trauma-informed, sensitive, and responsive. I found that in a therapist’s office, not the church. Yet, I believed it could be offered within that context and have seen many faith communities work to move in that direction. It requires a shift in how those who suffer are viewed. The questions change from judgmental—“What is wrong with you? Is it your sin?”—to informed compassion—“What happened to you (and how is that impacting you)?”
I have thought about the justice that I needed—a concept that requires me to set down vengeance. What I needed was apologies from abusers, but those will never come. What would it change if they did? It might change them—hopefully. As for me, the justice I need is created every time I watch a survivor heal with the help of my support—through conversations, writing, and speaking. Giving others what I did not receive until late in my life removes the lifelong power abusers hold over survivors. To remove the power from those who abuse, to me, is justice.
Luke Renner
When I think about what would make the biggest difference for support, healing, and justice, I imagine a garden of different skills growing side by side, each playing a crucial role in an overall ecosystem of care.
Inside of that garden, I would expect to see:
1. Connection over isolation
Real, sustained human connection in spaces where people can be deeply heard without being rushed toward a ‘happy ending’ generally makes a tangible difference.
2. Honest conversation without imposed narratives
Justice and healing both require truth-telling, even when the truth makes us uncomfortable. Support comes when people stop trying to force life into a neat story and instead meet each other in the mess as it is.
3. Community resilience
In my experience, I have discovered that small, local, resilient communities where people take care of each other before a crisis can often make a bigger difference than any single imposed program or policy.
4. Reducing stigma and broadening the range of ‘acceptable’ human experiences
When society stops seeing certain feelings or choices as moral failures, healing becomes possible. We need to reduce the shame around struggle, suicidal thoughts, and despair so that people don’t have to hide what they’re going through.
5. Structural and cultural change
Justice would mean not having to heal from systems that keep breaking us in the first place. Any efforts to challenge and change (or dismantle) the systems and habits that hurt us is an important piece of the puzzle.
6. Support that is personal, not prescriptive
Help works best when it’s shaped around the person who is struggling, not when they are pressured to conform to the help that’s available. This requires helpers who aren't just available and willing to help but who are working intentionally, before they are called upon, to develop themselves into the best possible helpers they can be.
David Ruybalid
I was recently speaking in a breakout session at a conference on religious trauma when someone asked me what it was in my faith community experience that changed my perspective and brought me freedom. I shared that for about five years in my twenties, during a season of deconstruction, I attended a church that allowed me to wrestle openly with my faith and doubts, without judgment. Reflecting on that experience, I wanted to share what I believe could make a meaningful difference in the lives of others who are survivors. I will do this from the perspective of what I wish religious communities would practice for the sake of supporting survivors.
I would like to see religious communities, churches in my context, develop a deeper understanding of trauma and its lasting effects. Too often, in the search for miracles or spiritual breakthroughs, the need for evidence-based support and compassionate, informed responses is overlooked or dismissed. My personal perspective for people of faith is that healing is not just about faith or hope; it also requires practices and structures that recognize the real, tangible ways trauma shapes people’s lives. These communities need to find a more holistic path toward restoration and wholeness.
Because of my experience, I wish for more spaces within religious communities where people can be fully honest about harm, doubts, and the complexities of life. It is far too common for questions or vulnerability to be met with quick answers, correction, or judgment, rather than with attentive listening and presence. People need to be heard and honored simply for being human and not pressured to fit into a mold of perfection or immediate “faith-based solutions.” Being thankful for someone opening up goes farther than any correction or cheap/quick answers ever will. When communities cultivate environments of genuine empathy and patience, they create a foundation where healing, trust, and connection can flourish.
Finally, I would like to see less manipulation or coercion around participation in religious events and community life. Faith communities can be powerful sources of support, but only when individuals are allowed to engage at their own pace. True care means respecting people’s boundaries, acknowledging their struggles, and giving them the space to process and grow without guilt or pressure. By creating environments where people are supported, seen, and allowed to heal authentically, faith communities can become places of real refuge, restoration, and justice.
Visit the Religious Trauma Network Resource Page or our personal bios for additional support or resources.
This article is not intended to treat or diagnose any condition. The authors are not licensed therapists or clinicians. Any advice or opinions given on this site are strictly individual observation and insights based on personal experiences and study. It should in no way take the place of professional assistance.