Nancy Virden – AlwaysTheFight.com

(c) 2026 Guest blogger (c) 2026 Guest blogger Phyllis Norton is a freelance writer who explores the connection between faith, resilience, and personal growth. Through her writing, she encourages readers to draw strength from their beliefs, navigate life’s challenges with confidence, and find hope in every season of life.

Norton has walked us through insightful waters in parts 1 and 2 of this series. Now she wraps it up with encouragement. -Nancy

Practices That Actually Help

If you are walking a faith-based path through trauma, here are some approaches that tend to be
genuinely supportive rather than just well-intentioned.

Lament practices

Find the psalms of lament — Psalms 13, 22, 88 are good starting points. Read them out loud.
Let the rage and grief in them be yours. The spiritual tradition you may be part of has always
made space for this, even if your particular community hasn’t modeled it well.

Trauma-informed spiritual direction

A good spiritual director — one who understands trauma and isn’t just looking to move you
toward resolution quickly — can be an extraordinary companion for this work. The distinction
between spiritual direction and therapy is real and worth maintaining, but they work beautifully
together.

A community that can tolerate complexity

Seek out, or help build, faith spaces where someone can say I am not okay and be met with
presence. These communities exist. They are often smaller, quieter, and less polished than the ones that market themselves most aggressively. But they are there.

Honest prayer

You don’t have to be okay with God to pray. You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to say I
don’t understand this, and it has cost me things I can’t get back, and I need you to know that.
The tradition you’re standing in has held that kind of prayer before. It can hold yours. Like David, close with humble praise.

A Note on Time

The most honest thing anyone can tell you about trauma recovery is that it takes longer than
almost everyone thinks it will, and that this is not your fault.

There will be months that feel like progress, and months that feel like you’ve slid all the way
back to the beginning. There will be anniversaries and triggers and ordinary Tuesdays that
knock you sideways without warning. There will be moments of genuine peace, and they will be
real, and they will not be permanent, not yet.

If your faith is asking you to arrive somewhere you haven’t arrived yet, it may be asking the
wrong question. The more useful frame might be: Can I be accompanied, honestly, where I
actually am?

That question — am I accompanied? — is one that faith, at its best, answers with a clear yes.
Not with a solution. Not with a timeline. Not with a performance requirement. Just: I see you. I’m here. Take the time you need. God never forsakes His own.

If you’re also looking for professional support alongside your faith journey, there is no
contradiction there. Both can be true. Both can be good.

You Are Not Behind

Wherever you are in this — early in the aftermath of something, years into a slow recovery, or
somewhere in the middle of a process that doesn’t look like any map you were handed — you
are not behind.

Healing is not a race with a spiritual finish line. The tradition you may be standing in has always
known that the wilderness has its own duration, and that manna shows up one day at a time.

You are allowed to need what you need. You are allowed to take the time it takes. And you are
allowed to be exactly where you are, without apology, while also believing that somewhere
ahead of you, at whatever pace is yours, something is going to shift. The fight you’re always in
includes this one. And you don’t have to win it quickly to be winning it.

-COMMENTS WELCOME

Today’s Helpful Word

Psalm 42:9-11 (Of David) 

 “O God my rock,” I cry,
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I wander around in grief,
    oppressed by my enemies?”
 Their taunts break my bones.
    They scoff, “Where is this God of yours?”

 Why am I discouraged?
    Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
    I will praise him again—
    my Savior and my God!

If you are feeling suicidal or concerned about someone who is, in the U.S., call 988, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. For a list of international suicide hotlines, go here.

If you are suicidal with a plan, immediately call 911 in the U.S. or go to your nearest emergency room; in the EU, call 112. (For other international emergency numbers, go here.) Hope and help are yours!

Always the Fight Ministries (ATFM) has been displaying compassion for those fighting mental illness, addiction, or abuse since 2012. Nancy is the founder and voice of ATFM and openly shares her emotional resurrection from despair. 

NOTE: Nancy is not a doctor or a mental health professional and speaks only from personal experience and observations. This website is not intended to substitute for professional mental or behavioral health care.

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