The Body Keeps the Score

 

“For centuries, the image of Mary has endured, etched into the ancient walls of the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque in Istanbul, Türkiye. Hidden today, behind curtains , yet never erased. 

The Hagia Sophia, has stood for centuries as a witness to conquest, to worship, to war. She was painted and repainted to suit the imagination of her captors: first a church, then a mosque, now a museum, and once again a mosque. Through the passage of empires, cultures, and centuries, it stands resilient, an enduring symbol of faith, and the unbreakable spirit of memory itself. Just like the body which keeps the score” 

The Body Keeps the Score 

“We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present. Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think.”

― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

When I first read The Body Keeps the Score, I was stunned into silence. Because for the first time , someone explained the things I had thought were really my fault. It didn’t offer me advice. It didn’t ask me to move on. It didn’t shame me for still feeling unsafe when nothing “bad” was happening. It just simply and quietly told the truth.

My body remembered what my mind wanted to forget.

“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:41

        The exhaustion. The sudden panic. The numbness that felt safer than pain. The way I stopped asking for help because hope itself had become painful. It was all there. The score my body was storing was being held in my nervous system, my digestion, my memory and my breath. I had not been imagining it. And more importantly, I didn’t invent it.

That book helped me see that I wasn’t broken because I was weak. I was reacting exactly as someone in my shoes would. My body wasn’t betraying me. It was carrying what no one else saw.

But understanding isn’t the same as healing. Is it?  Still, something in me refused to settle.

“He heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3

        The science was solid. The explanation was sound. But the ache? That was spiritual. I didn’t just want to understand why I was stuck. I wanted to be unbound. That’s when Christ stepped into the silence.

“He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners….

to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” Isaiah 61:1-3

        And He didn’t shame me for needing Him, after all the therapy, after all the books and after all the attempts to fix myself. He didn’t demand quick recovery or spiritualize my survival instincts. He just simply saw me.

“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” Psalm 56:8

        He sat with me. Long enough for my heart to believe that His presence wasn’t a performance. He wept with me.I cried. No, actually, I bawled my eyes out, clutching my stomach, saying, “It hurts. It hurts. It all hurts.”

        And I was held. Wrapped in arms so comforting. So safe. But what I saw, was the cross. Jesus on the cross. He was trying to remind me that my body’s panic wasn’t stronger than His resurrection.

        He understood. But why did He do it?  Why did He have to bear such pain? The unimaginable pain and shame?

 He said that He had done it for me. To assure me that He understood why I have been hiding.

“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.” Isaiah 53:4

He knew the shame of being naked. And scorned.

“They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.” Psalm 22:18

He knew the pain of being flogged and then finally to be crucified.

“Just as there were many who were appalled at him — his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness.” Isaiah 52:14

He knew the heartbreak of being rejected by His own Father.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46

He knew the agony of being challenged for His faith and mocked for His knowledge.

“He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” Matthew 27:42

He knew the shame of illegitimacy.

“Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. “Matthew 1:19

He knew the burden of being misunderstood.

“Even his own brothers did not believe in him. “John 7:5

He knew the sting of being dismissed as “just Joseph’s son.”

“Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon?” Mark 6:3

And He bore all this, so that I could hold on to the truth:

“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5

The Body Keeps the Score helped me understand why I braced myself constantly. Christ taught me how to rest.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

The book told me trauma gets stored in the body. Christ told me: “By My wounds, you are healed.”

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24

The book helped me respect the reality of what happened.

Christ showed me that reality is not the end of the story.

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” Genesis 50:20

Understanding helped me breathe. But Christ, He gave me new breath.

“And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ “John 20:22

I also want to tell you the last thing Jesus showed me at the cross.

His mother Mary.

The woman who bore him in pain, who bore the shame. Willingly.

        Mary, as a young teenager, who, by saying, “Behold the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38), had willingly given up her name, her future, and her place in society; all to become part of God’s plan.

        But her body remembered. Those silent, intimate memories of carrying life within, the pain of birthing the Saviour, the heaviness of whispered shame, the ache of sacrifice she held in her heart (Luke 2:19). She carried a burden of hope and pain entwined, embracing a destiny few understood.

        At the cross, in His last earthly act, His last words were for her. Jesus looked down and said to John, “Behold your mother” (John 19:27 ). This was more than a request for care. It was Jesus honouring the woman who, as a teenager, said yes to God’s plan.

        In that intimate moment, Jesus gathered all her pain, all her body’s memory. He took the “score” kept in her flesh and wrapped it in His love and healing. Mary’s sacrifice was not forgotten. Through Jesus’ death came the promise that her pain, her surrender, and her courage were deeply valued and forever redeemed.

The body remembers what words cannot fully express. In Christ, that healing becomes possible. Not just for our minds, but for our whole being. For all the wounds held deep in our bodies. The cross is where pain and shame meet healing and hope. And the story of Mary shows us that God honours our suffering, remembers it intimately, and offers restoration that goes beyond what we can comprehend.

A Quiet Word to Anyone Still Carrying It All

        Maybe you’ve read all the books. Maybe you’ve sat in all the therapy rooms. Maybe you’ve journaled until your fingers hurt. And still… something aches. Something doesn’t shift. Let me say this:  Jesus is not asking you to erase the score your body keeps. He’s offering to carry it with you.

        To hold your hand through every flashback, every triggered silence, every sleepless night.Not as a distant observer, but as someone who was betrayed in His body, abandoned by His own, and raised up on the third day, so that you could be free.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are yet he did not sin.” Hebrews 4:15

Yes, trauma leaves a mark. But so does the cross.

He said, “It is finished! John 19:30

And the mark of the cross tells a different story, not just of survival, but of resurrection.

He said to me: “It is done.
 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.
To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.
Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God, and they will be my children. 

Revelation 21:6-7