Not "Out of Nowhere." Recognizing and Responding to Warning Signs of Tragedy

Your worst nightmare comes to life. You’ve heard about stories like these, but you never thought it would happen to you. It seemed to come out of nowhere, and now your whole world has turned upside-down. It’s a terrifying feeling.

Grasping in the dark chaos, many people turn to denial, justification, and minimizing. But research shows those with the best outcomes are those who are able to formulate a cohesive narrative of what happened and why. And that is the heart of this post.

We need to understand why, for several reasons. Here are a few:

1. Perpetrators need to face the weight of what they have done. They need to understand how they got here if they are to have any hope of healing and not finding themselves here again later. We want to tell ourselves it was a one-time, out-of-nowhere thing. But it wasn’t. Unless we resolve the underlying issues.

2. Those who bear the brunt of someone else’s sin need to see that this was not random. That they can trust again. That it won’t come out of the blue next time, even if they couldn’t have prevented it this first time. The world feels horrifying if anyone could do something like this at any moment. And the media often doesn’t help; we hear story after story of seemingly “good” people who suddenly snapped and did awful things. That’s not real life, though. It’s a punchy headline that sells because fear sells. We need to understand the backstory to know how the boogeyman was made so we know he is not everyman.

3. Many people see the horrible things that others do and they wonder in the quiet in-between of their souls whether they might be capable of the same. And the truth is, they probably are. But it doesn’t come out of nowhere. We need to understand why it happened so we know we won’t just randomly commit the same atrocities. We also need to understand why so we can see the similarities in our own stories and bring the festering parts into the light so they can be healed. So we aren’t overcome by what we despise.

If you are not ready to hear this, I apologize, and I ask for your grace. But for those who are ready, I offer this sobering reality: there were warning signs. It’s not your fault that you missed them. In fact, there are understandable reasons you missed them, but that doesn’t mean the signs weren’t there. Thank God there were signs. Thank God we can look back to understand what led to this devastation and, Lord-willing, to avoid it next time. What a mercy that is.

If you are standing in the wake, I urge you brothers and sisters, study the signs.

For the perpetrator/betrayer,

Let go of the shame and anger. You will not be able to do any of your work until you stop holding the blinders of anger in the silo of shame. Your work only makes sense in light of the love and forgiveness of Christ. Truly embrace those, and you have hope of a life without what led you here. You must strive to forgive yourself and love yourself and Christ forgave and loved you when didn’t deserve it. To hold onto self-hatred is a grievous pride that precludes healing.

Start with the darkness. Start with the things you kept hidden that fed the growth of this evil. Figure out why you hid those things and what lies the Enemy nurtured to keep those things shrouded.

Look at how you were wounded. Forgive those people, and bring those wounds to Jesus, asking for His healing.

Consider your boundaries. Where have you compromised loving boundaries due to codependence, hedonism, idolatry, or other evils?

Evaluate biblical relationships. Most perpetrators of great evils have superficial relationships, transactional relationships, or live in isolation. The Bible calls us to be in close community with fellow believers to encourage one another and to submit to one another in love.

Repent. Repentance is not apology (although that’s a good idea). It is turning from sin and walking in righteousness. It is not a momentary decision so much as a way of living.

There is so much more I could say here, but let me just reiterate that learning “why” and sharing it with your loved ones and victims is incredibly important, and it is your sole responsibility. However, it is heroic work that cannot be done alone. A Christian counselor can help.

For Those Most Hurt

This part is tricky because the pain can be so overwhelming, so traumatic, that it is not wise to pursue the journey of healing alone. Sometimes it’s not even wise to pursue it without the help of a professional Christian counselor who can help use evidence-based techniques to properly treat your trauma. So if you are right in the thick of it, I would not recommend doing the following work on your own. That being said, here’s what healing typically looks like:

• Take inventory of the pain. Healing is rarely possible without doing this. People often live in denial, or they spend their whole lives running away from the agony that is attached to them. For it to be resolved, the pain must be acknowledged. It must be looked in the eye, validated, and treated. This can actually be incredibly empowering. For many people, once they experience the worst pain imaginable, they report that fear played a much smaller role in their lives afterward. In retrospect, many people also report a faithfulness, closeness, and comfort of God that served as an anchor in future hardships. For the most painful seasons, however, we often cannot feel the closeness of God in the moment. It is only as the tragedy wanes that we recognize he was near all along, holding us, protecting us, crafting our convalescence. We can’t get to that point until we stop running from the pain, though.

• Forgive. Seeing this word plopped in as the second bullet point may feel insulting, agonizingly oversimplified, but I want to encourage you that the distance between the first and second bullets may be a chasm. There are two other important things to remember about forgiveness: 1) As Christ followers, we are commanded to always forgive, and 2) Because God is love, this commandment must be loving, and indeed it is. Forgiveness primarily benefits the forgiver.

• Be wise about trusting this person again. A biblical precondition for trust after sin like this is their repentance. If they have not repented, you should not trust them. Furthermore, repentance is not a moment; it is sustained. Therefore, you should not quickly trust someone who has egregiously violated you. It often takes time to prove repentance is genuine. Finally, you are not commanded to trust this person again; let your holy desire, God’s love, and divine direction be your guide here — not a sense of obligation or guilt.

• Use wise boundaries. If you decide to trust again, as you rebuild it and protect it, use wise boundaries. A lack of boundaries is prideful and/or foolish. Carefully considered boundaries can help you recognize the signs if you are again headed to disaster, and they can facilitate further healing and growth, as well as minimizing the likelihood of future destruction.

To The One Who Worries What He Might Become

• Be honest. Take a good look at the evidence of your life, both the evidence for and against your great fear. If you need help sorting through this, have a Christian counselor or trusted loved one help.

  • The Bad. Look at the areas of your life that have you on the road to destruction. These areas must urgently be addressed. The Bible is clear about the call to righteousness and Jesus’s uncompromising stance on sin. Too many so-called Christians and milktoast churches nowadays pervert the gospel to excuse sin in the name of grace — but the real gospel of grace is made powerful because of the seriousness of sin! We are called to be holy, to live in the light, to be free, to walk as co-heirs with Christ, adopted into sonship in the family of God, striving in Kingdom work! Sin has no place in the redeemed, and we are commanded to vigilantly purge it from our lives! This is not just a heart posture, this is a discipline. It’s the difference between deciding you want muscles and going to the gym.

  • The Good. We must also be realistic about the protective factors, the things that make our stories different from the perpetrators’. We should not be complacent or prideful, because we all have capacity for great evil, but we should not live in fear that we will suddenly tumble off a cliff as we stand in the middle of a field. We are the recipients of great promises, and we have available to us great wisdom. We can be assured that we belong to Christ, and we can pursue his good plans for us which he has prepared in advance for us to do. And as we run toward our true Lord, we also run away from the lord of lies.

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I think if we are honest with ourselves, we can all find times when we have played each of these roles to some extent. The invitation is to have the necessary conversations in the fulness of grace and truth. When we bring a Christlike love to these critical questions, transformation and healing are the result.

No matter where you find yourself in the rubble, I pray you will find out why this happened. And as you ask those excruciating questions, I pray God Almighty will comfort you and give you peace. May he bind up every wound and wash you clean in his great love and mercy. May the “why” you find bring clarity and closure, and may it be eclipsed by the glory of God’s immeasurable grace through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.