From Past to Present: Experiencing God in the Midst of Healing

There’s a line from trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk that has stayed with me for a long time: “the past is the present.”

When I first heard it, something in me softened. Not because it explained everything, but because it named what so many of us quietly live with that even when life looks “fine” on the outside, our body can still be responding to something old.

What struck me even more was how deeply this idea echoes Scripture.

The Bible tells us that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

That He is the great I AM, not bound by time as we experience it. Past, present, and future are held within Him.

And yet, our bodies don’t always live in neat timelines.

When the body remembers

Trauma doesn’t first live as a memory or a story. It lives in the body, in our nervous system, our reflexes, our breath, our sense of safety or threat. This is why we can react strongly to something small, or feel anxious, shut down, or overwhelmed without fully knowing why.

It’s not a lack of faith. It’s not weakness.

It’s a body that once learned how to survive.

In this way, the past becomes present not because we are choosing it, but because the body is doing exactly what it was designed to do: protect life.

Scripture has always known this, even if we didn’t have modern language for it.

The Bible speaks often of the heart not just as emotion, but as the centre of our being. In the Hebrew understanding, the heart held memory, decision-making, discernment, and embodied knowing. We might say today:

the heart remembers what the mind tries to move past.

God meets us in the present

Here is where this becomes deeply hopeful.

If trauma pulls the past into the present, then healing does not happen by forcing ourselves to “move on” or think differently alone. Healing happens when safety is restored now.

And God reveals Himself as present.

“I am with you.” “I will never leave you.” “Be still, and know that I am God.”

These are not abstract ideas. They are invitations into presence.

Stillness is not passivity. It is not emptying the mind or drifting away. Stillness is the place where we become aware of our breath, our body, our inner world and in doing so, we become aware of God’s nearness.

Christian meditation, at its heart, is not about seeking mystical experiences. It is about returning to the present moment, where God already is.

“Christ within you” — not just as a concept

Scripture tells us, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Not Christ beside you as an idea. Not Christ distant or future-focused. But Christ within.

When we slow down and gently notice what is happening in our body, tension, heaviness, warmth, constriction we are not becoming self-absorbed. We are listening.

And often, it is in this listening that God’s comfort becomes felt rather than merely understood.

Jesus did not heal people by asking them to explain their suffering.

He noticed their bodies. He asked what they needed. He touched. He restored in the present moment.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Hebrews 13:8

Where faith and the nervous system meet

I’ve come to see that somatic awareness and faith are not in opposition. They are deeply complementary.

The nervous system tells us when something doesn’t feel safe. Faith reminds us where safety truly is.

When the body learns that it can be held by God, by compassion, by presence the grip of the past begins to loosen.

Not all at once. Gently. Over time.

This is not about bypassing pain or spiritualising it away. It’s about allowing God to meet us where time has collapsed, and slowly restore what was disrupted.

A gentle invitation

If you notice old reactions showing up in your present life, there is nothing wrong with you.

Your body may simply be asking for safety, not explanation.

And God who holds all time is near.

Not waiting for you to fix yourself. Not disappointed in your process. But present, now, meeting you exactly where you are.

Sometimes healing looks less like striving, and more like learning to be still enough to notice:

God is with me. It is safe to be here.

And that, often, is where restoration begins.