“It is Finished”: 

A Somatic Lament on the Finality of Suffering and the Wound of God Through the Lens of Spiritual Trauma

"It is finished.” (John 19:30)

By Ashley E. Schumacher, MS, LAPC

Suggest Music Taizé - Jesus, Remember Me

https://youtu.be/r6tVReXsioM?si=XnNyRM_mZ8bvzubI

Breathe deeply, slowly.

Let your breath anchor you here.

Take a moment.

There is no rush.

There is only this.

Feel the weight of your body where it rests.

Notice the ground beneath you, solid and unwavering.

It holds you.

You are here.

Safe, present.

Now, gently begin to drop into your body.

Feel the places that ache— the areas where grief has settled, where wounds have been buried, where your soul still feels the scars of trauma.

Let it come, whatever you encounter.

No need to force it.

Allow yourself to be present with the pain, the emptiness, the confusion, the sharpness of feeling unseen or unheard.

The rupture of spirit.

Feel it.

And now, with great tenderness, I invite you to join me in the final moments.

Come with me to the foot of the cross.

The sky is bruised, a darkness thicker than the sorrow of the world.

The air is suffocating with loss.

And there, hanging between heaven and earth, is Jesus.

His body broken.

His breath labored.

His face a mask of agony.

And then, through the suffocating silence, He speaks.

“It is finished.”

A declaration, not of resignation, but of completion.

Not of relief, but of finality.

Pause here.

Breathe.

Do you feel it?

The weight of those words, heavy as the earth itself?

The enormity of the moment, when every drop of pain, of suffering, of betrayal, comes crashing down, pooling into the abyss of His final breath.

It is finished.

This is not just the end of a life, not just the culmination of a mission.

This is the conclusion of every wound—every injustice, every lie, every tear shed in the silence of despair.

Every plea for mercy that went unheard.

Every prayer that seemed to hang in the air, unanswered.

“It is finished.”

Can you hear the echoes of those words, sinking deep into the marrow of your own soul?

This is the cry of spiritual trauma.

This is the moment when God Himself, broken and forsaken, takes every wound, every act of cruelty, every betrayal,

and says—“It is finished.”

The moment when the agony of the world collapses into nothingness.

When the weight of sin, of abandonment, of human failure, crushes the heart of God.

Pause here.

Breathe.

Can you feel the gut-wrenching finality of it?

The way it leaves nothing untouched, the way it strips bare all the lies and illusions we cling to?

The sheer devastation that follows the realization—THIS is the end.

The last breath of a love that has been bled dry—poured out like water.

The echo of a hope sealed in a tomb, too heavy to open.

This is the wound that haunts the soul.

It is not just physical pain, though that too is present.

It is the suffocating silence after every prayer is met with absence.

It is the unspoken agony of believing that your suffering is beyond redemption.

It is the deepest sense of betrayal—the rupture between the promise of a God who loves you, and the reality of your abandonment, of your being unseen, lost in the crushing weight of the world’s cruelty.

It is finished.

Feel it in your body.

Feel the emptiness in your chest, the tightness in your throat, the weight of hopelessness pressing down like a shroud.

This is not just the grief of a moment in time.

This is the grief of every moment that was ever unanswered, every prayer that seemed unheard.

This is the trauma of being torn apart, of feeling the love of God splintered and lost.

It is the finality of a promise broken in the most profound way possible.

And yet... in the depth of that devastation, something sacred stirs.

In the brokenness, in the silence, in the emptiness, there is still a cry.

“It is finished.”

What does this cry say to you?

Does it resonate with your own experience of loss?

Of abandonment?

Of trauma?

Let it rise.

Let it surface.

The ache, the betrayal, the emptiness.

This is the wound of spiritual trauma— the moment when you feel like nothing can heal you, that everything has been taken from you, that even God has turned away.

And yet, in this moment, you are invited into the truth and surrender of that cry.

The truth of the end.

It is finished, yes—but not in the way you think.

It is finished, and yet... it is also the beginning.

Feel the truth of those words.

Feel them settle into your body.

This is the sacred space of pain—the holy truth of suffering.

The moment when you are forced to face the unbearable.

And yet... in the depth of that unbearable pain, there is also the invitation to sit with it.

To be present with it.

To claim it.

Feel that— the invitation to stop running, to stop pushing away the wounds, 

Feel that—the invitation to stop running, to stop bracing for more pain,

to stop carrying the weight alone.

Here, in this sacred moment, you can say:

It is finished.

But also, I am here.

I am still here.

Feel the holy ache of that finality.

Feel the emptiness of the words.

Let it sit with you.

And now, slowly, begin to return to your body.

Let your breath become gentle again, soft as it moves in and out.

Let the weight of those words rest with you, knowing that you do not have to fix it, you do not have to make sense of it.

You are allowed to feel the finality, the devastation, paralysis, hopelessness.

And in that feeling, you are held.

You are not alone in this.

You are not abandoned.

You are not forsaken.

It is finished.

And yet, you are still here.

Feel that.

Let this be your halting, tenderly shrouded Alleluia.