I’ve done a lot of writing about the importance of cultivating “safety” recently, but some recent conversations have highlighted to me that not everyone understands this word the same way. While trauma survivors and psychologists use “safety” to denote a very particular experience, I’ve noticed a lot of Christians assume that “safety” is synonymous with “comfort.” When we trauma survivors talk about the need to feel safe, we’re not asking to avoid discomfort or even pain. In fact, we’re often better at tolerating uncomfortable feelings than anyone else, both emotionally and physically. What we’re asking for is the space to honour our God-given bodies with a felt assurance that we are not at risk of experiencing harm—a felt assurance so visceral it allows our bodies, nervous systems, and brains to engage in learning and connecting as God invites us to do.