There’s a moment in 1 Kings 19 that lately I’ve been thinking about more than almost any other passage in Scripture.
Elijah has just had the biggest spiritual victory of his life. He’s called down fire from heaven in front of an entire nation. And in the very next chapter, he’s curled up under a broom tree in the wilderness, telling God he wants to die.
What strikes me about this passage isn’t the collapse and how much I relate to it as someone who struggled with depression in my early teen years. What strikes me most is what God does about it.
No lecture. No “where is your faith?” No unpacking what happened. God sends an angel with food. Then lets him sleep. Then feeds him again. Only after all of that does God ever ask Elijah a single question about what’s going on inside of him.
Even a prophet’s body needed to be nourished and rested before his mind or spirit could process what he’d just survived.
I bring this up because of something else I read lately that I think validates this pattern in a way that might surprise you.
A 2023 study out of Taiwan followed over 5,000 people with PTSD for nearly a decade, comparing them to matched people without it.
The findings: people with PTSD had a 2.26-fold higher risk of developing an autoimmune disease overall, a 2.95-fold higher risk of lupus, and a 6.32-fold higher risk of Sjögren’s syndrome, a condition that affects your body’s ability to produce moisture, tears, saliva, and more. And the more severe the PTSD, the higher the risk climbed. (Hsu et al., 2023, European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1007/s00406-023-01639-1.)
I want to be careful here. This is an association, not a proven direct cause, and the researchers say as much themselves. But it lines up with something I’ve watched happen in my own practice for years: bodies that have been through something hard don’t just carry it emotionally. They carry it immunologically.
Your trauma didn’t just change how you feel. It may have changed how your immune system does its job.
3 things this can mean for you, starting today:
- Stop treating unexplained flares as random. If you have an autoimmune condition and a trauma history, they may be more connected than any of your specialists have told you. That’s not a reason for fear. It’s a reason to finally look at the whole picture.
- Rest isn’t optional, it’s foundational. Just like Elijah, your body may need food and rest before it’s ready to process anything else. If you’ve been trying to heal your mind before tending to your body, this might be why it hasn’t stuck.
- Nervous system safety is immune support. A body that feels safe is a body whose immune system isn’t stuck on high alert. Small, repeated signals of safety, slow breathing, enough protein, enough sleep, aren’t small things. They’re part of how your immune system learns to stand down.
I dig into all of this, and how to actually start supporting your body at the root, in my course Nutrition for Trauma Healing. It’s open now, no deadline, so go at whatever pace feels right for you.
Nutrition for Trauma Healing is a 10-module course for anyone whose body has been through trauma, chronic stress, or burnout and wants practical, gentle tools to support healing from the inside out.
This isn’t a diet plan. It isn’t a 10-day detox. It’s a partnership with your body: learning to nourish it, rest it, and bring it back to safety, one season at a time.
Inside, you’ll learn:
- Why a body in stress won’t digest, and how to bring safety back
- How to build balanced meals that stabilize blood sugar and mood
- Why your weight isn’t the problem, it’s the symptom
- The difference between rest and sleep, and why you need both
- A simple framework (the HEART check) for getting to the root of cravings
- How to rebuild your relationship with movement, food, and your own body
You’ll also get four bonus resources: a Mindful Eating Journal, a Nervous System Nutrients guide, a Restorative Recipe Bundle, and Scripture Cards to support you along the way.
You can move through it in ten days or ten weeks. There’s no wrong pace, only the one that’s right for you.
Click here to learn more. Use the code HEALING20 at checkout to receive $20 off, for a limited time!
One last thing before I go. Isaiah 40:29 says, “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.”
You don’t have to bring God a healed body to be worthy of his care. He meets you in the collapse, under the broom tree, exactly like he met Elijah. Nourishing food first. Rest first. The questions can come later.
I hope that comforts you as much as it comforts me!