If you suffer from anxiety, depression, guilt, anger, fear, and other forms of hurt like I have, it can sometimes feel like you are a deprived being, starved for love and healing, affection and approval, almost like they are drugs and you need another fix. You find that people around you open themselves up to God, and they seemed quenched and satisfied by God’s love, healing, and presence in their lives, but you may feel like you have a hole that drains God’s healing as soon as you spend time with God. It’s like no matter how much you take in positive thoughts, God’s presence, and scripture, you can’t seem to absorb it. Maybe you even feel you have a specific deficiency that makes you the exception to what seems to work for everyone else. You continue to be negative, and you don’t seem to be able to change. You can’t seem to find any peace, like it’s a vitamin deficiency. You take your “vitamins” over and over and still suffer from the side effects of spiritual malnutrition. Why is this? Is there a way to finally make the changes you want? Is there a way to find peace? Some people will tell you that you must not have enough faith, that you are not truly surrendering to God, or that you are being punished for something. I’ve been told all of these things, and they were all hurtful. None did anything to help me, and in most cases they made me go deeper into whatever problem I was experiencing. That is not to say that sometimes people can’t be healed when they surrender to God, and that sometimes the previous things might not be true. However, is you have a long term problem and pattern with these issues, whether it is a chemical imbalance, environmental factors from childhood, or mis-conditioning somewhere along the way, those previous statements will not bring you peace, and they only reinforce the frustration you may feel with yourself.
This may carry into your relationship with God. For example, at times, I have felt like a hypocrite for being simultaneously angry at God, asking for His help, and not believing He will help because the peace and healing never seem to come, and if they do, they do not stay for long. There, I said it, and I bet I’m not the only one who’s experienced this. Spiritual malnutrition is a great metaphor. At some point, you’ve got to figure out what’s keeping you from absorbing God’s love and healing. Why don’t you feel wanted, worthy, and beautiful, and why can’t you learn not to be so hard on yourself no matter how many times you tell yourself you can be all those things? Your thoughts are distorted, and God understands why you think and feel the way you do, where your thoughts and feelings come from, and why you can’t seem to get past your own barriers. There is a reason. There is an answer. There are solutions to unravel the mystery that is you, and everyone’s mystery is different. God actually does want to help you heal. He does not withhold his blessings because you “haven’t arrived” or you “aren’t good enough.” But you’re in a catch-22. You don’t believe God will help you because you’ve asked vehemently for His help and desperately wanted to believe, and you haven’t gotten better. As a result, you continue to believe God can’t or won’t help you.
Life is a combination providence and self-determination, all choices and chances being the hand of God in some way, directly or indirectly. The part of you that is self-determination blocks the part that is God’s intervention because He gives us Free Will, and will never interfere with that. We are all on this journey to evolve into the people God plans for us to be, and therefore, while God will intervene in certain situations, he allows us to learn and make our own mistakes so we can grow. But he is here to help and guide us, and give us strength to break patterns and make new choices over and over and over and over again. When we choose to believe, by saying with conviction in our voice and emotion in our gut what we choose to be true, we release faith inside ourselves and find things begin moving, but the problem comes from not being able to maintain. That is when, even when your emotions are crying out inside of you to do what is comfortable, you make the right choice to believe over and over and over again. Yes, belief is a CHOICE. At first, your choice may feel artificial and put on, and you may be going contrary to what feels natural. You may also give in to your doubts and despair at times, which can make you think all your work is ruined. But it isn’t. Get back up, and make the choice again. And if you make another mistake, ask for forgiveness and get up and make the choice of faith again. You get knocked down. You get back up. You get knocked down. You get back up. You get knocked down. You get back up. If you are making that choice in Faith, knowing it is the love and power of God guiding you, you release God’s power to start moving in your life. When you do it again and again and again, you allow things to start shifting and moving, and as the choice becomes more habitual, perhaps making some mistakes along the way, it starts to feel more natural, until it becomes second nature. Never scold yourself when you make a mistake. That will actually push you backwards. Ask God to forgive you and forgive yourself and move forward. It is as simple as that. There is nothing more you need to do to be totally forgiven because Jesus took care of that once you asked him for forgiveness. So many people complicate making a wrong a right. Also, understand that the nature of life is messy, and sometimes it isn’t just steps forward. We aren’t perfect, and taking to something the first or the tenth time you try it is rare. It may be two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, and so on, but you will get there. Learn to accept the process as it is, and it takes a lot of the pressure off to be “perfect.” God knows the mess he got when he called you, and he accepts you as you are while you are growing. That is what life is all about.
If you come from a dysfunctional or abusive background, grew up poor, experienced rejection in school, or suffered from feeling “different”, sad, or nervous in some way, know that God loves you, and your right to happiness and love, and your validity as a human being is no less than people that seemed to always have it “together.” You are a valid person, and God has a plan for you. He thinks no more or less of any of His children than another. It surprises me how many people, when I get to know them, might have seemed to have it together on the outside. They are beautiful, refined, wealthy, smart, and kind, but felt the same way on the inside. They are probably even as big of a mess inside as most everyone else. Perhaps they had special skills or “breeding” that allowed them to disguise the quirks and weaknesses in their personality, but I’ve met very few people who truly “had it all together.” They may, but 90 percent of the time, that is just what they want people to think.
It can be hard to accept, but regardless of what has happened in the past, you are responsible for what happens in your life now. Responsibility needs to be distinguished from blame. Conviction needs to be distinguished from guilt. Understand that responsibility gives you power, and says, “With God’s help, I have the power to do something about this particular situation in my life. I can heal. I can forgive. I am worth loving.” Whereas blame is when you berate yourself for not being good enough or failing again, for being hard on yourself, or being angry or afraid. Conviction says, “I can’t always control what emotions come up in me, but I know I can manage my emotions with God’s help. I know that I am responsible and good changes are possible in my life. I am willing to do the work and take responsibility for dealing with my emotions and thoughts as they come up in my life. Whatever happens, God is there for me, ready to forgive, and I am there for myself.” Guilt is when you feel helpless despair. You feel worthless because you have been unable to change in ways that you want. Responsibility and conviction empower change and they come from God, guilt and blame don’t do either.
In the beginning, no one can help their background, parents, family life, or body chemistry. Part of the barren circumstances in my life are a result of things I could not help or control, but bemoaning unfair circumstances in the past or the hand of cards I’ve been dealt only takes me a step back. However, it is imperative to deal with what is here now. Emotions from past hurts can be complex, thorny, and intense, and they need to be worked out in a safe private environment. If they are too messy and volatile to manage with private time alone, there is no shame in getting help from someone trained to help people deal with them. To me, it takes true courage to admit one has issues that need to be dealt with, and even more to do the work and face what can sometimes be ugly and disturbing, call it by its name, and work it out. Only someone afraid of what is inside of themselves would judge someone for getting help, and practically everyone needs help in some way. To a degree, we are all broken. Whatever you do, don’t hold that stuff inside. It will poison you. It is okay to have a screaming fit in your car. Nobody has to know. Just God. Beat on a pillow. Write down everything you are thinking, no holds barred, and then throw it away, but get the anger out in the safety of God’s presence and a non-judgmental professional. That is where the hole comes from that seems to drain God’s goodness away when you spend time in His presence and study about his grace. It has a real, visceral presence. Healing can be heavy, cathartic work. Sometimes it can be like looking down a cliff’s edge over a waterfall and being asked to jump. It takes a leap of faith with your stomach churning the whole time. Those feelings are completely normal. Working out this hard core stuff over the long term is the only way to heal, and only a concerted effort between you making a strong conscious choice day after day to give time, full attention, and powerful love to this healing will that hole become filled. You can heal. It may take years, but that’s okay. Doing the work to heal is easier than continuing to carry around the pain.
Know that God has loved you forever and he will love you forever. If you experience consuming hurt, only consuming love has the power to heal it. God’s love is consuming fire from above. It quenches all the emptiness inside, in time. God’s grace isn’t just sufficient for you, it is awesome.
