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I was the pastor of a lady some years ago, and she still keeps in touch, but it is more a desperate lifeline than a friendly contact. When I first met her she was working all the hours in a day and night to qualify in her chosen profession. Every few weeks she would call me in a panic - She'd never pass the exams,never qualify -others would but not her. She did, of course, pass and qualify and immediately sought other professional mountains to climb. Her marriage was a disaster because she had married a man who was really a big bodied, spiteful little boy, merely wanting a Mum to do all his chores. She had the guts to pull out of the volatile relationship which would never change (she'd given it many years), and she began life as a single person again. She still cannot find peace. She has had a rough time from her colleagues in her chosen area of work, and feels utterly helpless ever to be one of them. She wants to be accepted by them, but is not. They do not accept her, she feels persecuted and unjustly so at that. In short she is a bright, well-qualified person, with the guts and courage which in a soldier might be rewarded with a Victoria Cross. Yet she remains wretchedly unfulfilled and self-condemned.
I've often tried to counsel her and have listened to her in many phone calls, and know that she is not a clinging vine. She is a gifted worker, and yet continues to be wretchedly unhappy, feeling unaccepted and lonely. No words ever seem to penetrate the barrier.It is my opinion, and I could be wrong, that the negative image she has of herself was formed when she was a defenceless little girl whose father cursed and abused her. She has spent her life trying to escape the clutches of a father who was a psychological monster.
When I speak to her of her heavenly Father, in whom she believes, and when her heavenly Father speaks to her, she is intimidated by her little girl 'father figure'. She listens with her feelings, not with her will, not with her mind, and, poor soul, finds that her feelings do not have any ears open to God. She believes in Jesus, she is a Christian, but she tries too hard. She believes she is unlovable, and no real love ever seems to enfold and hold her. I pray she will hear with the ears of her spirit and speak out loud words such as these, and let them set her feelings free:
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 6: 8,10,11,14 and 8:1
A Prayer:
Thank you Lord I live by FAITH in you, and not by feelings in me, and I can rejoice in your victory rather than weep over my failures.
Now read Psalm 27 (and mark verse 10).
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