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Healing Hurts that Sabotage the Soul by Curt Grayson and <strong>Jan</strong> <strong>Johnson</strong> Chapter 2: PILGRIMS' PROGRESS As God's flashlight moves around the rooms of our lives and we begin to examine the obscure corners and deep closets, we find fellow travelers who are willing to walk with us. It's such a relief to find other people who, although they appear to be content and self-sufficient, have actually worked hard inside to do what they think it takes to please God and make themselves happy. Hearing them tell about how they are finding a more authentic relationship with God and others becomes part of God's flashlight so that we can see our own healing path more clearly. Here are stories from three of these pilgrims on this journey. SUSANNA'S JOURNEY As my friend and I sat on her bed and she talked in the dimming twilight about the love, joy and peace that accepting Christ would bring, I knew I wanted it. On top of that, I would receive eternal life. How could she know -- she couldn't -- that I had planned to commit suicide the night before? If I had gone through with it, she and everybody else would have wondered how a Most Likely to Succeed award recipient and homecoming queen nominee could take her life? As she talked about how we don't deserve God's love, I agreed. We prayed together, and I accepted Christ. Then I fell on her bed and cried for a long time. A few months later, I fell on my own bed and cried. All my old feelings of chaos and anger reared their heads. I felt empty and alone again. Was I really saved? I wondered. Maybe I should go forward at youth meeting again. I did, but it didn't rekindle those early feelings. That could mean only one thing -- I had disappointed God or angered Him. Maybe I wasn't good enough to be His child. But, from my experiences at home, I knew how to make people love me. I would make God love me. I would be good, work hard, and help anyone I could. Taking care of people had always filled my emptiness. When my mother divorced my father and threw him out of the house, I visited him every day at his apartment where I would find him drunk. Many times he didn't have food, so I sneaked food out of our house to him. Later, when I became a missionary, I thought, Wouldn't God be pleased with my sacrifice? How could He not love me for this? Working in an orphanage in Kenya filled the emptiness, but whenever I saw a lonely and hurting child, I would see myself as a child and start to cry. My well-meaning Christian friends urged me, "Pray harder, read the Bible more and trust God to meet all your needs." I did these things, but I felt worse. I was afraid to tell my friends their solutions didn't work because they would think I wasn't spiritual.
I decided the answer was to work in a more difficult country so I signed up to go to a Hindu nation where anyone who was caught trying to convert someone received a seven year prison sentence. Being a martyr had a double appeal for me: I could make God proud of me and I could also die, which would relieve the emotional pain that kept coming back. After three years, an illness forced me stateside. I became so depressed that I found myself in the office of a Christian counselor. "What was your home life like?" he asked me. "My father is an alcoholic, but that's been an advantage," I explained. "I'm stronger and more compassionate because of my background. Unlike other people, I adapt easily because I never knew what was going to happen when I was growing up." The counselor smiled at me and quietly explained how a family with an alcoholic is likely to magnify our culture's tendency toward denial, blame, anger and isolation. He said my depression was rooted in these tendencies. I stared at him. It sounded as if he were speaking a foreign language -- I couldn't believe it. He gave me an address of a support group meeting at a nearby church, and suggested I go. The meeting shocked me. All those people who looked so together and knew so much Scripture felt as discouraged as I did. As they talked about themselves, I cried. Even when I didn't stop crying, no one acted as if I were wrong or silly. Several people talked to me afterward. I went to more meetings, crying through the first six. I found I didn't have to pretend to be a "SuperChristian" anymore. I could be exactly who I was and still be loved. It felt like a family. At the seventh meeting, I admitted that I had gone to the mission field to escape because I didn't know how to handle life. I went to "save the world" -- just as I'd been saving my father, or so I thought. I expected the people in the group to be horrified, but they smiled and nodded. They understood me. After that, I began to sense God's acceptance of me. I could tell God how I really felt. I didn't have to perform to get Him to love me. After a while, it was tempting to pretend to be wonderful again. Now I see that this is a lifelong process of connecting with God and believing He loves me as I am. With each transition in life, I seem to have to review where I've been and remind myself of the truths that God loves me and works in me. MATT'S JOURNEY "It's because you pretend to be OK," my sister Marcia challenged me. "I see the painful look in your eyes. Your voice quivers. You're nervous." I didn't know what to say to my sister. We had just finished a serious talk about how I was more than normally afraid to ask girls out. She quieted her voice and said, "Matt, I see this fear in you because I'm the same way. We don't have to do this. We don't have to live to please people." I didn't like what she was saying, and it showed.
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Page 9 and 10: never been so honest. I was afraid
Page 11 and 12: year-old son asked my advice for th
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Page 15 and 16: Some medical doctors now give their
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Page 25 and 26: Beginning with the first sin of Ada
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Page 33 and 34: Q THE BIBLE SAYS THAT WE SHOULD SER
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Page 45 and 46: predictability and security. Regret
Page 47 and 48: They may complain about this but do
Page 49 and 50: As each of us uncovers our real sel
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Page 53 and 54: SELF-CONDEMNATION Judging self with
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I'm just now learning not to take m
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Healing Hurts that Sabotage the Sou
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Eating disorders Bulimics eat large
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Hooked on a Leader Have you ever ta
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Q IF I HAVE ALCOHOLIC PARENTS, DOES
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Most Christians would deny ever vie
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I never felt like rejoicing. It's h
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The above examples of easily misint
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HOW DO I FEEL? If you've lived on a
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The more often we speak honestly to
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Father's arms. We can gently surren
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Psalm 18:6, 17, 19 PLEASE HAVE FUN
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When we behave this way, we're usin
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When she allowed herself to remembe
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person sound safe. Invite that pers
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distance because we fear his or her
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Rejection is inevitable, though. We
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e healed." (James 5:16). The recipr
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no longer blaming anyone. The more
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A child development specialist advi
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especially true if you find yoursel
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At Thanksgiving, my relatives put e
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tell her parents she was in therapy
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their experiences, they keep in min
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As an authentic Christian, we liste
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the floor of the hallway next to th
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2. Is he willing to investigate how
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talking with them, asking them ques
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After that, I kept quiet about my d
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o Are there myths you would like to
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Finally Jessica became so depressed
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As Brian and the therapist talked a
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I watched others carefully as they
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I have stuffed many of my feelings
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5. Try to share from the heart as h
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• Physical: alcoholics became acc
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Changing behavior requires personal
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emove all these defects of characte
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