Archive for Emotional Healing
A Picture of My Heart
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Did you ever draw a picture of your heart when you were younger – perhaps on a piece of paper designed to give to your sweetheart? Did you draw it big and red? Maybe with Cupid’s arrow through it? Or maybe you drew it broken or bleeding?
What would it look like today if you drew a picture of your heart?
God has so much to say about our hearts. Many times God’s Word talks about “hard hearts”.
Last night I was thinking about what it means to have a hard heart. I guess I’ve always had an idea in my mind of what this might mean, but at this moment I see something new. Instead of a mental picture of someone whose face is hardened, who is cursing and openly rejecting God, I see a picture of me.
Now don’t throw up a religious reaction and try to reassure me that I have never been hard hearted. I have. And probably, (alright, definitely), so have you.
Oh, perhaps I would never openly harden my heart and you might say the same thing. So what does it look like if our hearts become hardened or to use another term, calloused? How does that happen?
To be calloused means to be hard; hardened; insensitive; indifferent, unsympathetic; it can speak of a part of the skin which has become thickened due to friction or pressure. It also can mean to become emotionally hardened; unfeeling.
In the Face of Shame
Posted by: | CommentsHave you ever felt ashamed of something you did? Have you ever been embarrassed to look people in the eyes?
On Sunday I began to ponder the effects of shame. I was praying for a beautiful young woman whom I had not seen in a couple of years. The last time I saw her, she asked for prayer because of her marital situation. I had counseled with her, prayed with her and had given her a book as a resource. And here she was again, having a hard time looking into my eyes. The longer I spoke with her, the more obvious it was that she was very ashamed. I knew something of her story. An abusive husband whom she just literally caught in the act of being unfaithful. Not a new story with her. As she cried to me for help, she said, “I don’t want to leave him.” My heart was heavy for her. How I wished I could have taken her troubles away! I wished I could have made her marriage whole. But deep within, I knew that aside from a work of the Spirit of God, things were not going to change in this marriage. She was going to continue to be beaten and betrayed. If she continued to be a prisoner of her shame, she was never going to take the steps she needed to in order to experience acceptance and freedom.
Is God Shouting to You?
Posted by: | Comments"Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world."
