CHAPTER
TWO
Emotional
Pain And
Disappointment
I know that many of the young people who read this book are hurting
emotionally. You may be one of them. You may have hurts that you have not
shared with anyone.
In fact, many times when we are hurting, we won't admit it even to
ourselves.
For years I was hurting really badly due to being sexually abused from
the time I was a young child until I left home when I was eighteen. But I acted
as if I really had things all together in my life. Most people would have never
known or could not have even imagined what I was going through in my home life.
It is amazing how good we get at hiding our pain.
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Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be
healed; save me, and I shall be saved….
Jeremiah 17:14
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If you are going through emotional pain and disappointment with life and
people, I strongly encourage you to be honest with yourself and begin to talk
to God about it. He really wants to help you. You can talk to God about
absolutely anything — He understands all you go through in life.
You may
even be in a situation similar to mine where you are being sexually abused. I
encourage you to talk to someone you trust — your school guidance counselor, or
youth pastor — or look in the yellow pages for a teen hot line, or do some
online searching for a web site on the Internet for teen organizations that offer
help, etc. The bottom line is. don't wait. Do whatever you feel God is leading
you to do to get help immediately.
Emotional pain is one of the most devastating things that any of us must
face and learn to deal with. We learn in the Bible that God heals the
brokenhearted. (Isaiah 61:1.) He exchanges our hurts and pain for blessings if
we give them to Him. He gives us … beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness... (v. 3 KJV). God
cares about how you feel.
Don't keep your hurts hidden. If you do, they will get deeper and deeper
and do more and more damage to your personality.
For many years I refused to face
the issues in my life.
When I finally did face them, it took many more years to overcome the
problems that had developed in my personality.
If you are running from reality, hiding from issues that need to be
dealt with, I strongly encourage you to stop and begin right now to face your
problems. The longer you put it off, the longer you will be in bondage and
pain.
Being
healed emotionally is painful, but at least it is a type of pain that leads
somewhere positive if we turn to God for help with it. It hurts because we
usually have to talk about and deal with things that have been buried within us
for a long time.
God will draw things out of you at the right time — just open up to Him
and tell Him you want to be made completely whole.
Living A Life Of Pretense
Are you living a lie, a life of pretense? Are you
doing things that you really don't want to do just to feel like part of a group
or to be popular?
I know all about living a lie, and I also know from
experience what it ultimately does to us. It is very damaging to our
personality.
Because I felt abnormal due to
the sexual abuse I was
enduring at home, I was always a loner. Although I had some friends,
they were very few and I always kept them at a distance. When any of them asked
for my home phone number, I had to find some way not to give it to them because
I got in trouble from my father when I received phone calls. He was very
jealous of me and did not want me to have any friends. If you're lonely, I know
how you feel.
My life consisted of trying to survive, of dodging people and situations
that would uncover the horrible truth of what was going on in my life. I had to
pretend with everyone — my father, my mother, my relatives, my teachers and my
school acquaintances.
I was not allowed to participate in any social activities at school.
When asked why I was not going to a certain football or basketball game, I
always had to tell a lie to cover the truth.
Unbelievable
numbers of people live in pretense in our society today. Parents pretend their
marriage is fine when their behavior behind closed doors proves otherwise.
Children watch the “pretend life” that Mom and Dad live and learn from their
role models to live the same way.
We all pretend that things don't bother us that really do. We pretend
that we are not hurt when we are, that we don't have needs when we do, that we
are strong when we are weak — and the list goes on and
In my own life I have discovered that trying to
hide something is much harder than bringing it out into the open.
We are,
however, afraid of being vulnerable. Honesty makes us vulnerable to rejection
or disapproval, so we try to pretend that we are whatever people want us to be.
We do this to avoid facing and dealing with the pain of rejection or
disapproval that can come from being truly honest with ourselves and others.
Being
honest is not something to avoid; it will release you from the chains of
emotional bondage. Begin right now to face the things that bother you and, with
God's help, deal with them. It will keep you from wasting some of the most
precious years of your life and living a life of disappointment.
Making Wrong Things Right
Has your life been a big disappointment up until now? That can change!
No matter how others have treated you, be determined not to let their opinions
and actions determine your worth and value as a person. Remember, God loves
you, and you are precious in His sight. You are a valuable person, and God has
a good plan for your life.
Have people disappointed you,
perhaps even people
you should have been able to trust and turn to at any time? Don't let
your past dictate your future. Don't withdraw from life and intimate
relationships because you have been disappointed in the past. Put your trust in
God and ask Him to lead you to the right friends.
Even if your own family has disappointed and rejected you, God welcomes
you into His family. His Word states that He adopts us as His own:
Although
my father and my mother have forsaken me, yet the Lord will take me up [adopt
me as His child.
Psalm 27:10
As you turn your life over to God, you will find Him bringing justice to
you. He delights in taking wrong things and making them right. He works good
out of what Satan and others intend for harm. (Genesis 50:20.)
I have an absolutely awesome life now, and yet I suffered horribly all
of my teenage years. When I was twenty-three years old, I remember thinking
that I had never been happy in my life. I prayed and asked God to send someone
into my life who would really love me and let me be happy.
God has done much more than I
even asked, and He
will do the same thing for you.1 He will take all of the wrong things
done to you and work them out for good as you trust Him and His Word.
God Keeps His Promises
The Bible is God's book of guidelines on how to live a successful,
outrageously wonderful life. Every issue we will ever face in life is covered
somewhere in the Bible. It is filled with wisdom for everyday living.
God does not play guessing games with us. He is very plain in His Word
about what He likes and does not like, what He approves of and does not approve
of, what works and what does not work. When He promises something, He always
does what He says He will do. This is something we are not accustomed to with
people.
Be Patient With God — And With Yourself
The Holy Spirit is referred to in the Bible as the Comforter. He (the
Spirit of God) comes to dwell inside the heart or spirit of believers — those
of us who have made Jesus our Savior — where He ministers to us as
individuals.2 In other words, Jesus is living in your heart as a believer in
Him, and He wants to comfort you when you are hurting through the indwelling
Holy Spirit.
God is aware of everything that has ever happened to you in life. Even
the very hairs on your head have been counted by Him.3 When you turn to Him for
help, He will begin to heal your emotions from the hurts and disappointments
you have experienced. This healing is a process and will take some time. Little
by little things will improve. Don't give up! You will begin to feel better
about yourself and life in general. You will learn to trust people and yet be
wise about who you should open up to and who you shouldn't.
During this process of healing, be patient with God and with yourself.
Don't expect everything to be fixed overnight. Many people make this mistake
and end up backsliding into old ways and lifestyles. They have been
disappointed so many times in life, they begin to think that Christianity is a
big disappointment also. The mistake they make is “trying” to live the
Christian life instead of letting God live it through them.
By His Power
The mystery which has been hidden
from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.
… which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Colossians 1:26,27 NKJV
With many people it is, “God helps those who help themselves.” With God,
it is,… Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit…, says the Lord of hosts
(Zechariah 4:6).
James 4:2 KJV states that we have not because we ask not. When we are in
need of help, strength, wisdom, etc., we can ask God for it, and He will give
us what we need.
I always
say that God does not throw us the football and then expect us to make the
touchdown by ourselves. After we are born again totally as an act of God's
mercy and grace, He does not expect us to live the rest of our life without the
same mercy and grace. He knows that we need His help all the way through life.
He will help you with homework assignments, tests, decisions, finding a job,
even fixing your hair. Actually, His Word states in John 15:5,… apart from Me
[cut off from vital union with Me you can do nothing. This is a good lesson to
learn early in our walk with God.
God has begun a good work in you, and He will bring it to its finish.
(Philippians 1:6.) You may feel thousands of times like nothing is changing in
you or in your life, but that is absolutely not true.
Our lives can get into such messes that correcting them is like
dismantling a mountain of hay one straw at a time. We are very intricate
beings. Our emotional makeup can be quite complicated.
It is vital for you to believe every step of the
way that God is working in you and that you will like the end result.
Surrender yourself to God for healing in every area of life. With His
help, you can be set free from emotional hurts and disappointments to pursue
the wonderful, happy, blessed life He has in mind for you!
Finish In Style
God wants to do a thorough work in us, to make us complete and whole. He
can do that only if we allow Him to do so.
For most of my life I felt fragmented, pulled in all directions, like a
broken vessel that had been shattered into pieces. I hurt mentally,
emotionally, physically, spiritually, socially, financially and every other way
a person can be hurt.
Over the years God has worked in me, and He has totally healed me. I am
emotionally stable. I enjoy a peaceful mind. I have lots of joy, good friends
and a great family. I am spiritually alive and have a
wonderful relationship with God.
I enjoy prosperity and good health. My beginning was not very pretty, but I am
finishing in style.
Perhaps your beginning has not been very pretty either. If so, let my
testimony concerning the goodness of God encourage you to believe that He will
do the same thing for you that He has done for me.
God is no respecter of persons.4 He loves us all
the same. What He does for one of us, He will do for all of us.
Actually,
God is like a life preserver for someone who is out in the middle of the ocean
and doesn't know how to swim. You may feel like you're drowning in your
circumstances, but you can trust yourself into His care. As you do, He will get
into gear to help you and work out His good plan in your life.
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