There have been times in my life when I believed I had nothing to offer anyone and my life had little worth. I felt the pain of what I now know were lies of believing that I was worthless, unloved, unacceptable, and could never measure up to everyone’s expectations. I confused what I felt with the reality of what was real.
Like so many people now, lies and feelings are overwhelming their lives and convincing them that the only way to stop the pain is to take themselves out. The overwhelming pain and anger of “now” is cutting off the hope of the reality of what is happening behind the scenes. Anger doesn’t reason, it just wants relief and the pain to stop. There were times when I could not conceive that I could ever have impact on the future of generations of beautiful children and their children simply because of encouraging one student thirty years earlier and telling him to come out on a gig with me and I wouldn’t let him fail. My anger only wanted to stop from feeling overwhelmed, especially since I was a Christian at the time.
What can We Do:
Start Being Real. People are feeling overwhelmed because they are thinking they are the only ones dealing with the pain. When we begin saying, “Hey, you think I got it all together, but I’m feeling depressed, I’m lonely, etc.” others see real people who love the Lord but don’t have it together all the time. Young people, especially, need to be able to talk and see real people who have real problems but handle those problem differently. They don’t need, “just pray about it” answers. They are dealing with real life and need meat answers. I would rather be around a non-Christian who knows they got baggage and lays it out there than a Christian who can name every scripture in the bible but can’t share their heart because they will look bad or come across like they have issues. Who doesn’t have issues? We ain’t living in Mayberry anymore.
Love Well. We live in a time when love means, “I’m going to let you do whatever you want and I don’t want you to have consequences.” I’m not sure that is love. Because God loves us and is a good Father, sometimes He says, “No, I’m going to close that door because I know what is going to happen down the line that is harmful to you.” Love is doing what is always best even if the child/person hates us or it hurts for a while. We don’t want that rejection so often we let them have what they want. Problem. They don’t learn boundaries or discipline and when problems happen, they get overwhelmed and cannot cope. Our intention is love but it gets turned around. As the bible says, balanced discipline is a way of showing love and providing boundaries.
Mentoring in the Word. God used jacked up, angry, knuckle-headed people in the bible, because He wanted us to get the hint that He wants to get the glory through our weakness. He didn’t save us for us to try harder, be perfect Christians, or be little gods who have it together. He saved us to have us and us love Him forever and through that love share it with others for the kingdom. People see that they can love the Lord, but like every single person in the bible and great people that God used, they struggled, made choices, and had pain. In the midst of it, they ran to God, choose to be around people who encouraged them in the Word and choose to get help as their lives were turned around.
Yes, life is difficult. There is no secret or magic pill to stop the pain. However, everything is a choice. So many lies are thrown out in society now. Still, we have a choice to believe the lies and listen to what our friends, text, and media says or pick up a bible and find out what God says first hand. People say, “My God wouldn’t _______.” That’s fine but open the bible and find out what the actual God of the bible says about who He is and what He said instead of what their gods would or would not do. Ultimately, none of us will be able to blame anyone else because we received bad information but on our choices at the point of death or at Jesus return. This is not something to find out too late that you were wrong.
Charlotte
Dream Madly, Pursue Wildly, Trust Completely tm
Copyright © 2021 by Charlotte D. Hunt All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, or otherwise without written permission from the author except for brief quotations in printed reviews.
Like this:
Like Loading...