"He/she was dying, and I couldn't help her."
"He/she was addicted - and I couldn't help him."
"I had an emotional break-down, and there was nothing I knew or could do to help myself get well again."
"I got cancer - I must be weak."
"I got let go at work - I guess I'm a lousy worker."
Even if we seem to get over and get through these agonizing experiences, the pain and sense of failure we felt then can get buried deep inside us, still affecting us without our even knowing it. We may even go for therapy or be prescribed medicine, and both are often necessary. But a final healing and wholeness may seem beyond our grasp. Even if someone suggests that God can heal us through prayer and meditation, we may reject the idea because we fear looking inside ourselves and confronting still open wounds.
Yet, God always wants to heal our bruised and battered souls. For, God never sees any of us as a failure. God knows that each of us is on a life-long, arduous journey. That it's easy for us to get lost and take the wrong fork in a road. That sometimes because of misplaced over-responsibility we think that we have god-like abilities to know things and do things, when we don't. That it's not weak to get sick, because getting sick is part of everyone's life. That losing a job simply means that, yes, hard as it is, it's time to look for a new one - which may be a better one.
Even if we have legitimate guilt over a particular real failure, one situation neither defines our life nor defines who we are.
Think of the woman caught in the very act of adultery (how embarrassing!)
who is hustled off by the scribes and pharisees and made to stand in the middle of a crowd while they ask Jesus what's to be done with her. The Law of Moses commanded that such women should be stoned to death. Don't you think she felt like a failure? Either she or the man she was with - or both of them - were married or at least betrothed to someone else, so she must have already felt some guilt and unhappiness over sneaking away to be with her lover. Now her life - spiritually stressed, chaotic, and unfulfilled - is about to end.
Yet Jesus, after asking everyone else to look at their consciences, and watching them slip away, one by one, because NO ONE is without sin, speaks to her gently.
"Has no one condemned you?.....Then neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more." (Gospel of John, Chapter 8)
Imagine her sigh of relief, how her body stopped shuddering. She was able to stand up, go on her way, and make a new life for herself, her dignity and self-worth restored by Jesus' understanding and forgiveness - and challenge.
Jesus never condemns us - not for sinfulness, not for mistakes in judgement, not for the frailties of our minds, souls, or bodies. He is not, ever, an Unforgiving Judge. He is a healer, interested in how we can come out of our darkness into his wonderful light.
But - sometimes we're afraid of the light.
Kate, a young family practice physician, wanted nothing to do with God or healing prayer. She feared interior silence, wanted to avoid shining a light into the submerged memories of her painful childhood, a childhood that had left her with physical, emotional, and spiritual scars. Deacon Eddie Ensley (in "Healing the Soul," Twenty-Third Publications, available at Amazon.com) describes his meeting with her:
"(Kate's) mother had died of cancer when Kate was eight. In his grief, her father had become more and more dependent on Kate, his only child, for emotional nurture; he was asking for an adult emotional support that no child is capable of giving. As his drinking habit developed into alcoholism, he abused her first with violent words and then with violent actions. She showed me a scar on her hand from a cigaretter burn and another above her eye from a belt buckle. A crash into a bridge abutment killed her father when she was eleven, after which a loving aunt reared her and sent her through school.
"The shock, the scars of what had happened to her, bored into the center of her being. Deep inside her heart she blamed herself for her father's death. Her emotions shut down, her personality became rigid. If only she had loved him enough, she had always thought, he wouldn't have turned to alcohol."
Kate then told Deacon Eddie what happened inside her during the prayer experience he led:
"I felt an injection of love warming my body...When you asked us to remember joyful times, I went back to the time before my mother got sick. I saw the three of us happy,laughing, enjoying home-made ice cream on the back porch. We were happy then. In that memory, for the first time in my adult life, I felt my daddy's love. I know he cared for me, cherished me. He just couldn't handle Mother's death. I felt grief and pain too, grief that he is gone, grief that he didn't recover. The hurt and grief I felt as we prayed were immense, but the sense of loving and caring was even greater."
Kate, as a Doctor, believed, rightfully, in counseling and medication. But these can only surface some of our painful memories. Confronting our past pain helps - but this is not enough. Kate needed prayer and the support of God's immense love surrounding her to let go of her sense of failure, which was really a false guilt. God's love also showed her the truth of her father's love for her. Now she could go forward in hope because she was no longer weighed down by a false sense of responsibility for her father's choices and illness, and her memory of her father's real love had been resored to her.
We all need affirming love and hope to replace our hurts - the love and hope given us by an all-embracing, faithful God, Who loved us enough to create us, Who loved us enough to send us His Son Jesus to redeem us, and Who will never let go of us. If we can take the risk to say to God "Come into my heart, come into my soul, have mercy on me," He will come and slowly, gradually mobilize a healing energy in us. If we pray on a regular basis, He will restore us to our truest, deepest selves. He will give us a new, truthful perspective about our lives and our relationships. He will affirm our goodness. He will re-introduce us to joy.
In this Holy Season, I ask you to imagine Jesus with you in the most beautiful, non-threatening way.
Imagine you are sitting in the straw on the floor of the stable. Feel it tickle your legs? The night is dark, light flakes of snow are falling, and the sky outside is filled with wonderful, bright stars. Mary is humming, rocking her Baby. Joseph slips his cloak around your shoulders, and you are enveloped in warmth. Now Mary looks at you, smiles, and asks
"Would you like to hold my Baby?"
Jesus really is an adorable baby, round-cheeked, kicking his legs, arms waving. You're surrendering your heart to His beauty, His lovableness. You reach out your arms, and suddenly He's filling them. He coos and touches your cheek. You look down into His eyes.
You become lost in those eyes: Innocent; All-seeing; Loving; Joyful. For this moment, you are the center of this Baby's world. You know that in His eyes you are perfect. He accepts you, He depends on you. Whatever you may have done that you regret or are ashamed of or seems less than "perfect" means nothing to Him. Only NOW exists.
He smiles into your eyes. His gaze ignites a warmth that slowly floods your heart and your soul. You feel a new calmness, a peacefulness. You feel new, fresh. A deep healing is beginning deep inside you because all He sees is your goodness, your love for Him. His love for you is an ocean that envelops you, that buoys you up.
You bend over and kiss his soft, soft cheek, smell the freshness and sweetness of his skin.
You whisper "Thank you. I place my soul in your hands."
Then you hold Him close against you so that His heart beats next to yours.
Rest awhile, holding Baby Jesus.
You hand Him back to His mother. You look around. Joy seems threaded through the universe - the stars brighter, the snow whiter, even the chilly air fizzes with energy. Life is new and fresh inside you and around you.
You hear singing, faint at first, then louder so that the sky and earth reverberate with joy and hope and promise. Softly you sing with the angels "Alleluia."