A Given Life by McAllister Jean

Author:McAllister, Jean [McAllister, Jean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781532609831
Publisher: Wipf & Stock Publishers
Published: 2017-04-11T07:00:00+00:00

3. Bangley, Nearer to the Heart of God, 73–74.

10

The Healing Crucible

It is clear to me that God used my being in Rwanda to bring about deep healing in me. It is as though Rwanda was his particular crucible, or instrument, to soften hardness and self-righteousness, judgmental spirit, and cultural/intellectual superiority, so I could not only be blessed in growing wholeness of soul, but also be able to bless others. The fault line along which healing was needed was the persistent theme of mother. Along the way, I was given tools to help others heal.

In the first year, there came a timely and helpful opportunity to attend a seminar called Ancient Paths. Created by Craig Hill from Colorado, the Ancient Paths seminar is based on Jer 6:16, which says, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.’ But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” His thesis is that God has set forth in Scripture “ancient paths,” which we are meant to find and walk in, that will assure God’s blessing at the crucial stages of our lives, and ensure blessing for future generations—specifically regarding our destiny and our identity. He shows how God appointed “agents,” called parents, to secure his blessings to children, and how at each stage of a person’s life, from conception to old age, there are safeguards in place so that our identity and our destiny will be protected and nurtured.

The problems come when Satan sets up schemes—self-sustaining systems for cursing—that rob us of the blessings at various points in our lives. For me, the blessing of a mother was taken from me as an infant because my mother died when I was born, and the consequences of that have been long-lasting, compounded by the fact that I had a stepmother who failed to bless me. In the terms of the seminar, she was “hijacked by Satan,” and invested considerable energy in cursing my identity and destiny. She told me repeatedly that I was worthless (identity), and would never amount to anything (destiny). I have learned that many people are under such a curse, some even from their own mothers.

What happens to a child who is robbed of all blessings, from conception onwards? The children of Rwanda who are sniffing glue and scrounging in trash heaps have been conceived in violence or fear or ignorance—certainly in poverty. Their time in the womb has been burdened by anxiety, not eager expectation, of the mother who carried them. Their birth was attended only by pain and fear, and they were either dumped into the arms of some barely willing relative or raised as a slave in their own homes, subject to beatings or molestation from drunken men who may or may not have been their fathers. Their passage into puberty was either unnoted or violent; certainly no one cared to tell them what was happening to their bodies, nor how God had made them for his good purpose.

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