One Small Barking Dog by Ed Gungor

Author:Ed Gungor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howard Books
Published: 2010-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Life’s Bruises

We don’t just need courage to face ordinary life; we need courage to face the places in our lives where we have been emotionally and psychologically broken. Everyone on this planet comes from the land of broken toys.

Some issues in our lives are beyond a quick fix. Feelings of emptiness and fear usually have deep roots, as do feelings of inferiority or shame—these have a certain level of complexity to them. And we often don’t understand why we’re feeling the way we are. Sometimes our brokenness can be traced to a tragic moment in childhood. Other times feelings of dread may lurk in the back of our psyches because of a past offense or personal failure—then, whenever we get into a situation remotely similar to the one where we failed (or were abused), we instantly start to feel all those bad feelings again, often without consciously knowing why.

What do we do with these toxic emotions? Some choose to play the role of victim. The tragedy of accepting that role is that you have to buy into the idea that whatever happens to you has the right to govern who you ultimately become. This kind of resignation and passivity usually leads to despair. In this view, the only way to change one’s life is to change the past or to change the whole world first—and that’s not going to happen.

We can only progress in life when we are willing to take responsibility for our own actions and attitudes no matter what has happened to us. I like Laura Schlessinger’s no-nonsense take on this: “I don’t believe for a minute that everything that happens to you is your doing or your fault. But I do believe the ultimate quality of your life and your happiness is determined by your courageous and ethical choices and your overall attitude. You may get shipped some bad bricks and weak steel, but you are still the general contractor.” 5

It takes courage to not play the blame game and to refuse the epithet victim.

The other path people take when dealing with their feelings of brokenness is to simply try to ignore them, pretending all is well (Christians are notorious for this). But it doesn’t work. Ignoring your brokenness produces crippling and chronically painful emotions. The only way to keep negative emotions from controlling us is by becoming radically honest—and that definitely takes courage. God does not want his children living in brokenness, and he promises to heal us; but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to experience healing.

Bottom line, we will never get anywhere near freedom if we keep pretending all is well when it is not. We’re not supposed to try to trick our minds into believing we live in Wonderland when we’re really camping right outside the gates of hell. Wholeness is enjoyed as we take God by the hand and let him lead us on the precarious path of appropriately dealing with the past and joyfully facing the future. God is the one who gives us tools that “have divine power to demolish strongholds.

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