Are you facing any areas of unease today? Are you aware of the areas of your life that are ‘on hold’? There may be things that you do not know how to deal with so you’ve either metaphorically put them in the rubbish bin, or shut them up in a cupboard? In other words are there events, people, emotions, needs, traumas, that are not fully integrated into your life, and at present you deny them?
Most of us live with these forms of denial of hurts, needs, and/or purpose every day. Some denials, when they are a conscious decision to accept a loss for a greater good, are readily absorbed and do not disturb. But if we deny the very image we were made to bear and live, we will discover deep seated unhappiness and dis-ease. Because God does not leave us, even when we deny His existence, these signs of something wrong within and without, are a gift, coming from the image we carry. Even today I had to face a dis-ease in my soul, to recognise a deep seated need for beauty for my soul which I had been denied in my current living conditions. I’ve had to challenge old patterns of ‘self-sacrifice’ to choose for a flat that would more meet my needs, so I could continue serving..
But 30 years ago, I was so exhausted from holding the cupboard door shut in order to continue working, that in the end I couldn’t do either!! God, provided me with early retirement, and brought me into the church, in faith. I was led to a prayer of St Paul for the Ephesians. I prayed it everyday for many months, maybe years because I knew my ‘inner being’ was empty:
I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19)
To be honest, I did not know what I would find when I started praying. I just knew that deep within me was a hurting part of my soul, that had no will to live, or fight for good. I had no ‘being’ that simply was alive. I was a doing!! I have to give honour to God, that many I taught and served during my doing years, received only the blessing of God’s love and grace that worked through me, but humanly I made mistakes, and became emptier and emptier .
I wanted to accept the heights of His love, but the depths? No thank you. But through the prayer, the thought and hope of being
‘rooted and grounded in love’
was very appealing. As I learned to accept being in the present I saw and accepted how God upholds us in the depths, in small and humble ways. He brings us to right humility in the Face of His Love through Christ and His poverty on the Cross. He gave me desire and grace to grow in forgotten, more grounded skills like drawing and painting and listening to people’s stories, and thus to know more of myself too.
But the journey was ultimately back to the major denial of my life, my life itself! I had to recognise that I owed EVERYTHING I’d had to God’s Spirit. But especially I owed the courage to consciously journey day by day in faith through many trials seeking to remain faithful to God and His grace. I came to recognise and own all the agony of an unwanted life in utero and as a girl child.
In Christ alone is this tolerable because in Him is trust in God the Father, and the power of the Holy Spirit to give life, and change pain to purity of heart. This isn’t theory fellow travellers, this is Truth. This was something of the agony of the Cross, but I had Christ’s words to comfort me, and to forgive the parents who through fear and shame wanted me dead. And I held on to the promise of resurrection. It became such a relief and joy in my soul to discover the increasing ‘integration’ I had prayed for so many years before. I was One again, even in the pit – but with Christ, as a well-beloved. I didn’t need to pretend anything, and I no longer needed to live in denial. My life was hidden in Christ in God. The truth for all who surrender all for Love.
In increasingly coming out of denial by listening to my heart, I am more able to listen to others in their pain and loss. I now know that God is with them and will provide for their needs, in their heart and mind open to receive. And for me too; on the journey to today, I have had to face many other things which I had put on ‘hold’, not least the pain and difficulty of being a woman living for Christ. But I know this is suffering with Christ who was also despised and rejected.
For example, in the teaching environment, these lies do not prevail and there is mutual respect between men and women. It was a shock to me to find in other contexts that the Spiritual gifts given me were almost irrelevant. To many, only my gender defined me, not my commitment to Christ and His leading in my life. I discovered the wider truth of my PhD research into the Process of Schooling: the often subconscious thinking and theories of the power makers in any situation, classroom, home, office, church etc, define what the powerless are allowed to know, serve and live, and the questions permitted. And this is frequently done in the Name of God.
I have come to recognise and own the wounds and blocks that had been in denial. Through prayer I find new grace, new courage in love to ‘bless my enemy’, and behaviours which do not deny their need, or mine, and new directions become open. Acknowledging the ‘man-made reality’ through discernment, and above all the True Reality of God’s love and desire to heal and bless and build His people, gives me new eyes and Heart to trust in my life, hidden in Christ in God. I am thus called to carry this cross, and walk His way not succumbing to bitterness, desire for retribution, or wanting to dominate as in much feminist thinking. In Love and harmony alone, new life.
Finally I am able to recognise with St Paul, that all the other gifts may fade but ultimately we have FAITH in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, HOPE in things unseen, and LOVE which will not let us go, nor dry up when we are desiring to do God’s will in His love. And in the promise of Eternal Life is each day an invitation to live for His promise, rather than be dragged down by the lies which want to tie us to our childish self-centredness. God promises to provide for our needs so we don’t need to worry about them.
“Listen to Me, O house of Jacob and all the remnant of Israel, both those taken from the womb and those instructed from childhood, even to your old age: I Am, and even to your gray hairs, I Am. I bear you; I made you and will forgive you. I will take you up and save you. (Isaiah 46:3-4)
May the Lord continue to lead us into all truth through the Holy Spirit, giving courage to face all denial, in the Love of God, and the forgiveness of the Cross, so our lives bear fruit for a greater good. Amen