Turning the Page

We want change, and we want it now, but deep change requires the granting of space and time. So grant it to our self and others.  

It was all becoming too much. Pressure from others to ‘get over it,’ to ‘let it go,’ and ‘sort your life out’ was beginning to cause them to feel less than capable, dumb, and stupid. That everyone else had their lives together but not them. They felt different and very, very alone.

In talking with many people, there often comes a time in the journey to wellness when they can feel immense pressure to change. They aren’t moving along as fast as others or want to. They want change. Quick change.

I remember someone expressing a lot of impatience that this journey to wellness was taking too long. Their family was putting pressure on them. But then we talked about the progress that had been made. The millimeters of deeply significant changes and how we were building something new and that good things take time.

Are you in need of some space and time?

Do you need to give others space and time?

Read this further here

We want a behavior change, but it doesn’t seem to happen. However, it will happen with many changes in the mind (repentance).

We always notice significant behavior change, don’t we? Yet, people who change dramatically are often given the stage and a microphone to trumpet the difference. I remember as a child listening to a story of a gang member and how he met Jesus, and his life was turned around.

We marvel at how this happened. It’s always the dramatic change we notice because it’s so obvious.

But I think some of the greatest stories of change happen over a much more extended period. It might be years, not days.

It’s safer to do it in small incremental shifts when you want to change course on an ocean-going cruise liner than in sudden sharp rudder turns. This change is so subtle that no one on board even notices.

If we were to take a long view back over your life and observe how you have changed, I think the subtle and unseen influences have changed you the most. Those slight course corrections add up over time. The changes in behavior are so tiny that we and others hardly even notice them.

That’s where journaling can be so revealing. Looking back over past journals to see how we thought and behaved even a few years ago can be very revealing.

Some words are loaded with emotional baggage—loaded terms. You hear a word, and the brain immediately adds specific values and beliefs.

In the faith world, it could be words such as God, Church, Sin, Heaven, Hell, Pastor, etc.

You hear these words, and immediately, there is a visceral, internal emotional response. You attach a specific response and meaning to that word, possibly because that particular word was always connected with certain other words and emotions when you were learning the language.

One of those words for me, and I think for many others, is ‘repentance.’ It was always attached with negative consequences.

• ‘If you don’t repent, your going to hell.’

Repentance was loaded with guilt, shame, control, and fear.

But the Greek word metanoia,  translated as ‘repent’ in the Bible, means ‘to change your mind.’

Repentance can be seen as those minor changes of the mind. As small as all the minor alterations to a car’s steering wheel as you drive down the road. Hardly noticeable but absolutely necessary.

Read this further here

Emotional pain can lead us to some very dark places, but embracing the pain may open doors for the Christ light to come and eat with us.  

It was another email of pain. I looked at my inbox, and someone had sent me an email in response to my ‘God, I want to die’ blog post. They wanted help. They wanted me to pray or offer suggestions. Most of all, I believe they wanted a connection with someone somewhere.

I get about two emails a week from someone in a dark valley. I’m glad they have reached out.  I email them back and say that I am praying for them. Sometimes I get a response, but mostly I don’t. For some, this dark place was a brief moment of pain, and in the morning, the darkness clears, and they resume the journey.

For others, the dark valley of pain is more like home. Memories and traumas sit with them and talk about the old times. What happened, why, and how it’s all hopeless, and there is only despair.

I have found that there is not much I can DO for them, but I can BE for them.

The pain of others makes us uncomfortable. It triggers our pain points. Our shadows of guilt, shame, betrayal, loss, and despair. All the ghosts that still haunt and taunt us. Sitting with a fellow pain bearer can catapult us into our dark valley.

Read this further here

To demand or expect forgiveness is like a chess player trying to manipulate the board, but that’s not true repentance. Instead, repentance submits itself to the poetry of waiting, praying, and hoping.

They thought they could use the Bible to manipulate and control. Verses were hurled, and they were told, ‘You have to forgive because the Bible says so.’

If you’ve been on the receiving end of this form of manipulation, then you will have heard these lines and others trotted out. But the Bible was never meant to be used to whip people into compliance.

A spiritual leader [anyone] who lacks basic human compassion has almost no power to change other people, because people intuitively know he or she does not represent the Divine or Big Truth. Such leaders [people] have to rely upon role, laws, and enforcement powers to effect any change in others. Such change does not go deep, nor does it last. Richard Rohr Eager to Love

Have you ever had someone come to you and demand change because ‘The Bible tells us so’?

One of the worst abuses of the power/ guilt trip manipulations is to demand forgiveness.

Read this further here

A few years ago I was caught speeding. I was going too fast. The police officer pulled me over and asked if I knew what speed I was traveling. I didn’t. He told me and then wrote out a ticket with a fine. I duly paid the fine.

There was a consequence – embarrassment and a hit to my wallet. There was justice, no mercy, and certainly no grace.

I accepted the consequence of my actions. However, thinking back now, I’m glad that the consequence was only a fine and not something much worse, such as hitting a pedestrian because of my excessive speed.

When you’ve been caught doing something wrong, what is your very first reaction? You may run, hide, blame someone else, or get angry, even at God. Anything to avoid an awareness that the consequences are entirely on your shoulders.

My ancestors have always done this. My parents tried to hide their crime under some figs leaves. My first father blamed my first mother, and my first mother blamed Satan. Satan laughed with glee. We are all stuck in the same curve.

You did it. Your choices got you where you are today, but your choices will also lead you out.

Yes, I know we live lives where so many other people’s choices affect us. But you have to take responsibility for that which is in your control.

I was the one that pushed the accelerator down too much—no one else.

Read this further here

I was working in a garden the other day when I accidentally knocked over a small pot plant. It toppled over and fell onto a concrete path below and broke. I was appalled at what I had done. Of course, it was clumsiness, but these things do happen.

I immediately spoke to the owner and apologized. I offered to pay for a new pot. She said that wouldn’t be necessary. I was happy to give some money to make amends for what I had done, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

A broken pot. What about a broken heart?

What about something significant you have done relationally and want to make amends for your actions.

Definition of ‘make amends’ – to do something to correct a mistake that one has made

It’s relatively easy when it has a financial basis. You offer to pay for the cost of replacement.

Perhaps the justice system is involved, and a sentence is imposed on you to make amends for your crime.

How often though do the victims still hold the pain of what has happened to them? Even though the perpetrator has possibly shown remorse, apologized, and paid with some punishment?

Reconciliation is both head and heart.

Read this further at I want to make amends

I knew what he had done, but I still loved him. I told him I loved him too. He found it hard to take that he was worthy of anyone’s love. But in all honesty, he was a sinner like me. We were both beggars trying to find bread.

Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread. D.T. Niles

He sat there recalling his crimes and the pain he had caused others. He needed to, and I prayed that he would feel both the embrace of my compassion and the compassion of Christ around his heart.

We had some bread, some grape juice, and a little feast of forgiveness and reconciliation. Two sinners both needing a spark of hope.

He was appalled by what he had done, and I knew that forever this would be part of the Cross he would have to carry.

Read this further at https://turningthepage.co.nz/facing-the-black-and-finding-some-light/