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We must be awakened if we are to fulfill God's purpose and our potential. Keeping inappropriate secrets, often family secrets, deepens the spiritual slumber which is ours by nature. When families keep unwholesome secrets and children are raised in an atmosphere of deception, nurture reinforces nature, and they become lost in a labyrinth of ever-changing falsehoods.
My "awakening" and recovery from the painful memories of my past began with a dream. In this dream, a young boy was reading a book to an old man who was reclining on a very narrow bed. As the boy read, the old man wept. The more the boy read, the louder the weeping became. Eventually the old man's weeping became so loud that it awakened me. I asked the Lord for understanding, and, in a flash, the thought went through my mind: "You are the young man, and you are the old man, and you are mourning the loss of your childhood." This was the first substantial indication that I can remember having regarding the fact that I came from an alcoholic, abusive and neglectful home environment. I was 31 years old.
I could remember the smell of stale beer on my father's breath, my deep anxiety, the accusations of infidelity, the fights and the anger in my mother's voice, but, for whatever reason, although I knew that this was my life, I had great difficulty with "owning" it personally. It was like these events were someone else's story, not my own.
How can that which is so painfully obvious become lost or set aside? How can we forget the damaging realities of our experiences or upbringing?
Silence is imposed on the child, both internally and externally. Internally, shame motivates the child to hide. The child unconsciously accepts responsibility for the family secret, but this is a psychological and emotional burden well beyond what the child is able to bear. This drives the child deeper and deeper into the abyss of the self. Externally, silence is often enforced by spoken and unspoken "rules". This drives the child into relational isolation. Keeping the family secret has come to mean that the child must not expose himself; he moves away from the "light" which intensely personal relationships provide.
Beneath the painful problem of keeping secrets burns an deeper sorrow: an inability to really trust God and emotionally experience His presence. Secrets shut the heart's emotional door. Silence guards its entrance. Together they corrupt the development of a wholesome spirituality and, instead, emphasize an unwholesome form of religion. A relationship with God becomes an academic exercise or an unwelcome bit of cultural baggage which can easily be dispensed with. Family secrets increase one's distance from God--as well as from one's neighbours and oneself.
Pain. C.S. Lewis has suggested that pain is God's megaphone to a deaf world. It certainly has been an attention-getter for me. For two years preceding the dream to which I referred at the beginning of this article, I experienced panic attacks. Waves of unfounded fear would periodically and increasingly overwhelm me. I wrestled to overcome them but was not, at that time, successful. These wrestlings with fear motivated me to more carefully examine my life and turn more prayerfully to God.
Parchments. In this pain, the Scriptures (particularly the Psalms) became more pertinent and precious to me. They repeatedly held hopeful and helpful words. I made the Psalms the prayer of my heart. The reading of related literature was also beneficial. The book, The Blessing, by Gary Smalley and John Trent was an invaluable resource.
People. As my pain increased, so did my capacity and concern for relationships. I needed the warmth of appropriate human contact. I needed others to inspire, uphold, encourage and rebuke me. And, as I began to recover and people began to recognize my woundedness, I became more accessible to them. Recognizing a "wounded healer", a fellow pilgrim of pain, they began to come to me. Without wanting to sound sacrilegious, my wounds became a means by which others could begin, by Christ's grace, to heal.
Facing the past, recognizing and reconciling myself to my loss, helped prepare the way for relational intimacy. "Owning" unpleasant as well as pleasant emotional experiences helped me to enjoy life more fully.
Josh McDowell, in Rebuilding your Self Image, suggests that we need three things to rebuild a damaged self-image: modelling, teaching and relationships. These can be provided by a healthy church which is committed to Christ, personal growth, deeper relationships and evangelism. Find a safe and competent mentor and a responsible accountability group and, by God's goodness, you will grow.
Pursuing God, not just psychological and emotional health, is the key to genuine healing. Larry Crabb's Inside Out and Finding God offer helpful advice in this regard. When struggling with your past, it is easy to become distracted from life's most crucial concern: knowing and being known by God. No book can provide this. Pursue Him, and you will be successful in your quest for wholeness.
It has been 12 years since my first panic attack, and 10 years since my dream disclosed the source of my pain. Like the Patriarch Jacob on his return home after many years of absence (Genesis 32), I, too, have entered the "bruising darkness". Like him, I have wrestled with the angel of my unfortunate and debilitating past. Like Jacob, I have refused to let go of this angel until I have extracted a blessing. I have been blessed. I have become a new man, renamed and gifted by God's redeeming mercy to minister from the deep wounds which I have sustained. So can you.
Donald P. Richmond is a pastor, certified counsellor and author in Winnipeg.
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