Emotional pain is the norm. “Families are, with a few exceptions, dysfunctional….Families are rarely religious, and if they are, they are certainly dysfunctional.” David Mills, “Living in the Land of Cain” in Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity. (2006). Seventeen years later, multitudes of families are in the same condition, if not worse. David Mills writing of the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops in 1920 on marriage, describes it as “an eloquence and directness that is in a word, lustrous: The fellowship between man and woman in marriage was the earliest which God gave to the human race… What our Lord adds about marriage is not given as new legislation, but as a declaration of God’s original purpose. The man and his wife are no longer twain, but one flesh; and those whom God has joined together, man is not to put asunder.…God will work, as those who wait for Him well know, the miracle by which two lives become one, yet so that each life became greater and better than it could alone.”
Society having left this biblical truth for many years is experiencing the consequences of emotional pain. Many dysfunctional families are those who have left God as their portion. “We look for light, but there is darkness! For brightness, but we walk in blackness….We stumble at noonday as at twilight: We are as dead men in desolate places.” (Isaiah 59:9-10)
King David experienced dysfunction but did not abandon God. “For I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy, for You have considered my trouble.” (Psalm 31:7) The depth of David’s trouble is written in Psalm 31:9-13. “My eyes waste away with grief, yes my soul and my body. My life is spent with grief and my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away. I am a reproach among all my enemies, but especially among my neighbors, and repulsive to my acquaintances; and those who see me outside flee from me. I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind; I am a broken vessel. For I hear the slander of many; fear is on every side.”
David was full of emotional pain. He looked to God in his emotional pain. Consider (Psalm 31:1) “In You, O Lord, I put my trust.” (Psalm 31:9) Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble.” (Psalm 31:14) “But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord; I say You are my God.”
I recently re-read the story of a young girl named Dorie who was born into a dysfunctional family. She wrote of her experience in the book, Dorie: The Girl Nobody Loved. As a child Dorie was rejected by her mother and placed in an orphanage experiencing beatings by the orphanage director. Her beatings and rejection would normally have left her as an emotionally angry and resentful adult. Her father also left her. In the orphanage one girl said to Dorie; “This is a place you go where nobody wants you.” She finally found a family that took her to a home. They beat her. At thirteen years old a group of college students came to the orphanage with a Bible story saying that Jesus Christ died on the cross for you and God loves you. Dorie remained seated as others left. She said to God, “They said you love me. Nobody else does. If You want me you can have me!” She states that instantly she felt that God was beside her, in her. In fact, an unexpected peace settled over her. “This must be God.” That night in her bed Dorie cried for joy. “I had found Somebody who loved me.” A friendly matron who joined the orphanage staff, Irma Fremm, invited her to go to church and gave her a gift. It was a small black book. On it was stamped, The New Testament. Tears blinded her eyes. It was the first gift she had ever received. That black book was in her possession at all times. As she marked it and memorized scripture, it helped her to keep hope in the rest of the trials she experienced.
We are entering the holiday season. You will probably experience emotional pain. Remember God loves you though nobody else does. Ask Christ to save you from your sins. Read John chapter 3 of the Bible and ask God to show you His love for you. Keep your Bible with you. Read it, underline it, and memorize scripture that God puts on your heart. For King David and Dorie sought Him in troubled waters. Emotional pain did not trump the joy of the Lord. You can experience His comfort in the troubled waters of life. “…. Your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up. In the multitudes of my anxieties within me. Your comforts delight my soul.” (Psalm 94:18-19) Trust in the Lord through it all. He loves you!
Where the grace blows.