”Back Together Again”

 

 

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.”

Or could they?

 

This timeless English nursery rhyme is sometimes used to characterize the collective belief that once someone is broken—emotionally and psychologically—they can’t be put back together again. In other words, when a person has experienced, say, a childhood of abuse or some kind of catastrophic relational event that deeply traumatizes, their lives are irreparably scarred forever. If you believe the saying, “You can bruise and break the body and it will mend, but when one’s heart is broken that person’s life will never be whole again,” then in most cases those who live with the pain, fear and anger of a devastating past will be tormented their entire lives. For them, the mental and emotional mindset of being victimized overshadows who they are and what they do in an all-encompassing way. Almost every one of these people has one thing in common: their traumatized past determines a future full of pain, hurt and brokenness. In terms of interpersonal relationships, most of them go through life believing they can’t have relationships based on anything other than pain and manipulation. Because it’s almost impossible for them to get what they truly desire—loving relationships where they are safe, accepted and secure—unless they continue in the destructive patterns with which they have grown up. In the case of these people it’s believed, as with Humpty Dumpty, that they, too, will never be put back together again. But is it inevitable that these dear men and women, who have suffered so much already, are doomed to the fate of never finding a King who can save them from their wretched pasts and destructive patterns? These are important questions. They are questions each of us should consider because we all know someone who is struggling with fear, anger and mistrust—all attitudes that come with the pain from these horrific pasts. Over the last month I received several e-mails asking me what happened to the couple I wrote about in the last newsletter. But more specifically, and with great empathy, you wanted to know how the wife is doing? Let me thank you for your e-mails, and please keep them coming. Send any questions or

comments to: petergarich@cox.net

  The couple’s marriage, as with most who come for counseling, is a work in progress. I can say that they have made significant strides, but there is much left to accomplish. As you already know, people who go through such overwhelming problems do not solve them overnight. They need our prayers as they continue to trust God and focus on the love of Christ that is healing them. I’m pleased to say that the gospel is saving and comforting them—the same as it does in the lives of all of us. I’m hopeful that God can put her life and their marriage “back together again.” Most importantly they are still together, working on their marriage and they both love God.

   There are some important questions we have been working on during their counseling. Because her past has caused so much grief, we have sought to understand not only what scripture says about dealing with one’s past, but also how God uses it for our good and His glory. There is an assumption that when bad things happen to a person then those experiences will always cause a life of hopelessness. As Christians this could not be further from the truth. Even though these kinds of experiences are traumatic, it’s nevertheless true that God takes everything we have ever gone through and works it all out for good. This doesn’t mean that God causes us to forget our pasts, but He does begin to reshape our hearts so we interpret such events from a godly perspective. As God works within us He redeems the evil—all those unbearable experiences of our pasts—causing us to see them as part of a greater plan for our growth and maturity in Christ. Scripture teaches us that, “God causes all things to work together for the good, for those who love Him and are called to be conformed to the image of His Son.” (Rms. 8:28) Humanly speaking this verse is hard to swallow. When a person has gone through the kind of abuse that no one would wish on an enemy it’s hard to see how God could make it into something good. This was one of our great challenges in counseling. In a kind of stark reality check our counseling dealt honestly with this difficult fact, while at the same time looking for the hope that God brings in all suffering.

A RADICAL NEW PERSPECTIVE:

We change how we understand and live with our past—emotionally, attitudinally and practically—by looking at it from God’s perspective. By seeing our lives—our whole lives—from the point of view of Scripture, our pasts will affect us much differently. You could say the perspectives and purposes of God are 180 degrees different than ours. God’s purposes for allowing us to experience such deep suffering are always perfect, merciful and gracious—causing us to become more like Jesus. Notice I used the words “merciful and gracious” to describe God’s purposes. They would be neither if He let us go on believing something contrary to His truth. If we continue to believe that pain is bad and bad is hopeless then we will never understand what His purposes are for us. From His perspective our bad experiences are good because they are redeeming in nature. What makes something that’s bad into something that’s good—even when it’s as severe as abuse—is what God uses it for and how we are changed by it. The Apostle Paul speaks of the eternal mindset we must foster in the face of all suffering if we are to have the mind of God. He tells us “All this [suffering] is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause our thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary sufferings and afflictions are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporal, but what is unseen is eternal.” Day after day we remember old hurts and experience new hardships which encourage us to see life from a human perspective—one focused only on further pain and suffering. Yet when we look at these experiences from

God’s viewpoint we will have a radical new perspective—turning our pasts upside down. Understanding suffering apart from the eternal significance it holds will leave us broken and devastated. But as we compare the weight of God’s glory—as we become more like Christ—with our momentary afflictions, our pasts take on unparalleled significance, for now they are seen and used for good.

A RADICAL NEW WAY OF LIVING:

“We must not only look at life’s hardships through the lens of Scripture, and God’s grace, but we must also live as though those same sufferings they are.”

~ Charles H. Spurgeon

  Accepting and believing this radical new way of looking at our past suffering achieves its logical/spiritual good as we are matured by it. So how should we respond to negative memories? Let the words of Paul instruct us again as he wrote to encourage his friends from the dark depths of his own captivity. “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all situations, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Now that we can look at life’s tribulations from an eternal perspective, our response can be wholly different. It still may seem extremely hard to invoke joy, prayer and thanksgiving in response to the afflictions we have suffered. Yet when we see these responses as spiritual utterances directed toward God our past would finally have true meaning. Our deepest pain will be tempered by the joy we find in Christ. Our haunting memories will be diminished through the prayers we cry aloud to God. And the bondage of our past will be destroyed as we give thanksgiving to the God of all comfort. This is the will of God—which He would be glorified and our painful pasts would be mortified.

  Let us now dwell on this, “Rejoice IN THE LORD always. I will say it again: REJOICE! Let your gentleness be evident to all. THE LORD IS NEAR! . . . in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God that passes all understanding [all our human viewpoints], will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”—The only KING who can “put us back together again!!”

 

In His service,

Peter Garich

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