People in our life have a way of tearing us down, disappointing us, breaking promises, not caring about our needs and expectations, and making us feel disconnected to our family, community, and/or friends. We suffer deep wounds created by this abandoning and neglectful behavior.
A parent may pass away; a best friend may move away and forget all about keeping in contact with us; a teacher may give others in the class attention and ignore us; a mate may make their vocation their priority, tire of us, meet someone they love more than us, or get so wounded by our behavior that they end our marriage with divorce; our club, hobby, or work associates may snub us and walk out of the room just as we walk into it, etc.
Abandonment and neglect are on the rise in America. “Babies” give birth to babies and have no concept of how to care for these demanding little ones. These “parents” may leave the house to get some peace and quiet or to have some fun, and leave their child inside neglected, insecure, and afraid. These times greatly impact a child’s psyche and delay their development in many ways.
Some parents never or rarely speak to their baby or small children, and when they do it is to correct or yell at them. This lack of nurturing communication is a form of mental and emotional abuse and can impact the child even throughout his/her whole lifetime. These individuals may turn to self-medicating behavior to assuage their deep loneliness.
There is hope for righting these wrongs. Writing in a journal or scripting a letter to that wounding individual allows us to get our feelings out of our soul, and onto a piece of paper or computer document that catches our words as we spill out the cry of our heart across the page.
Even if we never deliver or mail the letter, this exercise allows us to feel our deprivation fully, and to start to heal. Tears wash away grief; so it is wise to give our self permission to let the unexpressed tears flow. We can more effectively nurture our wounded soul as we obtain the healing and leading of God’s Holy Spirit.
Prayer:
Father God teach us to minister to our self in the same way that we minister with Your unconditional Agape love to others in our life. Remind us to have compassion and to encourage our self; we can even look into our eyes in the mirror and truly love our self as You love us. Help us to see that we will not be narcistic or obsessive unless we neglect others to care for our self. Give us the courage and wisdom about what we truly need in order to completely heal from past or current trauma.
If we treated others in a cold, neglectful, or abandoning manner, humble us so we can ask for their forgiveness, and ask them for help to start from that moment to nurture them as they deserve to be cherished. You give us the hope, peace, joy, and love that we need to truly realize that we do matter to You for eternity. We trust You to lead us to nurturing people in our life, and we look to You to be for us the parent or mate or companion who abandoned us.
Thought for the Day:
Regardless of who wounded our soul, because of the wounds in their own soul, we can give our self the time and attention we never received from that person as we also take time to bask in the love and attention that God continually showers on us; we validate our loss, expose satanic lies, and receive comfort from God’s Spirit and His Word, which allows us to overcome those negative crippling effects as we walk in the Spirit every moment of every day.
-Romans 5:15-25, 8:1,4-5; Galatians 6:8
