How Divine Strength Sustains the Christian When You Hit “The Wall” Virtually everyone can start a race but it takes a special quality to finish it well. On the start line, you experience fresh energy, fresh hope, fresh motivation. Without that vital element of endurance, you probably will not be able to finish the race. […]
Truth be known, life does sometimes feel like a desert. This might be in a lack-lustre period of your career, retirement or bereavement. It could be in terms of feeling unfulfilled in relationships with others and especially felt keenly if you feel God is distant at a time when you feel a real need of […]
Some people like to retain their distance in relationships but most will enjoy a close relationship with at least one other person. It might be with a parent they can trust, partner or a long-standing friend with whom they can be open. If sadly they become estranged or that person dies, there is a deep sense of loss and loneliness. This foal doesn’t have to question how close and personal it wants to be with his mum – he needs her milk and protection; she gives him this with unconditional care as you would discover if you tried to separate them. Assuming we are given good parents, there is a similarity when we consider our early years of dependence – close and personal is the best way. When we are ‘born again’, becoming ‘alive to God’ brings us into a relationship that is also best when it is close and personal. We are called to intimacy with God as our Father who is for us, Jesus our Saviour who advocates for us and the Holy Spirit who seals this, going on to help us in more ways than we realise.
There’s a neat little thing people sometimes say to bring comfort: ‘I’m always there for you’! How does it ring true to your own life experience? Growing up, we want to know that someone is with us and that we’re not alone. It is only natural for a child to find the dark frightening, to be anxious on the first day at school or if becoming separated from a parent’s reassuring hand in a crowded street. To be lost and alone is to feel helpless and hopeless. When the skies are dark and menacing, there is an inbuilt need to know that someone is truly near to bring help and a comforting presence. The childhood comforts of a dummy to suck or a teddy to cuddle may pacify a toddler but are of no use as adulthood approaches. Child or adult, the need to have someone always there remains despite the small comfort of substitutes, denial or just putting on a ‘brave face’.
What do John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe, Steve Jobs and Eleanor Roosevelt have in common? They were all orphans and yet they went on to achieve many things. Living with the knowledge of being an orphan has deep effects on a person’s psyche – to have feelings of rejection, insecurity, abandonment and poor self worth would be typical.
‘I’m trying to find myself. Sometimes that’s not easy’ – Marilyn Monroe
