Tag: Holy Desire

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Driven vs. Desiring

For many years, others described me as “driven.” They typically intended it as high praise, and at the time I took it as such.

After all, isn’t it wonderful to strive for excellence, to persevere through repeated obstacles, and to find a way to keep coming out on top? Not necessarily – especially if it’s at the expense of the people I care about, not to mention my own dignity as a beloved child of God.

Desire and “drivenness” seem so similar, but they are radically different. Desire attracts us, allures us, draws us. It doesn’t drive us. Ultimately, all of our desires (even our disordered ones) are beautiful gifts from God. He never coerces. He always honors our dignity and freedom.

If we are “driven,” the real question becomes, by whom or by what? Where is that feeling of pressure or high expectation or coercion coming from?

In my case, there can be a felt sense of urgency: I have to, or else…

Or else what?

For years, I don’t think I slowed down enough to ponder what the “or else” even was. I was too driven, and sometimes still am. I can easily shift into a dogged determination, in which failure is not an option. When I do, if a person or situation suddenly stands in my way, my normally “calm” outward demeanor flashes with irritation, peevishness, or frustration – often surprising myself and others. Where did that burst of anger come from, that overreaction?

Now I understand a bit better. In mere milliseconds, my body mobilizes: first feeling shame; then feeling fear of exposure or abandonment; then feeling contempt toward the person perceived as a threat; then weaponizing that contempt; and finally, an eruption of anger, manipulation, or shaming behavior. All this happens in an instant – before my thinking brain has even realized that a reaction is happening.

I can’t stop such reactions from happening altogether, but I can notice and be curious and reflect. Kindness and childlike curiosity go so much further than self-contempt and a push into even more drivenness. My curiosity might go something like this: Huh – that’s interesting. I really reacted just now. What’s my body feeling at the moment? What is the intense warning trying to tell me? How old do I feel right now? When was the last time I felt like this?

I can listen to my anger, my fear, and my shame. Then I can start to notice what the “or else” is saying – even if it is irrational in the current situation. I’ve noticed in myself a fear of failing or of being exposed as not good enough. I notice a fear that others will leave me unprotected or all alone to navigate the hardest moments of life. As long as I somehow keep performing at an impossibly high level, maybe they’ll stick with me. Over time, this drivenness gets exhausting. It is not sustainable, and it definitely does not yield joy!

Hear me correctly – I’m not condemning being “driven.” It is one of the ways we human beings survive awful situations. Shame and fear are powerful motivators. They may even help us begin a journey of repentance. But only desire can abide, grow, and bear fruit. Fear and shame will never help us to have healthy, happy, and holy relationships. Fear of the Lord may be the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10), but “perfect love drives out all fear” (1 John 4:18).

I’ve written before about Augustine of Hippo and his distinction between ducere and trahere. Appealing to John 6, he describes the way in which God the Father allures and attracts us (trahere) by means of our desires. He doesn’t demand or coerce like an earthly authority tends to do (ducere – from which words like “duke” derive). We are created for communion and love, and God desires us to desire him. He allures us without coercing, without “driving.”

This is a tricky matter, because outwardly, two different human beings can be doing exactly the same thing for quite different reasons. One is driven by fear and shame, while the other is motivated from within by desire and love. One is avoiding the pain of unhealed wounds and running away from the Cross; the other has experienced dying and rising with Jesus and is bringing an unshakable confidence into a broken world. For example, two different Christians passionately evangelize. One is terrified of hell and is driven to keep all others out of hell. The other has been transformed by an encounter with the risen Jesus and desires everyone else to encounter the risen Jesus in their own ways. Two pro-lifers engage in advocacy. One is driven to keep the right people in political power and views pro-choice advocates with total contempt. The other cares passionately about the dignity of unborn humans – as well as about the dignity of the mother, and of all human beings, including those she most disagrees with. She treats all of them with honor and respect.

This is where spiritual discernment comes in. Catholics have a tendency only to use that word only in asking massive questions such as, “Am I called to become a priest?” We don’t always realize that God intends discernment to be a daily practice for us. We can notice what he is doing and engage in a response of love throughout the day.

Like a lover wooing his beloved, God is always stirring up desires in our heart. We have the freedom to grow in those desires and bear fruit. Unfortunately, our deepest and most intense desires are often buried beneath our fear and shame. That actually makes sense! The evil one HATES our God-given desires, and wars against them early and often.

The only way to uncover our deepest desires is to welcome the healing and transformation that Jesus brings. And the only way to experience that is (~gasp~) to die and rise with him. Can you see why so many of us prefer to be “driven” by fear and shame?

Are you “driven”? If so, are you ready for a change?

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Latin Lessons from Augustine

Today I invite you to learn some lessons in evangelization by reflecting with me on three Latin verbs: docere, ducere, and trahere.

I love Latin – its elegance, its symmetry, its adaptability, its precision, and its breathtaking capacity to say so many things with so few words. Above all else, what I love about Latin is how it opens a window into the hearts of so many amazing men and women – whether ancient poets like Virgil or Horace, or brilliant philosophers and theologians like Augustine or Boethius. You cannot truly learn a language without beginning to think and feel like the people who thought and spoke and wrote in that language. Latin may be a dead language that was uttered by women and men who long ago left this veil of tears, but to me some of them feel like old friends, brave companions, and wise mentors. I am grateful to have known them, and to have gained a glimpse into their souls.

Regarding the current Latin lesson, please don’t take it as a definitive discourse on the actual meaning of Latin verbs – it’s not. Rather, it’s a brief tour into the heart of Augustine of Hippo (a heart with huge desire). It’s an invitation to each of us to be open to what was so transformative for him.

I recently felt transported into “Augustine Land” while participating in a pastoral ministry workshop. The presenter drew a distinction between docere and ducere (if you are reading out loud, you can pronounce those as dough-CHAIR-eh and DOO-chair-eh, and call it close enough).

Docere means “to teach” and ducere “to lead.” The workshop invited us to examine ourselves and the methods we have used in ministering to others.  Have we have tried to operate from a posture of docere (teaching) without actually leading others? Have we given eager advice, or “talked at” the person we are ministering to, seeing ourselves as having right answers and readymade “shoulds”? Have we measured success or failure on whether or not we convince the other person?

Any outstanding teacher knows that this method of teaching will not work – except for a few who follow out of fear. Fear may be the beginning of wisdom; it may motivate us to start a journey. But it never keeps us going when the going gets rough. Only desire can do that – the desire that leads to Love. Perfect Love casts out all fear.

Teaching without leading is the way of the scribes and Pharisees – for whom Jesus saved up his strongest and sternest warnings. There is little vulnerability in that way of cultivating disciples, and therefore little Love and little joy.

I appreciated the presenter’s point, and then found myself suddenly back with my old companion Augustine, with whom I spent hundreds of hours with during my doctoral research in Rome. He offers us a third Latin verb to consider: trahere [TRAH-her-eh]. Over the centuries, it can mean many things: to draw, to drag, to pull. But for Augustine it has much more the sense of attracting or enticing or alluring. God the Father wants us to want him; he stirs us through our holy desire in a way that allows us to grow into his fullness.

Augustine is answering the objections of the Pelagians, who like the scribes and Pharisees overemphasized human responsibility and discipline – to the point of concluding quite wrongly that we humans take the first step in our salvation, that God helps those who help themselves. Augustine quite strongly condemns the notion, insisting with Paul the Apostle that we radically depend upon Jesus as our savior. From the very first moment of the gift to its tender growth and development to its final flourishing and persevering, all is God’s gift; all credit goes to him.

But – the Pelagians object – how does that leave space for real human freedom? Do we not become mere puppets of God?  That is where Augustine quotes Jesus to offer a profound answer to the Pelagians.  “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44).

God the Father draws us, attracts us, entices us, allures us – in a way that leaves us totally free to respond (or not). He sows the seeds of desire in our hearts and aids our growth – if we are willing. We are invited to become receptive soil, weeded of the obstacles the hinder us, capable of receiving and growing and bearing fruit; to be branches abiding on the vine; to be living members of his Body.

Augustine uses the verb trahere to describe God’s agency in this process – not at all “dragging” or “pulling” like a stubborn pet, but in the sense of attracting, motivating, and enticing. Just as “teaching” (docere) can become self-righteous or condescending, “leading” (ducere) can become manipulative or controlling. Augustine rejects any sense of ducere that violates the dignity and freedom of the subjects.  God does not coerce; he does not make us do things! He is a loving Father who places holy desires in our hearts and deeply desires us to become fully ourselves. He honors our dignity and freedom – even when we choose to dishonor him.

I wrote last month about religiosity as a counterfeit version of religion. Instead of freely inviting others into relationships, into joyful communion in Christ, too many of us (myself included) have resorted to pressuring, shaming, fear-mongering, or manipulating to try to convince others to follow the right path. God the Father does not operate in that way.

Each of us can consider what this means for evangelization – for inviting others to follow Jesus as disciples. If we look at him in the Gospels, we see an example of the best meaning of all three verbs: docere, ducere, and trahere. Because Jesus is truly connected to God his Father, abiding vulnerably in love, he teaches as one with authority, and not as the scribes and Pharisees. He leads without coercing or manipulating. He allows his followers to stumble, to make mistakes, to misunderstand – yes, even to betray him. He speaks deeply into the deep desires of the human heart – noticing our needs, listening attentively, attuning, and affirming. He encourages and comforts, awakens and allures. Many follow him, discovering within themselves a profound hunger and thirst they had not realized was there – a longing that God himself had placed there. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”

Teaching, leading, and attracting in this way can be unsettling! We feel quite powerless and vulnerable when we do it – we honor the freedom of the listener and open ourselves to the possibility of rejection. We open our minds and hearts to notice what God is doing – willing to be surprised if he takes us in a new and unfamiliar direction; respecting the God-given uniqueness of the person in front of us and that his or her path might be quite different from our own.

Augustine learned these lessons precisely because of his profound conversion. He finally and deeply allowed God to captivate his heart, to go into his places of shame, and to transform him.  He learned that desire is so much more powerful than fear or control. He came to experience the love of God the Father, and was magnetically effective in attracting others to it.

What about you and me? Will we allow our own hearts to surrender vulnerably to God the Father’s way of attracting human beings to the heart of his Son? Will we allow our churches to become places in which God easily attracts his sons and daughters, and they feel safe and confident coming alive in our presence? God, good Father that he is, will not force us to change our behaviors– but the invitation is there!

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Prayer as Desire

Lent is a sacred time in which many of us resolve to be deepened in prayer. Joining Jesus in the wilderness, we are invited to allow our heart to be captivated by God the Father, growing in our identity as beloved children of God, and claiming as our own Jesus’ victory over the evil one.

The prophet Hosea describes God’s invitation beautifully: “Therefore I am now going to allure Israel; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her” (Hosea 2:14).

God the Father awakens desire in our hearts. Deep and authentic prayer happens to the extent that we allow ourselves to experience and grow in that desire.

Have you ever considered prayer as an experience of desire?

I would say it took me a long journey with many detours before I really began appreciating the invitation to experience prayer as desire – and this was not for lack of pursuit on God’s part! If I take the time to reflect on my life, I can recall with gratitude many moments in which God sought to woo my heart in prayer – in childhood, in adolescence, and throughout my adult years. Sometimes the experiences were profound, intense, or astounding; other times simple or subtle or sweet. There were often obstacles impeding my response.

It turns out that deeply allowing the experience of desire is not so easy as it might sound! Feeling an ache that only God can satisfy can actually be painful – not unlike the experience of intense hunger or thirst. I used to laugh at the line in Matthew’s Gospel about Jesus fasting and being tempted in the desert: “And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” I always used to think to myself as I read those words, “Well, duh!” But the spiritual combat of the desert – whether in Jesus or in me – is not mainly about physical hunger or bread – it is about the deep desire of the human heart that can be satisfied by God alone. We are created with an insatiable longing for him – one so intense that we rarely let ourselves experience it in full depth.

Augustine of Hippo perhaps put it the best when he prayed, “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” We spend much of our lives, as he did, plunging ourselves in unlovely ways into the lovely things God has created – good things which would not even exist had God not created them. But they hold us back if they diminish our thirst for God.

Jesus allowed himself to go into the depths of human hunger and thirst – both physically and spiritually. He invites us to share in his experience: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; for they will be satisfied.”

Have you ever felt a thirst for God, and allowed yourself to abide in that longing? Or to seek and receive a taste of him, only to long for him even more? This is the invitation prayer offers us.

Even now, at a season in my life in which I understand the invitation at a much deeper level, I still notice myself avoiding it. Sometimes I numb out or keep myself distracted with lesser pleasures and lesser desires. Other times I stay plunged into busyness or activity; if I don’t let myself slow down, I won’t feel the ache. Still other times I try to make things happen my own way – as though “getting it right” will somehow bend the will of the living God.

Thankfully God has substantially eased my frantic urge to “get it right” – whether with daily prayer or on retreats. I can think of a few retreats in my young adult years in which I felt much anxiety over whether I was spending the time rightly – as though God is stingy or particular about awakening love or showering his blessings! Thankfully he often surprised me and – at least some of the time – I let myself be surprised.

One of the benefits of being Catholic is also one of our greatest pitfalls – we have thousands of prayers and devotions we can turn to. Often, instead of slowing down and just being with God, we can easily pile on more prayers. We can begin to think of holiness as a matter of being strong enough, disciplined enough, or doing all the right things. In this posture, prayer becomes something we “do,” rather than time spent receiving, and the more we receive, allowing the desire of our heart to be expanded even more.

Experiencing prayer as desire includes an invitation to engage with all our human faculties – our thoughts, our imagination, our emotions, our memories, and even the very sensations in our bodies. Again, Augustine captures what the experience is like, describing how all five of his human senses were transformed by his desire for and encounter with the living God:

You called and shouted and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I ache with hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I burn with desire to attain the peace which is yours.

There are moments in which we have no doubt we have tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord. Yet we resist! I know that I sometimes do. Sometimes it feels safer to put surrogates in God’s place, predictable comforts that don’t involve waiting or trust or surrender.

I find it helpful at times to pray slowly the opening words of Psalm 63, words deeply familiar to anyone who prays the Liturgy of the Hours. I like to emphasize the words “you” and “your” in each line to remember Him whom I truly desire:

O God, you are my God, for you I long;
for you my soul is thirsting.
My body pines for you
like a dry, weary land without water.
So I gaze on you in the sanctuary
to see your strength and your glory.

I am grateful for the experience of God awakening desire in my heart, even though it can sometimes be intense. It is good to long for the living God. Nor is it necessarily a bad thing that it took me a long time to experience a thawing of the desire he had placed in my heart. Scripture suggests that God waits until we are ready: “I adjure you, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not awaken or stir up love until it is ready!” (Song of Songs 8:4).

Hopefully, this Lent will be a season in which you and I can join with the Psalmist in praying, “My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready!” (Psalm 57:7).

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The Particular Examen

Much has been written in recent years about the General Examen prayer taught by Ignatius of Loyola. Far less has been written about the Particular Examen – a practice he recommended with equal enthusiasm.

I suspect that many modern authors, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, came to the conclusion that focusing on one fault in a particular way, more than once a day, was unhealthy and unhelpful. Perhaps they were leery of Ignatius’ suggestion to keep tally marks for the number of times one committed that fault throughout the day. Shouldn’t we accentuate the positive?

No doubt, there are potential pitfalls. Those prone to vanity or rivalry can become self-absorbed and proud of their progress. Those prone to scrupulosity or low self-esteem can plunge into a cycle of shame, discouragement, or despair.

Actually, Ignatius struggled mightily with all those things, especially in the early years of his conversion.  If you’d like to hear that story told in a gripping way, I would highly recommend the chapter on Ignatius in Colleen Carroll Campbell’s recent book The Heart of Perfection: How the Saints Taught me to Trade my Dream of Perfect for God’s.

The remarkable fact is that, even after he began breaking free from his perfectionism, fear, shame, and discouragement, Ignatius still placed a high value on making a daily Particular Examen.  His early Jesuits (the members of the Society that he co-established) quickly became engaged in missionary work in the New World. It was sometimes challenging for them to pray the entire Divine Office. Ignatius was willing to dispense them from their Office, but much more reluctant to dispense them from their daily examinations (particular and general). He saw those exercises as too important in their spiritual lives. Could it be that, in abandoning the idea of a Particular Examen, modern authors have thrown out the baby with the bathwater?

I think the key is to see this examination not as a self-guided effort of rooting out faults, but as a response to grace. The Particular Examen should begin with a holy desire, one that is clearly from God. Ignatius is assuming that our daily Lectio Divina and our daily General Examen are deepening our awareness of what God is doing. As we become aware of a prompting from God, the Particular Examen can become a means of freely and actively cooperating with God’s initiative.

What does it look like? One way or another, it involves returning once or twice a day to the same desire and allowing ourselves to be refocused and recommitted. It’s a quick check-in and a reminder that God and others are cheering us on. It could take any number of forms, and it may help to brainstorm a bit about what will work best for us. One way or another, it will hopefully provide daily and consistent accountability around that one area we deeply desire to grow in at the moment. Perhaps we write these things down in a daily journal or diary. Perhaps we ask others to help us as accountability partners, checking in regularly.

Such  practices are quite common (and effective) today in areas such as exercise or dieting. The same pitfalls are there: competition, envy, discouragement, or shame. But anyone who has made serious and lasting change in those areas will tell you that it helped to be intentional, highly specific, and accountable.

Personally, I have been keeping a paper calendar for about five years now. I make various notations each day to keep track of my priorities. It includes things like prayer and spiritual reading and exercise. One by one, I have also added those particular areas God is leading me to grow in. Indeed, one of those goals is making a daily Particular Examen morning and evening. For me, this examination includes drawing close to the hearts of Jesus and Mary, allowing myself to be calm and grateful, calling on their love and their help, and imagining how God’s grace, given through their tender love for me, is helping me overcome the areas of particular struggle right now.

In some regards, this exercise is parallel to the “visualization” exercises that are popular in recent decades – whether among athletes or among those seeking to break free from addictions and bad habits. Experiments in brain research have documented astounding results. A musician or athlete who “practices” in her imagination by visualizing her routine gains almost the same proficiency and confidence as when physically practicing. Some experiments even show similar effect for one who visualizes a weight lifting routine. Even without touching the weights, an intense and detailed visualizing of a usual routine begins increasing muscle strength. Truly, what the mind can conceive the body can achieve.

God hardwired our brains to grow through daily doses of encouragement and renewed confidence. Growth happens gradually, as success builds upon success. Think of the little child learning new and scary things. She doesn’t learn them all at once. Rather, she takes baby steps (quite literally) – and rejoices in the progress along the way. By receiving steady encouragement when frustrated and by celebrating the victories (no matter how small), she keeps learning and growing. Scientists will tell you that healthy releases of dopamine in her brain are reinforcing the process. This is true not only for little children, but for all God’s children at any age in life!

However, there is one exceedingly important difference from the secular versions of visualization and the practice of the Particular Examen – namely, that our efforts are to be utterly God-centered and not self-centered. All the pitfalls that we considered earlier are the result of focusing too much on ourselves. We have a fallen human tendency to vacillate between two extremes. When “succeeding” we get puffed up with pride and vanity. When “failing” we plunge into shame and discouragement. But staying God-centered changes everything.  When we notice slips or shortcomings, we can let ourselves consoled and encouraged by him. When we notice success, we can rejoice and praise him as the source and completion of every blessing in us. This is the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary in her Magnificat prayer (Luke 1:46-55). She never minimizes or denies the good God is doing in her – nor does she ever puff up with pride or self-reliance. She is filled with the Holy Spirit, abiding in faith and humility.

One can hopefully see why Ignatius of Loyola and so many other spiritual masters over the centuries encouraged daily accountability in the form of a particular examination. There are so many benefits: intentionality, accountability, sober watchfulness, encouragement, celebration of progress, and increased skill in discernment. Typically, our steady growth and awareness in one area leads us into another area of growth. What we thought was “the problem” was only one symptom of a deeper problem (or a deeper holy desire). Step by step, God leads us ever more deeply into the mystery of his love.

Holy desires are the seeds God plants in us, intending them to grow and bear fruit. All too often, those seeds get snatched away (like the seed on the path) or prevented from ever taking root (like the seed on rocky ground that gets scorched by persecution). The Particular Examen is a highly practical and effective way of abiding in the graces, until they come to full growth and fruition.

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Healing of our Memory

Many of us go through life carrying heavy burdens from our past. Maybe we cannot shake off shame and regret over our sins and failings. Maybe we struggle to believe that anyone would actually love us for who we are. Maybe we keep clinging to bitterness and resentment towards those who harmed us. Maybe we find ourselves never truly trusting anyone, never letting anyone get too close, tightly guarding our innermost self. If so, over time, we will come to feel ever more alone, misunderstood, and unloved.

The saddest aspect of these burdens is that they prevent us from trusting and surrendering to God as a loving Father, placing ourselves totally into His loving hands, and truly obeying Him in Faith. That loving surrender to the Father is perhaps the deepest holy desire of my own heart – and also that of which I am most afraid! I have always loved the surrender prayer of Charles de Foucauld, although my heart usually clutches as I speak the words. I encourage you to pray it now, and gently notice the lines that you find difficult:

Father,

I abandon myself
into Your hands;
do with me what you will.
For whatever You may do I thank you.

I am ready for all,
I accept all.

Let only Your will be done in me
as in all Your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into Your hands
I commend my soul.
I offer it to You
with all the love of my heart.
For I love You, my God,
and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself
into Your hands,
without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for You are my Father.

What a challenging prayer! But in reality, it is just a variation of the prayer that Jesus taught us. We are so familiar with the Our Father that we sometimes forget how radical the requests are!

Why is it so hard to surrender ourselves into the hands of a loving Father? He knows our hearts better than we do ourselves. His providence is so much more trustworthy and reliable than our own flimsy foresight. He is totally in charge of our past, present, and future.

But there is the challenge! If God the Father was Lord of my past, that means that He willed for me to be harmed in those ways. And if he willed such a painful past for me, then surely it’s just a matter of time before He will harm me again in the future… Blasphemous thoughts, you say? If we tell the unfiltered truth, most of us will admit that we have often felt that way.

The unhealed pain of our past fills us with anxiety and fear of our future. It also causes ongoing pain in our present, as we “overreact” to everyday situations that keep poking at old wounds. Well-meaning Christian friends urge us to “move on,” “forgive and forget,” and “leave the past in the past.” But that is not how human memory works!

Our memory is a marvelous and mysterious gift. Without it we do not know who we are. We’ve all seen TV shows or films in which one of the characters develops amnesia. Disconnected from their past, they are disoriented in the present, and incapable of knowing who they are.

“Memory” translates the Latin word memoria and the Greek word anamnesis. Both words have a strong sense of “mindfulness” in the present – not just dredging up the past. From our Jewish fathers in the Faith we have inherited a sense of “remembering” holy events like the Passover in a way that makes those events present here and now. Every Catholic Mass prays an anamnesis prayer that calls to mind saving events both past and future: the suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, as well as his coming again in glory. We enter God’s eternal memory and the healing it brings.

Memory is the root of our identity. Memory is what makes the virtue of Hope possible. The more integrated our memory of the past, the more our hearts can expand in a deep desire for eternal life – not merely as a future reality, but as something substantial that is present to us here and now. For the Saints, the joy and peace of the Kingdom is present in every moment of surrender to the Father’s will. They become the Kingdom, visibly present and active.

I recently returned from my annual retreat. I was blown away by my reading of Wilfrid Stinnissen’s book Into Your Hands, Father. It spoke deeply to my desire to surrender to God the Father and be blessed by Him. I wept over the pages about surrendering our past and allowing it to be healed by God.

Stinnissen makes a shocking claim: “We receive a completely new past.” As you allow your wounds to be touched by the wounds of Jesus, “the healing goes back into time and transforms the very moment when you were hurt into a moment of grace.”

How is that possible, you ask? Surely you cannot change the past! True. The past no longer exists. But our memory of the past abides, and is often laden with lies. It is partial and fragmented and distorted. It needs to be taken up into God’s eternal love and truth. Jesus teaches us that He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He makes all things new – even our memory of the past.

Remember that our painful memories are often from the point of view of a very frightened little child. Even secular therapists can be quite skilled at helping an adult to go back in time in order to coach the hurting little child into seeing a much bigger and happier picture.

Faith can do much more. If we ask and seek and knock, God will reveal Himself in our painful memories. He was there blessing us. Our sorrowful memories are then transformed into glorious ones, and we discover our deeper identity in Christ. Our wounds become like the wounds of Jesus, radiating risen glory, and a source of healing and blessing.

Healing of our Memory is not an erasing of the past – quite the opposite. It is a plunging into the whole truth about our past, found only in the Father’s love. Our past becomes more God’s past than our own. We reach a point where we truly give thanks and praise God for our past, because it is part of an amazing story of a child of God who is fearfully, wonderfully made. Healed and integrated, our memory opens us to an abundance of God’s blessing in the present, and a total freedom to surrender our future.

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