Have you ever tried to capture that perfect moment on your mobile phone, click, and the message comes up camera stopped! storage low! Most fraustratingly that happened to me recently. With a sigh I set about deleting old photos, Apps and anything I thought was expendable, many sacrifices were made. A couple days later I was faced with the same message. As you can imagine by now, fraustration is mounting, will this phone ever be free? I made the decision then to transfer photos etc to my laptop, in an effort to free up space on my mobile. This was even more of a laborious process than I envisage. Being ‘techonologically’ challenged, I was assisted with this task. To my amazement as we open different parts of the phone, places I did not know existed, we found data, photos and images that I thought was deleted at least two years ago. I thought these were gone however; they were in fact still on my phone clogging up the devise, taking up space that I needed for storage today.
The pieces of the puzzle were fianlly being put into place, I eventually received the answer to my why’s? space I had created never seem to materialised. I would delete pictures but still continue to have storage problems. They were in thumbnail and all over influencing how my phone operates.
This experience demonstrates effectively the impact on the mind of the things encountered in earliy life. Some incidents in childhood would have left an indelible impression on your mind and will be influencing your decisions, how you function as an individual and indeed how you live your life. There is a common error that is being perpetrated. This sugggests that because we are christians and have given our lives to Christ experiences that are painful and sometimes traumatic will automatically be deleted and disappear forever. However, as in the demonstration with my mobile, they are not deleted, rather they revert to the background and continues to influence how we live, interact with others and even impact how we relate to God.
Take Loraine for example, she has been married for 20 years and have two children. both Loraine and her husband are in their early 40’s. Loraine suffered rejection and neglect as a child, she was not the family favourite and was often left out. received no affection or emotional contact and as result struggles greatly in these areas. Loraine became a chistian and has worked hard to forgive and forget. However, her issues with rejection never left, this has now been accoumpanied by jelosuy. She has harboured the thought for many years that her husband would leave, after all people usully rejects her. loranine struggles to make friends with the other ladies in church, believing they all want her husband. This came to a head when she accused one sister of having a relationship with her husband. Loraine has been here before, but despite her husbands many assurances still feels he will rejcet her. Loraine constantly self sabotages relationships, subconsciously rationalizing that as people will leave, she should protect herself by leaving first. In order for this fear of rejection to leave and not have such a hold on Loriane’s life she needs to face and get help to move pass it. I believe when we are aware of the ways we are impacted by the pass and the issues that are now affecting our relationships we are in a better position to move on from them. In order to delete it completely and limit the chances of it causing problems in the future we need to seek help.
However beginning to untangle the impact of the pass can be a very uncomfortable, frightening and sometimes painful journey. Nevertheless, beginning to get rid of the stuff that are hidden in the background that are still interrupting and influencing our Christian walk and muddling relationships is a journey worth taking, avoidance just keeps you going around the same issues over and over and over again. trapped in the same unhealthy habits, making the same mistakes and hoping for a different outcome.
This conversation can begin with an open, honest and authentc talk with God. You do not have to have a relationship with him to begin this dialogue. Just as you would take up the telephone and call a friend to share your hurts and pain, prayer is like talking to a friend. It does not have to be fancy words or well rehearshed speeches, from the heart tell him where you are and how you are feeling. I love the way David in the Psalm was never afraid to tell God just how he feels ‘Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications. In the day of my trouble I will call upon you and you will answer me.’ Ps 86:6.
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