Jun 02, 2012
When Your Religion Doesn\'t Meet Its Claims
To view this player, you must have javascript enabled.
To download podcasts, click on the 
to the right side of the player.
Copyright © 2013 The Free Believers Network | All Rights Reserved
You two were so spot-on.The bit about retreating from intimacy just wrapped up my thoughts. I gave them other names. The meals I refused to share with others because I thought I was not worth loving or I thought I was taking from someone poorer than myself. The hugs that made me freeze or the hugs I did not give for the same reasons. It was not humility but false pride or the big ME. 'Retreating from intimacy' described it completely. It fills me with such sadness and remorse. I deprived other people of sweet simple pleasures received by sharing and giving.They were needing love and recognition.I depriving them of feeling loved and accepted and I was refraining from loving because I was afraid of the consequences.Our minds can be so twisted and from a very early age (childhood). "Oh,Father fill me with your love and compassion.Let me see people as You see them. Please repair the destruction caused by my locusts. Thank you for revealing sin as it realy is. Please change me.
Amen Myrk, and I apply every word of the prayer for myself as well. I desire change- in the way I see, the way I hear, the way I respond. I don't feel angry, but I do feel hard. I'm not sure that there is anything I can do about the state of my own heart. So the prayer, "please change me." is a heart-felt cry. I know that what hinders me is not my identity- entirely anyway. We are complex beings and not all of one thing or the other. That is why we experience the agony of not living in that place of joy and wellness that is deep in our hearts even though we barely recognize it.