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Damaged Emotions
I thought some people might be interested in
this. I've learned that I'm in fact dealing (or
was) with quite a few of these things. And I
believe there are more people out there that
might be going through similar emotions.
What are some of these damaged emotions?
One of the most common is a deep sense of
unworthiness, a continuous feeling of anxie-
ty, inadequacy, and inferiority, an inner nag-
ging that says, "I'm no good. I'll never
amount to anything. No one could ever pos-
sibly love me. Everything I do is wrong."
Then there's another kind, that for want of a
better term, I call the perfectionist complex.
This is the inner feeling that says, "I can nev-
er quite achieve. I never do anything well
enough. I can't please myself, others, or
God." This kind of person is always groping,
striving, and feeling guilty, driven by inner
oughts’ and shoulds. "I ought to be able to do
this. I should be able to do that. I must be a
little bit better."
Then there is this kind of damaged emotion
that we can call super sensitive. The super
sensitive person has usually been hurt deep-
ly. He reached out for love, approval, and
affection, but instead he got the opposite, and
he has scars deep inside of him. Sometimes
he sees things other people don't see, and
tends to feel things other people don't feel.
Then there are the people who are filled with
fears. Perhaps the greatest of them all is the
fear of failure. These damaged persons are so
afraid of losing the game of life that they
have a simple way out; never get into the
game; just sit on the sidelines. They say, "I
don't like the rules," or, "I don't care for the
referee." "The ball isn’t quite round." "The
goals are not right."
WHY SOME OF US ARE WHO WE ARE
In most of the parks the naturalists can show
you a cross section of a great tree they have
cut, and point out that the rings of the tree
reveal the developmental history, year by
year. Here’s a ring that represents a year
when there was a terrible drought. Here are a
couple of rings from years when there was
too much rain. Here's where the tree was
struck by lightning. Here are some normal
years of growth. This ring shows a forest fire
that almost destroyed the tree. Here's another
of savage blight and disease. All of this lies
embedded in the heart of the tree, represent-
ing the autobiography of its growth.
And that's the way it is with us. Just a few
minutes beneath the protective bark, the con-
cealing, protective mask, are the recorded
rings of our lives.
There are scars of ancient, painful hurts in
the rings of our thoughts and emotions, the
record is there; the memories are recorded,
and all are alive. And they directly and deep-
ly affect our concepts, our feelings, and our
relationships. They affect the way we look at
life and God, at others and ourselves.
It is necessary that we understand this, first
of all, so that we can compassionately live
with ourselves and allow the Holy Spirit to
work with special healing in our own hurts
and confusions. We also need to understand
this in order to not judge other people too
harshly, but to have patience with their con-
fusing and contradictory behavior. In so do-
ing, we will be kept from unfairly criticizing
and judging fellow Christians. They're not
fakes, phonies, or hypocrites. They are peo-
ple, like you and me, with hurts and scars
and wrong programming that interfere with
their present behavior. —End
Amish Voice Confer-
ence Call Schedule is
listed inside back cover!
