Denial

I have had so much food for thought this week.  When I think of what I should write about, my mind jumps from topic to topic, question to question, without setlling on any one thing.  So I started re-reading some of the material I've written and read, and I think it would be appropriate to share some more of the ideas from The Wounded Heart.

Mostly I will just paste excerpts from the text, but I do want to say that even though this book was written with sexual abuse victims in mind, I believe the concepts and theories outlined apply to anyone who has been wounded by another. I have never been sexually abused or abused in any way, and yet I find the text enlightening for my current situation. It's my untrained and inexpert opinion that the truths in this book are universal for all wounded hearts.

The following excerpts about denial are from the Prologue to The Wounded Heart, by Dan Allender.

                “What is the enemy?  ...  What must be done to lift the shroud of shame and contempt?  The answer involves a strategy that seems to intensify the problem:  peer deeply into the wounded heart.  The first great enemy to lasting change is the propensity to turn our eyes away from the wound and pretend things are fine.  The work of restoration cannot begin until a problem is fully faced…

                “There is a natural reluctance to face the problem.  Christians seem to despise reality.  We tend to be squeamish when looking at the destructive effects of sin.  It is unpleasant to face the consequences of sin – our own and others’.  To do so seems to discount the finished and sufficient work of our Savior.  And so we pretend we’re fine, when in fact, we know that something is troubling our soul…

                “Forgiveness built on ‘forgetfulness’ is a Christian version of a frontal lobotomy…

                “To be told, ‘The past is the past and we are new creatures in Christ, so don’t worry about what you can’t change,’ at first relieves the need to face the unsightly reality of the destructive past.  After a time, however, the unclaimed pain of the past presses for resolution, and the only solution is to continue to deny.  The result is either a sense of deep personal contempt for one’s inability to forgive and forget, or a deepened sense of betrayal toward those who desired to silence the pain of the abuse in a way that feels similar to the perpetrator’s desire to mute the victim.  Hiding the past always involves denial; denial of the past is always a denial of God.  To forget your personal history is tantamount to trying to forget yourself and the journey that God has called you to live…

                “Christians believe in the possibility of healing or deep personal change.  Change ... is the result of God’s working in the person.  This work enables us to love as Christ loved, to serve as He served, and to be of one mind with others as He is with the Father…  The results are seldom, if ever, close to the ideal…  Does the gospel really work to transform lives?  The data is at times questionable.  Therefore the Christian community feels disposed to deny any data that points to the thorns and thistles in the lives of those who claim to be filled with the power of God…

                “Let us as Christians acknowledge without shame that regeneration does not alleviate, or in fact diminish, the effects of sin quickly or permanently in this life.  If we accept that, we are free to face the parts of our souls that remain scarred and damaged by the effects of sexual abuse without feeling that we are denying the gospel.”