Lamentations 3:22

I talked recently with a woman I’d worked with previously, but whom I hadn't seen for years since I’d left the Institution we both worked for.  She still worked there and was interested in what I’d been doing since leaving (as was I interested to hear from her).

She knew I’d been bullied at this place, and she knew my son had died in the middle of it all.

She was very compassionate and really listened to my sad tale of how I’d had to resign because 

I couldn't go back to such a workplace, with the added burden of grief I was carrying.

Still, she entreated me “But you should have fought back Susan;  you should have stood up for yourself”.

But I knew I couldn't. I knew it at the time, and I know it now. 

As we talked though, I became conscious of really wanting to leave the angst of the bullying, behind.  There was so much anxiety at the time;  so much resentment of the injustice of it.

But I really felt that, not only did I not want to go back there now, in my head, but that my heart (at least as far as the bullying was concerned) was healed and I could no longer “feel” the anger, helplessness anxiety and betrayal which I’d faced, alone, back then. 

I was conscious of wanting to leave it where it rested – in the past. There was no grudge carefully nursed;  no path of bitterness wreaking havoc through my peace of mind.

I think God has healed me.  He truly does enable us to overcome our circumstances.

God can really transform us with His love and compassion – as long as we keep giving over the rubbish stuff to Him. ‘Consumed” is a terrible word when it’s applied to those negative reactions which threaten our spiritual and emotional well-being – you can’t be close to God when you are consumed by anger or bitterness or self-pity.  When these things hold power over you, God presence is subsumed by them.

But having said that, if you've been hurt or wronged very badly by someone, you can’t just put it away, without working through what happened and what you feel.  Those powerfully tenacious emotions like anger and rancour don’t give up without a fight! 

But they have to be dealt with or they fester and grow.  Pretending you don’t feel them doesn't disable them either.

But God, through His transforming presence and mercy, can take them from our struggling, burdened souls and we are not consumed by them. We keep giving them up to His redemptive power and He keeps tempering them, dissolving them until their power over us is gone.

Rather, the negative destructive forces are themselves transformed in us, by God’s astonishing power to work evil things to our good, and the very circumstances and hurts which threaten to consume us, give us empathy for others who have been similarly hurt and diminished. Not only that, but this grace enables us to pray for those who have hurt us, and when this point is reached, God’s power is set to work to redeem and heal the other also.

God’s power knows no bounds when it is released by our obedient application of His precepts in our lives, even in the face of pain and suffering.

This promise of grace holds us in dignified and ever-renewing strength – that of allowing God to heal and transform us, so that we are never consumed by anything which happens to us in this life.

Amazing.