“Many proclaim themselves loyal,
but who can find one worthy of trust.”
— Proverbs 20:6 (NRSV)
“Why am I such a failure?” “What is wrong with me that my parent(s)
left me?” “How could my parent(s) expect so much of me and make me feel bad for
not achieving what they wanted me to achieve?” “Why am I the black sheep?” “What
must I do to be loved like my sibling?” “How do I create closeness in my
relationship with my parent(s) when they are always distant to me?” “Why don’t
they give me eye contact?”
These, and many more questions,
haunt adult children scattered all over the earth.
Parents—as a genotype—proclaim
themselves loyal, but all fail. All humans will fail us. But God never will.
Even where our parents were marvellous, some things in childhood still did not
sit well, and are rooted in our sense of lack, today.
Whenever we enter a process of
psychological therapy we can always expect our childhoods to be explored and to
be revealed as the source of our pain. It’s a humbling reality for parents and
children alike.
Until we can wrestle with the fact
that our parents were highly fallible—some to the extreme—we cannot venture
forward to receive our necessary healing.
Growing an Identity of Impenetrable Worthiness
The best of identities of
personality flourish with an instinctive worthiness.
But none of us, of ourselves, are
worthy—not truthfully. But, of course, this is the best news; we have a Saviour who came to be perfection for us in order that he would die for our imperfections.
Still we cannot escape the issues
surrounding our felt sense of unworthiness.
Sometimes, no matter how much we
know God loves us, we still struggle to accept this so-called unconditional
love. We attempt to receive it, but our focus is consistently interrupted.
Of course, God understands. We
have a Lord who understands, and
accounts for, our fallibility better than we know.
Still we must come back to the
fact that the only worthwhile approval is not of human making at all. Only in
practicing the concept of our worthiness in God can we truly become the people
of God the Lord has destined us to
become.
***
The root of unworthiness comes
from hurts unreconciled from childhood. And yes, we all have them. We need God
to heal us of those hurts. In God we have a path to worthiness, through Jesus’
love—the spread of his bloodied arms spanning the cross. It’s an impenetrable
worthiness.
Impenetrable worthiness—true,
lasting healing toward wholeness, in the Son’s name—is only available in God.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.
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