Sorting Out Who's Who of the Unwanted Guests

Following up on two previous posts about Pain (An Uninvited, Unwanted House Guest and Other Guests that Sneak in the Door with Pain), I'll share thoughts about sorting through all these unwanted guests in order to benefit from Pain's visit. It turns out that Pain is a beneficial visitor if received well and put to good use. She can be a great helper in the journey to mature self-giving love. The problem is that there are many and sundry other guests that slip in with her, and these visitors will destroy love if not handled well.

I'm not going to attempt to present anything comprehensive because our lives and situations are unique and very complicated. So this is simply a couple of things I've learned that may help as we each struggle to find what most helps in our own unique situation.

There are two really big guests that we should not have anything to do with from the start. First is the insidious guest named Perfectionism (sometimes called Religion). Anyone who has Pain as a visitor will need time to process her undesired visit in order to discover her value, and this process can take time. Perfectionism is quick to speak up and demand a correct attitude and behavior, thereby aborting the necessary process. Perfectionism is squeaky clean, very controlled and controlling. A couple of his cohorts are Guilt and Shame who do a lot of taunting when the person doesn't measure up to the demands of Perfectionism.

Beware of Perfectionism! There will be a period of time in which the host will likely need to entertain Self-Pity and Anger and Discouragement and others of the guests who have slipped in the door. Part of the host's way of finding his/her true humanity is having to sort through these guests by experiencing some of them firsthand. In time he will discover for himself the negative effect that they can have if entertained too long.

The other big visitor to avoid at all costs is Isolationism. He convinces the host to lock the door so that no other humans can get in. Some of the lies he whispers in order to get us to lock ourselves in are: "You can handle this on your own..." or "No one should see how you're really feeling so put on a good face" or "Everyone has their own problems and they don't want to hear about yours...", and on and on. In order for Pain to be a positive influence in our life, it's important that select others be involved and walk with us. They help by empathizing and by providing a perspective from outside ourselves which is needed in order to handle the many visitors that come and go as a result of Pain's visit.

Perfectionism and Isolationism - keep them away, and you may find that you will have discernment as to how to deal with the other undesirable guests.

Next I want to share a little about the gifts that have come with Pain's visit...

Other Guests that Sneak in the Door with Pain

Last week I shared about an Uninvited, Unwanted House Guest. I'm discovering that Pain, if put to proper use, turns out to be a good helper on the way to the Kingdom where love rules. However, close on her heels are other visitors who sneak in the door right behind her. These are toxic guests, some of whom have appealing personalities. They are many and sundry; I'm going to talk about two of them who have been most deadly for me.

They are Fear and Discouragement. Fear has been the most outspoken of these toxic guests. Because Pain always disables a person in one way or another, Fear is prompt and boisterous about what is going to happen as a result of the disablement. Fear speaks with a confident and assertive manner. He plays on the victim's ignorance about what's happening but he can also play on having too much information about what's happening. He knows how to use both ignorance and information for his purposes. His intent is to paralyze his victim or to get the person to act from a state of panic.

One reason Fear is so effective is that his reasoning seems so logical. And because he is boisterous, he drowns out the quiet, often silent, voices of Love and Joy, Peace and Patience, Kindness and Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-control; it takes great effort and concentration to pick up on those quieter voices while Fear is yelling.

Close on the heels of Fear is Discouragement; he actually reaches into the soul of the victim and removes whatever courage was there, leaving the victim with no strength to do anything except to do what Fear dictates. Left to run his course and develop fully, Discouragement will grow into Despair, a state of mind which leaves the person without motivation to continue.

There are other subtle visitors lurking around, such as Religion (who accuses the person of not doing enough pious practices to convince God) and Self-Pity (who enjoys telling the victim that his/her situation is worse than anyone else's) and others; but for the sake of time, I'll leave it and let you, the reader, name your toxic visitors that have managed to sneak in with Pain.

Part of the way to make the most of Pain's visit is to learn to separate her from the toxic visitors that hover around her seeking to nullify the benefits of her visit. Next I will share thoughts about ways to sort out who's who of all these unwanted guests.

An Uninvited, Unwanted House Guest

Awhile back I wrote a post about Much Afraid's companions, Sorrow and Suffering..., her strong helpers on her way to the Kingdom of Love.

Today along the same theme, I want to share about an uninvited and unwanted guest that has come to visit me. This guest's name is Pain - physical pain in my case, but she can come dressed in many different outfits. I'm struggling to learn how to host this guest who has moved in to live with me in spite of many and long-term efforts to remove her; most days she stays relatively quiet murmuring in a back room but there are days when she comes rushing into the front room, making a fuss and messing up my plans and hopes for the day.

Being a normal human being who doesn't want Pain hanging out with me, I've done what I know to do about her through medical channels and through prayer and physical therapy, etc. All of this helps keep her in the back room for part of the time anyway, but none of my efforts have succeeded in expelling her from my home altogether and so I live with her for now.

To tell the truth, I haven't been a very good host. I was not expecting her when she showed up and I certainly didn't expect her to hang around so long, and I have cried and complained about her presence. But I've noticed something happening to my heart since she moved in, an enlarging of my heart. I find myself less judgmental of others and more willing to give people the benefit of the doubt when I see or hear of situations that I would have quickly judged as "wrong" in the past. My heart is soft and tender towards others' suffering and the desperation to find relief; I'm more patient. I love God more as I think about how he became human and allowed himself to feel the suffering that we feel as humans.

I'm beginning to conclude that Pain, like Much Afraid's companions, has come to help me in my journey to the Kingdom where God's love rules. And lately I'm becoming aware that while Pain herself is a good helper, others who sneak in the door with her are not very helpful.

Next I will share a few thoughts about these others who are easily confused with Pain but who are toxic companions...