Don’t confuse me with someone who cares!

Because I am talking about inner vows on Radio Horeb this month, I asked my husband Gerald to share how the Lord freed him from a childhood vow.

For 54 years of my life, I (Gerald) held myself aloof from others and their suffering. I was simply unable to care, to feel, to relate to others in their anguish. One day the Lord showed me the source of my emotional indifference.

When I was six years old, my mother gave birth to a baby boy who died just five days later on Christmas morning. Watching her suffer in depression for the next two years, little Gerald made an inner vow: “Because it’s too difficult to see someone you care about suffer when you feel inadequate to help them, do not let emotional pain get inside you.”

So if I saw somebody in emotional distress, my standard response (inside, anyway; I didn’t say it out loud) was, “Don’t confuse me with someone who cares.” That way, I could deal with their misery but not feel too frustrated inside myself.

The Lord had other plans

One day while watching two friends in intimate, animated conversation, I felt a sharp pain of inadequacy and frustration. Immediately the Lord showed me that I lack the emotional resources for such a connection.

After several months of seeking the Lord for help, one Sunday afternoon, I asked Judith and some friends to pray for me.  Suddenly in a dramatic experience, I am back in my childhood kitchen and I see my mother with her back to me—weeping over the loss of her dead child. I feel overwhelmed.

Here and now at age 59, I experience once again the agony and—sounding like I’m six years old—I weep and wail, “Somebody needs to help her, but I don’t know what to do!” Judith asks me if I can find Jesus in this memory.

There He is, sitting on the floor playing with my toys! He smiles and beckons me to come to Him. When I sit on His lap, He comforts me as a Father would comfort his child. It feels wonderful, reassuring! I sense there is nothing I need to do.

Ever since, I am aware of feeling connected to others. I am comfortable in group situations where I had previously felt withdrawn. I feel confident and assured, possessing the emotional resources appropriate to each situation. Thank God!

But He’s not finished with me yet.

A week later (Sunday afternoons are good), watching a rescue scene on TV, I felt a deep resonance with the story—but also strong emotional pain. As Judith and I prayed, suddenly I’m back in the same painful memory with my mother, bawling “Somebody needs to help her.”

A “rescue” energy in me remained locked inside for 54 years because the prospect of being unable to help was too stressful to handle—so I buried it inside and determined that your pain will not touch me. Now, seeing Jesus on floor nearby somehow assures me that, of course I can help—just bring people to the Eternal Healer!

Thank you, Lord, I’m okay now. Oh, there’s more?

Another week later (I like Sunday afternoons), Judith and I were discussing “hope.” Oh, I forgot to tell you that I had always seen the world as a hostile place. Life was an enemy to be conquered, an adversary, not an ally. That attitude leads to despair.

Now I suddenly felt hopeless, and I welled up with great emotion. No prayer needed this time. Instantly I’m in the kitchen again, feeling despair in the room. Suddenly Jesus grabs me by the hand and we run outside into the sunshine. The burden is gone, and I am free!

Because of those three miraculous divine interventions, I am so different, so radically changed than I cannot even begin to describe it to you. All I know is, I feel so transformed that I have to resort to metaphors such as night to day, darkness to light, death to life. I’m alive and I know it!