WORTH-LESS OR WORTH-MORE?
“As we continually live with love withdrawn from us and a resulting resentment (with the short-term consequences of thinking with a negative pattern, thinking specific condemning thoughts, and acting poorly), we can settle into a kind of long-term distortion of who the love-withdrawing person is, who we ourselves are, and who people are in general. The basic issue here is that once love is withdrawn from us, we can begin to withdraw a sense of worth toward the one who hurt us. The conclusion is that he or she is worth-less. Over time, we can drift into the dangerous conclusion, ‘I, too, am worthless. ’After all, others have withdrawn love from me and have concluded that I lack worth, therefore I do lack worth. Even later, we can drift into the unhealthy conclusion that there is no love in the world and so no one really has any worth, thus everyone is worth-less.”
Excerpt from the book, The Forgiving Life, Chapter 1.
Robert
As I work through The Forgiving Life, I am realizing that this particular issue of seeing the person who wounded me as “worthless” has become almost ingrained in my heart. The injury occurred 48 years ago and each subsequent injury added to the pain of that initial wound causing a gaping hole that is now being uncovered through this beautiful (though painful) process of forgiving that you have created. I can’t see the fruit right now, but I like to imagine what it will be like and that imagining brings me joy. Thank you