Читать книгу Healing Broken Hurts - Nelson Chamberlin - Страница 5

Many people who suffer the hurt of divorce feel that no one ever hurt as badly as they do. They wonder if anybody knows or cares how much the trauma of divorce brings them pain. So my first Key-Note address was this:

Does anyone know or care how I feel?

That question is intended to be a ‘grabber.’ It is designed to capture your attention and gain your ear. BUT IT IS A SERIOUS QUESTION because I know that many of you are here this evening experiencing some very deep and wrenching emotions. Some of you are probably thinking, ‘NOBODY ELSE EVER HAD IT AS BAD AS I HAVE IT. NOBODY EVER FELT LIKE I FEEL RIGHT NOW. NOBODY COULD EVER BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM GOING THROUGH!’

And if you care to stretch that a little farther, you might even push it to the point where you are saying (or thinking), ‘WHAT CAN THAT HAPPILY MARRIED MAN UNDERSTAND OR KNOW ABOUT LIFE THAT WOULD GIVE HIM THE AUDACITY TO GET UP THERE AND TALK TO ME ABOUT GROWING THROUGH DIVORCE?’ That’s all right. See … I already know how some of you feel … and that should be a comfort to you and not a threat.

One of my good friends is a Catholic priest. He told me that once he was asked how he could stand up in front of his parishioners and give them advice about family-planning, birth control, and raising children when he had never had any first-hand experience in any of those areas. (That was a good question … don’t you think!) But he had a better answer. He responded, ‘DOES A VETERINARIAN HAVE TO BE A HORSE TO TREAT A SICK ANIMAL?’

The truth of the matter is that people can and do care how you feel if they find it in their hearts to take the time to listen. I first awoke to what it is like to be single and divorced when I attended a seminar at Bob Schuller’s Garden Grove Community Church in Garden Grove, California. I was sent there by my District Superintendent with the instructions, “He certainly is doing some things right. Go out there and find out what it is, report back to me and I will help you out with your expenses.” I attended the Successful Church Leaders Conference for several days.

Then I learned that immediately upon the heels of this conference was to follow a conference on Single Adult Ministries. Jim Smoke was the minister of Single Adult Ministries in that church. More than 1200 people were single adult members of that congregation. Since I had spent all that money to get out there, I decided to stay a few days more and take in this conference as well. For three days I listened to broken-hearted, beautiful, sensitive people as they poured out their bleeding guts about how it feels to go through the trauma of divorce. Those three days radically changed my life and my ministry.

I came home to talk in depth with some of my best friends … a minister, a lawyer, a house wife, an office worker, a business man … all of whom had gone through the trauma of divorce. I discovered 82 single adults in my congregation at that time. And we as a congregation were saying (in essence), “This is a family church and you are welcome here. But just sit back over there in the corner and don’t make a whole lot of noise.”

One of my single adult friends was a lawyer who had seen three marriages explode in his face. He is a good United Methodist who enjoys an occasional drink in some of the local pubs, so I figured he would be an excellent guide to some of the singles bars in the area. I decided I would let him take me bar-hopping one night just so that I might sit down over a coke and talk with some of those lonely people to discover what life was like as they were now experiencing it. The night before we were scheduled to go together, my friend was taken to I.U. Med Center for back surgery, and my bar-hopping days came to an abrupt end before they ever got started. I don’t know if the Lord was trying to tell me something important in that or not. I did not get to go!

But I have tried my dead level best to understand what people in your shoes are experiencing. I have done considerable research making this the new focus of my specialty in ministry. My wife and I have worked with several hundred people just like you who were struggling through divorce. And even though I have been married to this neat lady here for more than 50 years, WE HAVE NEVER ONCE THOUGHT ABOUT DIVORCE … (LENGTHY PAUSE WAITING FOR THEIR NEGATIVE REACTION) … NEVER ONCE THOUGHT ABOUT DIVORCING EACH OTHER …MURDER EIGHT TIMES, BUT NEVER DIVORCE! (They finally smile and we go on.)

We come this evening with a wealth of experience because other good people just like you have given us the privilege of walking down the private corridors of their own minds and hearts, and they have shared with us how it feels to be single and hurting.

So let me share with you what I see as the purpose and goal of our being here together tonight and for the next six weeks. If any of you are here expecting to get a good pistol-whipping with the Bible, I am afraid you may go away disappointed. If any of you need to have an overworked sense of guilt reinforced in you, you will probably have to look elsewhere.

LaDonna and I would like to share with you some information we believe will be helpful in making it possible for you to GROW THROUGH DIVORCE rather than simply to GO THROUGH DIVORCE. In the process of our sharing with you, we hope you will share with us because we learn from you as well as sharing what we have learned from others.

I see the purpose of this workshop as DEVELOPING A SUPPORTIVE FELLOWSHIP that will meet some of the relational needs of your life. THE EMPHASIS IS GOING TO BE ON SUPPORT! You have already suffered more than you need to in the condemnation and judgment of others. Sometimes church people are like that. I know why … YOU ARE A THREAT TO THEM. THEY ARE SITTING THERE WITH SHAKY MARRIAGES OF THEIR OWN, AND HERE YOU COME FOOT-LOOSE AND FANCY-FREE, and they can’t stand that! So they push you over in an insignificant corner somewhere and at best ignore you … or worst, they dump unneeded and unsolicited loads of guilt and condemnation on you.

You don’t need any more of that, so we are going to concentrate on offering you a SUPPORTIVE FELLOWSHIP. When this workshop is concluded, I can already guarantee that you are going to single out (no pun intended) others in this group whom you will be telephoning every once in awhile when you need support on a down day … and some of these people may become your life-long friends. You need supportive friendships and we intend to make some of those possible for you.

Secondly, we want to build for you A SOCIAL FELLOWSHIP as well. No, my friends … we are not in the match-making business. I suspect that none of you are ready for that anyway! But we can and will provide a place where wholesome friendships may become established and developed.

Thirdly, we want to build a SPIRITUAL FELLOWSHIP that can help you deal with the problems of your emotions, your deepest feelings, your wounded spirits. What religious background you come from (if any) is of no vital concern to us. We have no intention of using this workshop to increase the number of members in our church. Believe me now … this workshop is for you and our sole motivation is the hope of seeing you grow through divorce.

Now let me share with you some of the things we have learned about the trauma and heartbreak of divorce.

Whenever you lose something in which you invested a significant piece of yourself, you are going to go through the process of grief described by Elisabeth Kubler Ross i ner book … SHOCK, DENIAL, ANGER, GUILT, BARGAINING WITH GOD, HOPE, and finally ACCEPTANCE.

STAGE ONE

The first, almost universal emotion we experience in a broken relationship is SHOCK. ”OH, DEAR GOD … I KNOW THIS HAPPENS TO OTHER PEOPLE, BUT I NEVER THOUGHT IT WOULD HAPPEN TO ME.” And yet here it is … and it is happening to you. Divorce until this moment is only a statistic … it happens in 41% of all first-time marriages, 59% of all second marriages, 83% of all third-time marriages. And 50% of the first time marriages being performed today are presumably destined for divorce. ”Oh God … it can’t happen to me!” But it did! And that for many people spells shock!

What does shock do to us? Shock is a God-given reaction that protects us when the hurt we experience is too great to bear. Bang your head in an automobile accident, and if the injury is severe enough you go into shock where you are unaware of what is happening to you. Take a blow to the heart, a heartbreak, and if it is bad enough you may lose touch with reality. Some people retreat within themselves and block out all thoughts of what is happening to them. They deny it mentally. They refuse to talk about it with anyone. They withdraw from friends and social contacts. They move. They change jobs. And what they are doing basically is running away from the issue. ”IF I JUST DON’T THINK ABOUT IT OR TALK ABOUT IT, IT MIGHT GO AWAY!” UNNGGHH, UNNGGHH!!! That is just so much hogwash.

Those confused inner feelings may run the gamut all the way from personal feelings of guilt for ever letting a thing like this happen to a sense of utter failure, or even the transference of those feelings to a totally different person.

NOW HOW DO WE GET UNSTUCK FROM THIS PARALYZING EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE?

Growing through divorce begins with the admission that this really is happening to me … because you will never adequately and honestly deal with the situation unless you can first admit that the situation exists. One who had gone through a large number of divorces was fond of telling her friends that she was merely “in between relationships.” That is not honestly dealing with the situation.

When you face up to the situation, you may go through feelings of ANGER, BITTERNESS, LONELINESS, GUILT, FEAR, EMPTINESS, WEAKNESS, MOURNING, and hopefully you may eventually experience feelings of RELIEF, HOPE, JOY! We will talk about those feelings later.

One of the ways of prolonging the shock stage is to desparately and unrealistically cling to HOPE. I hear some saying, “There is still an outside chance that we might get back together.” Or “I know he has not been good for me, but maybe if I tried harder … maybe if I give him one more chance he might change.”

WHERE DID WE EVER GET THE IDEA THAT MARRIAGE WAS INTENDED TO BE REFORM SCHOOL? We take people where they are, for whatever they are when we marry them. Jim Smoke writes in his book Growing Through Divorce … “Getting married is like buying a phonograph record: You buy it for what’s on one side but you have to take the flip side too.” Then he adds “Getting divorced is like getting the hole in the record.” WE DON’T MARRY PROJECTS … WE MARRY PEOPLE!

People with unrealistic hopes come to the marriage counselor with ideas that he can do something that they cannot do for themselves. They come to their minister with the hope that he is some kind of miracle worker. They pray to God hoping that the fatal hurts they have inflicted on one another can be healed. Sometimes God does not respond affirmatively to that sort of false hope. You had better realize that sometimes God answers your prayers with the word “NO” instead of “YES.” That too is an answer to your prayer.

Now let me offer several questions that will help you sort out false hope from reality.

1. DO BOTH PARTIES WANT THE MARRIAGE TO SUCCEED?

If both parties really want a shaky marriage to succeed, there is a high degree of realistic hope that the marriage can succeed providing they accept professional help. If one does not want the marriage to succeed, then it does not matter how strongly the other person wants it. IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO, and if there are not two people who are agreed that their marriage succeed, you would best just forget it. You have no other choice. That may not be the message you hoped to receive tonight, but that is the realistic truth and you would do well to accept it.

2. WILL BOTH PARTIES ACCEPT PROFESSIONAL HELP IN RECONCILIATION FOR AS LONG AS IS NECESSARY?

Counselors simply cannot work ONE-PARTY MIRACLES. You cannot undo in five minutes what it took fifteen years of wanton havoc to bring about. And you can’t do it solo. To believe anything else is unrealistic.

3. HAS A THIRD PARTY BECOME INVOLVED WITH EITHER MATE?

Experience proves that third-party involvements tend to bring marriages to an end. Some partners will wait, forgive, endure and try to forget (though I doubt they will ever completely forget … for how can you turn your memory on and off at will?). You have to remember what you are trying to forget in order to forget it.

There are a few exceptions to that rule, but the odds are greatly against you if you are hoping to make a HAPPY DUET out of an UNHAPPY TRIANGLE. It just is not that easy. It just doesn’t work that often.

4. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR PAST EXPERIENCES THAT WILL SHED LIGHT ON YOUR PRESENT SITUATION?

Hopefully, you will not have to marry as often as Zsa-Zsa Gabor or Elizabeth Taylor or Mickey Rooney to learn from experience. Many marriages contain elements that were out of control long before the marriage became a reality. But people still insist on gambling their lives and their well-being on the unrealistic hope that things will be different next time rather than facing reality.

You would do well to learn from the past. Discover the garbage you brought out of that previous relationship and deal with that garbage before you ever allow yourself to enter into another marriage relationship. Otherwise you will be destined to live that tragedy all over again.

You see, it isn’t really second or third marriages that are bad! It is carrying the same old garbage into those marriages that dooms them. So deal with the junk in your life. Get rid of it and give yourself a real chance at success next time around. We are going to help you deal with that very thing over the next several weeks.

STAGE TWO

As the shock of divorce begins to wear off, a process of ADJUSTMENT begins to take place. Shock means facing the facts of divorce. Adjustment means doing something about those facts. And this is an excellent place to GIVE A DEAD RELATIONSHIP A GOOD PROPER BURIAL. Mourn it if you will. Hurt if you choose to. Cry if it feels good. But don’t be satisfied to swim in a sea of self-pity for the rest of your life.

Feeling sorry for yourself is not totally escapable, but I would like to suggest that it should be limited to a five second experience about once every other week! Is what you are looking for only a warehouse full of “I’m so sorry’s” from your friends? Self-pity can be so self-defeating, so depressing, and that is why it is not good for you. you are the one that counts now. If you refuse to look out for yourself, who do you think is going to do it for you? Unnnggghhhuhhh! I think you got that one right!

STAGE THREE

This is the stage I covet for every one of you … THE GROWTH STAGE. Jim Smoke in his book Growing Through Divorce says there are eight steps to growing through divorce.

1. REALIZE THAT TIME IS A HEALER and you must WALK THROUGH THAT PROCESS ONE DAY AT A TIME.

2. COME TO GRIPS WITH YOURSELF. YOU CANNOT DENY YOUR EXISTENCE NO MATTER HOW FRUSTRATED, LONELY, GUILTY, ANGRY, OR DESPARATE YOU MAY FEEL ON THE INSIDE.

3. SET ASIDE TIME FOR REFLECTION, MEDITATION, READING, THINKING AND PERSONAL GROWTH. Many situations you may never be able to change, but you can change yourself anytime you really want to.

4. GET TOGETHER WITH HEALTHY PEOPLE WHO ARE STRUGGLING BUT GROWING. There is only minimal comfort in hearing other peoples’ divorce stories while you are going through divorce. At first it may help, but soon it becomes boring. Healthy people are those who let the past die and who live and grow in the present.

5. SEEK PROFESSIONAL COUNSELING OR THERAPY IF YOU NEED IT. Asking for help is a sign of strength … not a sign of weakness.

6. ACCEPT THE FACT THAT YOUR ARE DIVORCED (OR IN THE PROCESS OF BEING DIVORCED) AND YOU ARE NOW SINGLE. It ought not to hurt too badly to say it. So repeat after me: ”I AM SINGLE … AND I’M OK!”

7. PUT THE PAST IN THE PAST WHERE IT BELONGS AND BEGIN TO LIVE IN THE PRESENT.

8. COMMIT YOUR NEW WAY TO GOD. BEGIN NEW THINGS, AND SEEK THE HELP AND RELATIONSHIPS YOU NEED TO BEGIN ANEW.

I’m going to back off now and let my co-partner lead you in the Discussion Exercise.

The first session Discussion was centered around some of the feelings that were most prevalent in their lives. LaDonna encouraged them by saying, “We can learn a lot from you, and others will learn a lot too if you will take the courage to share. Tell us what you are feeling and what you are struggling with.”

Several were able to be open and share while other were reluctant and hesitant to share their feelings. One fellow could do nothing but cry the whole first session. Another confessed he was devastated that he found his closest friend in bed with his wife when he came home early one afternoon.

Another explained that the feeling he was experiencing was abject loneliness. One of the dear ladies who seemed at the time to have all the words but none of the “music” responded immediately, “I have discovered that since I have Jesus in my heart, I never have to feel lonely” … to which he responded immediately “Bovine Droppings!” (Well, that is not exactly how he put it. ”BULL S*#T” is what he actually said, and the class burst out in laughter and acceptance of what he was feeling and saying.)

The purpose and goal of that first session was to help them realize that there are many feelings that are prevalent in their situation and it is all right to have those feelings. How we manage those feelings is the more important thing, and that is the theme for the second session.