Theophostic Prayer

Three weeks ago I restarted counseling with councilor. It had been several years since we last met, and when we ended the therapy, it was because councilor felt that my grip on my emotions was beyond his abilities with Theophostic. Anger at spouse, depression and emotional turmoil prompted me to renew counceling.

With the first session, he was very hopeful, giving me great hope, because he stated that he had managed more difficult cases like mine, with success and he felt sure that he could bring me through the anger and emotional roller-coaster I have been on, using Theophostic Prayer.

We met the other night, and at the end of the session, after a couple failed attempts to access my emotion, he concluded that I was still beyond his ability. It was already established as a lie from Satan, my belief that God does not want me cured. When I concentrate on a stirring (destructive emotion), it either sits before me as a ball of emotion, just beyond my ability to touch it or access it, or it disappears, instantly, as if it never existed, the pressure of it also gone. One thing that is consistent, is that I cannot access the emotion as needed and in the way that Theophostic prayer therapy needs me to, for it to work.

So what can I do?

I was struck by the portion of our session where councilor revealed how a stirring erupted during the previous week, how he went into prayer, and how his wife witness the process without interruption. He indicated the process took 45 minutes.

This week, as another stirring occurred, I look at what was causing the anger (in the present situation), and examined it. Why was I angry? Was the anger necessary (justified or an emotional reaction to what I could not control or did not want to deal with)? What was my part of the situation, and where did my sinfulness add to the situation? As I looked at each part, I was able to identify the sin on my part, and in my prayer, confess and ask God for forgiveness. I am also looking to see if the situation (and emotion) was because I was sinned against, and in forgave. I also examined the situation for the need to seek forgiveness.

I recognize that each event is not an event where I might have sinned. This prayerful self-examination may not require me to forgive or seek forgiveness. I hope that I might instead rely more fully on God's strength in each situation, as I realize that most things are not in my ability to fix or avoid. In this prayer, I need to seek refuge from the noise in my life, so that I can hear the voice of God.

Thank you Lord, for being there for me. Thank you Lord for giving me knowledge and guidance from your Holy Spirit in this very difficult time of my life. Thank you Lord for giving me a stubbornness, that hinders me at times, but is also a gift that keeps me from shutting down and quitting, instead it fuels my desire to continue to look to you for strength and resolution to all that life places before me. Let me glorify you constantly with my lips and with the joy that is present in my Heart when I think of how great you are and how blest I am to be granted the gift of faith and the gift of salvation through your son Christ.

Amen.

Heart Cry

Right now, whenever I am in spouse's presence, I want to have as little to do with her as I can manage. I do not have pleasant thoughts concerning her or our relationship. God commands the husband to love the wife as Christ loves the Church, to die to self and die for her. I have been sinful in my recent behavior/attitude.

How I wish my love for spouse would cause me to pin for her, to miss her whenever we were apart for any amount of time. To desire her sexually again, to take on her illnesses as a personal crusade so that she knows she is loved. To stop feeling hostile, even hate in her presence.

Heavenly Father, you know my desire is to do your will and reflect your love for me to those who are around me. Please forgive my sinfulness against spouse and give me strength to die for her as Christ died for Church. Please give me patience and cure my eyesight so that I see the companion you so thoughtfully and lovingly prepared for me and set before my eyes those many years ago. Please rip this hate, from me as I seek her forgiveness and in same, that I forgive her for not being perfect. Please forgive me for expecting perfection from her and sinning against you when perfection was not found, knowing that perfection can only be found in you. Please heal me in this situation, as only you can heal, through Christ and your Holy Spirit.

Amen

From "A Slice Of Infinity" for 8 March 06

Who Are You?

Jill Carattini


In the C.S. Lewis novel 'Til We Have Faces, the main character, Orual, has taken mental notes throughout her life, carefully building what she refers to as her "case" against the gods. Finally choosing to put her case in writing, she meticulously describes each instance where she has been wronged. It is only after Orual has finished writing that she soberly recognizes her great mistake. She now sees the importance of uttering the speech at the center of one's soul, for to have heard herself making the complaint was to be answered. She profoundly observes that the gods used her own pen to probe the wounds. With sharpened insight Orual explains, "'Til the words can be dug out of us, why should [the gods] hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face 'til we have faces?"


Never has a book cut open my heart and laid it before me so plainly. It was simultaneously the moment I realized how distant I had become from God and how near to me He had been all along. I had spent a lifetime subconsciously compiling my case against Him. Through these more turbulent years en route to faith and belief in Christ, I stood armed with my diary of questions, taking more a stance of interrogator than glad follower. Some of my questions were milder interrogations than others; in fact, some even embodied the possibility of exoneration. But the telling detail in this perspective was that I saw myself as the one holding the judge's gavel, while God was the one on trial.


I vividly recall the first time I realized the barrage of questions I was prepared to ask. It was not long before I would come across the pages of the book that brought me to surrender the gavel. I was reading the last chapter in the Gospel of John.


In that scene, the disciples were fishing when Jesus appeared on the shoreline; this, just days after they had watched in horror as he was crucified on the Cross. No doubt with heightened anticipation, the disciples quickly drew in their nets and rushed to the shore where Jesus was preparing breakfast at the fire. John's description places us aside a group of expectant fishermen. With bated breath we wait to hear how the silence will be broken. And then John writes, "None of the disciples dared to ask, 'Who are you?' For they knew it was the savior" (John 21:12).


It was the word "dare" that got under my skin. It completely upset me that none of them dared to ask. They had every reason to ask questions. Where did you go? How are you here? Why did you have to die? That the disciples were not full of questions seemed to me remarkably unnatural. It did not take me long to realize that I was bothered by their lack of asking specifically because I did dare to ask.


The frenzied, almost illegible words in my journal still remind me how frustrated I was at that moment. In words more fired onto the page than composed, I asked everything I had ever wanted to ask. Two weeks later, I picked up a copy of 'Til We Have Faces and was overcome with the absurdity of my "case"—even as I was overcome with the certainty that I had been heard.


For me, sensing myself far away from God is often riddled with the suspicion that it is his doing, that He has left, and that I have been abandoned. It is interesting how often these feelings coincide with an outburst of honest writing and confession. In such moments I realize, like Orual, the importance of uttering the words at the center of one's soul—if for nothing more than to hear in my own words the illogic of my anger or the intensity and passion I am complaining is absent. To hear myself making the complaint is often to be answered. And repeatedly, these moments of despair and distance become realizations of proximity and awareness of the God who is there. Interestingly, in such moments I don't dare ask who it is. For I know it is the savior.