PLUS OR MINUS

I keep this uplifting magnet (a friend's gift)
on a metal surface near my desk. 

When our land-line phone rang one ordinary morning, my "hello" was answered by three words: “I hate you!” After the initial shock, I recognized the voice. An awkward silence, then I replied, “I can tell this is a negative phone call, so I'm hanging up.” Within seconds the phone rang again. Guessing it was the same person with a history of this behavior, I chose to ignore the call rather than risk a frustrating conversation. But the caller had already wounded my spirit. I grabbed my car keys to do errands and get away from the phone. Tears came within the first block. Then, like a God-message, Biblical truths from an old hymn came to mind: “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.”

Years later, that hurtful memory resurfaced when I read David Seamands' Healing Grace: Let God Free You from the Performance Trap (Victor, 1988, p. 155). In one chapter he dealt with others' negative input in our lives—statements critical of our “being,” not of instructive corrections. In other words, put-downs that attack someone's character, like “I'm sick of you” or “You make me sick.” Or, as I heard, “I hate you.” In contrast are phrases like “I believe you can do this” or even “Thank you for helping me become my better self.” Psychologists who study “affirmation” have even come up with a formula for positive or negative strokes. It goes like this:

*A positive stroke for “doing” (something we did): one point.

*A positive stroke for “being” (what we are): ten points.

*A negative stroke for “doing”: minus ten points.

*A negative stroke for “being”: minus 100 points!

Yes, negative comments and put-downs are associated with a huge emotional debt. Negatives, Seamands wrote, “hurt us not simply on the outside, for our behavior, but they pierce right into the inside of us, where the concepts and feelings about ourselves originate.”

But I am blessed to also have affirming friends. I have saved some of their “blessing” notes reminding me that I am not what this other person claims. At times I considered tossing the notes—was it vain to keep them around?---but that inner voice said, “No, keep them, read them from time to time as a reminder that you are precious in God's sight.”

One used my name for an acrostic of positive qualities (see illustration at right--with its re-spelling of "generous"). Another wrote in an E-mail: “When I think of you, I think of a God- and people-loving woman: creative, musical, frugal, generous, intelligent, fun, funny, wise, scholar, widely-published and much more. When I think of you, I smile.” An older woman who took a writing class I taught handed me this note at the last session: “Your love for the Lord is right where I can see it.”

I share their notes to illustrate healing words. I also want my experience of pain and positives to show how words matter. All around us—especially, it seems, as a consequence of the fears and inconveniences of the pandemic-- are people who likely suffered recently from another's negative words. They need those positive strokes for “being” or “doing.” Your reaching-out might be the encouragement they need that day.

RX FOR DUMP DAYS

This white rose in my garden, about to open, reminds me of how Jesus 

presented us with an example of a life of purity

My reading pile the last few years has included a number of books on mental health issues as I seek to understand problems that people I care about are going through.  The books have reminded me that “bad stuff” and trauma are part of our fallen condition. I find myself saying, where would we be without the Lord? 

In re-reading David Seamands’ Healing for Damaged Emotions (Victor Books, 1981), I again appreciated his counsel for dealing with depression. He noted that that Martin Luther (the great Protestant reformer of 500 years ago) and Samuel Brengle (19^th century Salvation Army commissioner and teacher on holiness) both struggled with depression—and both found praise one way of counteracting the negative pull on their lives. Seamands said that when Brengle struggled with feeling God’s presence or hope in prayer, he’d thank God for simple things, like the leaf on a tree or the beautiful wing of a bird.  Reading that helped me realize that my own “Thank you, God” every-day prayers—for simple things like this beautiful rose, one of the first to bloom in our yard—were acceptable and  healing forms of worship.

Seamands also had this advice: “Lean heavily on the power of God’s Word”  (p. 129).  Although God can use any portion of scripture to help people, he likes to recommend that people read the psalms. A whole range of depression emotions come out in psalms—in fact, he said, 48 of the 150 psalms express depression. To people struggling with depression, Seamands often gives out a list of the 48 to read and think about. Now, some people may find that depressing!  But it’s not.  It’s encouraging that God led the writers to be brutally honest about how they felt, and to share how they found their way up and out.  Psalms are real.

In 2014 (January to October)  I shared my “Top Fifty” psalms in this blog.  Seamands’ list and mine overlap at times.  Starting next week, and over the next few months, I’m hoping an honest look at the psalms that Seamands selected for the “dump days” (when you feel down in the dumps or feel like dumping on God) will help you as they will me.