A Memory-October 4, 2012

The pain of rejection is one of the worst emotions ever felt. Feeling abandoned, left out of the fold, unloved, unappreciated, and alone.

But the worst rejection of all is when a parent rejects their child. A child is vulnerable and unprotected they’re at the mercy of wolves and wild things. Wondering, how will I survive? Fear, anxiety, and without hope what is hope?

Food, water even the basic needs longed for; where will the child find shelter from the elements. No tender hugs or soft sweet words to comfort. Forgotten, rejected, and left to die.

By some unseen force the child survives and grows to adulthood. All those fears and feelings never resolved. Bitterness and hate leaves its cruel marks where love and acceptance should have been. And so the child as an adult is marred and is met with contempt and more rejection. No matter how hard the child tries to be accepted he/she never will be.

Years and years of mistrust have been built within the broken heart and more and more anger builds its thickened walls to protect itself.

Until…

One tiny ray of sunlight causes a tiny spark to ignite into the hardened, dry, cracked place called the heart.

Someone smiles at the child, now adult.

“What do they want from me? Why do they smile? I have nothing to give them.” Mistrust and doubt fill the tortured soul.

A hand is out-stretched toward the child-adult. “Run away, run far, far, away.”

But something in the voice and in the eyes hold him/her; frozen; waiting to see…

“What do they want from me?”

Love so pure and unrestrained, acceptance and peace so full, so real, that it melts the hardened, broken heart. Warmth burst through the thickened walls. Gasps of air and startled mind cannot comprehend what’s happening.

Fear leaves…anxiety disappears and vanishes leaving what use to be a huge whole but is now totally healed and restored.

The spirit is reborn into new life. But a memory remains… the memory of hurt, pain and rejection. Only now it no longer hurts. It’s a memory from long, long ago. Not resolved but forgiven. It was left as a reminder so that the child-adult would always remember to love.

The strongest emotion in the human heart is love! It diminishes hate, conquers fear, overcomes obstacles, gives and does not take and will lead you all the way home!

We never know how a smile or friendly word is going to affect someone. It could just be the one thing that changes a life forever. I’m smiling at you today.

Written by: Marla Yvonne Shaw 10/4/12

Ephesians 4:31-32 21st Century King James Version (KJ21)  Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice; and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.