Sally sat across from me in the counselling room. She had just graduated from a four-year business degree. She was young, talented, bright and her whole life was open before her, but she could not see it. She felt like a failure. She felt that no-one cared about her, that she did not hold enough significance and value for anyone to be interested in her.
I asked Sally to relate to me the earliest memories she had of her “pain.” Through tears, she explained to me that when she was only three weeks old, the police had to break open the front door to find her. Very early that particular morning, neighbours had been hearing her unattended cries as a little baby next door. By mid-morning, some had knocked on the door to see if they could assist the young mother who had recently moved into their neighbourhood with her husband and newborn baby. But after numerous futile attempts to raise someone on the inside, they called the police. Because no-one came to answer the door, the police broke into the house. Inside, they found a three-week-old baby girl—alone! A note pinned to her crib read: “I’m leaving. I can’t handle her!”
And at age 23, Sally’s mother has still not returned.
Is it possible that our earliest relationships can affect the way we view ourselves?
Research, focusing on young men, discovered that “the best predictor of who would get cancer decades later . . . was the closeness of the father–son relationship early in life.”1 Groundbreaking research in the “Harvard Mastery of Stress Study” also correlates with this. Focusing on students in college, researchers found that when combining two measures—the rating of warmth and closeness with parents and the number of positive descriptions when asked, “What kind of person is your mother and your father?”—95per cent of subjects who used few positive words and rated their parents low in parental caring had diseases by middle age. Alternatively, only 29 per cent of subjects who used positive words to describe their parents and parental caring had disease diagnosed in midlife.2
What the above research is saying, is that the connectedness (or the lack thereof) that we have with our primary care givers, will have a direct impact on our health—physically, emotionally, spiritually and especially in the way that we might view our sense of “self.”
What do we mean by this? Sally’s internal “self-talk” has interpreted the abandonment by her mother, as saying that she did not hold worth or value. Her unchecked subconscious reasoning says that, if she had value, her mother would have stayed!
Sad to say, Sally is not alone is this distorted thinking. What we have neglected to see, is that we have made others the authors of our worth and value. We have handed over to unreliable sources, the responsibility of becoming the scriptwriters of our value. Why do I say “unreliable sources”? Because our parents, siblings, peers, etc, are all battling to make sense of their own lives, grappling to process the pain and injury of their own past and, therefore, dealing with you will reflect (unintended most of the time) their own struggle to make sense of their own life.
We have handed over to unreliable sources,
the responsibility of becoming the scriptwriters of our value.
Coming back to Sally. She now knows that her mother had suffered mental illness and the abandonment that impacted her was due to her mother’s own inability to cope. But since Sally subconsciously has made her mother the author of her sense of worth and value, she is still blinded by the distorted “pictures” of her past childhood.
Recognising that others (including our parents), like ourselves, are also struggling to make sense of their past, we therefore forgive them for their mistakes, and set them free from authorship of our worth and value. Instead of making them accountable and standing antagonistic toward them, we build relationship with them instead. We recognise that they are sojourners with us in a world that is battered and bruised by sin.
Research suggests that if we could make this transition in life, we would build more meaningful relationships, be generally happier, and experience better mental and physical health.
. . . if we could make this transition in life,
we would build more meaningful relationships . . .
There is though one last nagging thought that does not want to go away! Could there be an intimate source; a trusted source, to speak my true worth and value? It is the Psalmist who says, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb…” (Psalms. 139:13) that God is my Author!
But have you ever considered the moment that you where made? When Mum and Dad came together to make you? SCARY thought! We do not want to think about this moment. But whether this union was just fleeting; or due to a loving meaningful relationship, or even due to rape or abuse— the facts that I’m going to share with you, surpasses all of the former! The moment that your Dad and Mum came together “to make you”— Mum gave one ovum and Dad gave 300 million sperm cells. Only one of those sperm became you!
What therefore are the odds of you, becoming you? A one in 300 million chance! If any other sperm would reach the ovum first, you would be your brother or sister—not you! Not only that, once the sperm reaches the ovum, a protective shield is drawn over it so that no more sperm can enter. At this point, an awesome thing happens. The chromosomes of the ovum and sperm fuse and a massive explosion of cell division erupts, to the point that within 24 hours, out of the original two cells, there is now a formless “lump” of millions of cells. Here the Psalmist picks it up in verse 16 by saying: “Your eyes saw my unformed substance,” and God already knew your end form, “all the day’s that where formed for me”!
There is a God who specially designed you. You are His prescription child. He formed you with a specific intent and purpose, and He says to you, “I have loved you with an everlasting love, and with loving kindness have I drawn you” (Jeremiah 31:3). But then He takes it one step further. A step to ensure that you will never get confused about your identity; your worth and your value—your Creator, and that of the world, travels through the corridors of space and time to this earth, and on a cross lays down His priceless life, for you! Making your worth and value equal to His life and His worth!
The truth is that you are a child of the King, designed by Him and that your worth is not based on other’s opinions of you, on your opinion of you, or on what it is you have done or will do. It is based on the life and death of Him who gave everything for you. You see, I do not find my value by seeking it; I find my value by seeking Him.
The truth is that you are a child of the King, designed by Him and that your worth is not based on other’s opinions of you, on your opinion of you, or on what it is you have done or will do. It is based on the life and death of Him who gave everything for you.
An incredible spinoff to the Harvard Mastery of Stress Study discovered something that they were not searching for. They found that even when someone other than a parent, is caring for a person, “the perception of love itself may turn out to be a core vital psychosocial spiritual buffer, reducing the negative impact of stressors and pathogens and promoting immune function and healing.”
Incredible! The mere “thought that someone cares” can block the disease-causing agents (pathogens) from creating havoc in our life!
There is an ultimate and trustworthy source that is speaking your worth and value. He is saying: “Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you! See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:15,16). And as I look closer into the wounded hands of Him who hung on that cross, I can recognise my name, and yours, written in those wounds, declaring, “I could not forget YOU!”
AUTHOR: David Haupt is a pastor and registered counsellor, living in Eviron, NSW. On his days off, he loves to head into the bush and shoot from behind the lens of his camera.
ILLUSTRATION: This artwork was drawn by Andie Kliene, who is currently in her second year at Melbourne University. For more of her work, visit @andieroselie_art on Instagram.
1. John Hopkins University
2. L.G. Russek & G.E. Schwartz,“Feeling of Parental Caring Predict Health Status in Midlife: A 35-Year Follow-up of the Harvard Mastery of Stress Study,” Journal of Behavioural Medicine, (1997) 20:1. doi:10.1023/A:1025525428213.