I am currently reading Mark and Debbie Laaser’s new book The Seven Desires of Every Heart . I have found it quite fascinating and eye opening. I thought over the next week I would take each of the desires and expand upon them. Each one of these so resonated with me and the perils of growing up in an alcoholic/dysfunctional home. You know my parents weren’t these horrible people that didn’t feed me or beat me but the subtle emotional scars that I have been working a lifetime to overcome remain part of my story. How grateful I am for people like the Laaser’s that have walked their own personal journey to help show the rest of us the way.
To Be Heard and Understood; such a powerful desire by every child and adult. You don’t realize it until you sit with that thought. How often do we feel we are neither heard nor underst
ood. I think about my favorite aunt, my grandmother, my favorite teacher, etc. do you know why all those people are my favorites they listened to me. They took the time to have a conversation with me. They heard my frustration of my household, moving all the time because my parents were military, my brother that had invaded our household, just life things that I was having a hard time trying to sort out in my head.
Laaser talks about how when we feel we are not heard you see people do things like scream or yell because we somehow think that if we say it loud and strong enough we will get heard. Or you see people speak slowly and demeaning treating others as if they are too stupid to absorb what you have to say. Then there is the talking really fast and holding the floor because you think your time will be up before you are finished. And my all time favorites of “you always” or “you never” which puts people on the defense and the argument begins as each person is trying to protect themselves.
But then he speaks the truth what happens in relationships “Sometimes, the people we care about the most are often the ones who seem to have the hardest time hearing us. (Conversely, sometimes we have a difficult time listening to those we love the most.) When we are invested in a relationship, our own emotions often distract us from truly listening, even if we have the best of intentions of doing so. Great listening skills get trumped by our desire to be heard ourselves! And so we interrupt, or interject our own opinion, or figure out a way to get the focus back to our feeling, need, or opinion. It is a difficult cycle to change, for we all selfishly need to be heard and understood”.
What if we unselfishly listened, loved. Loving someone by hearing their heart. Standing there listening to someone you love without thinking about your rebuttal or how what they are saying impacts you personally but just taking their words and hurt in. Can we love that unselfishly? And then can we move the human interaction over to God? We want to be heard and understood by God and God wants us to hear and understand him without all our selfish rebuttals. Can we rest in the assurance of His word that He is working all things together for our good? Can we accept that He really knows what is going on, He understands our perils? Can we sit back and just take in His love, care and direction? Selah~
Tammy Hardin
Relapse Prevention Specialist
Directing hearts to God’s healing, One story at a time
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Always interesting to hear another standpoint, lovely
Yeah I know just what your talking about, being around in this day and age is all together then it was before . I reckon our great grand parents didn’t concern themselves with this , technology as we know it from many angles makes a lot of things possible . Reckon I have an old school point of view , but I remember back when times were different . Someones word was their bond rather then their signature , you could trust if your kids were outside by themselves they were safe , and goods weren’t as costly. I suppose prices are always going to go up , but I just don’t get how come we can’t return to the days when people just actually cared for one another and actually knew each others names. Recon its a thing of the past , but you know today is another day, I reckon we ott to just keep on keeping on.
Today is only Day 5, but yesterday was hard. The first four days I felt pretty good and a sense of relief. I felt I was making the right choice to give up pot but somehow without pot and alcohol life just seems grey. I used to look forward to smoking pot and really enjoyed it. Ironically, I don’t feel a whole lot different without it – I think I had built up so much tolerance I wasn’t really getting that high, but without it I am more anxious and irritable. Unmotivated. I just hope today is easier.
My name is Darren, im 25, and i have been smoking weed for the last five years, this included “wake n Bake”every day and apart from maybe 2 weeks without, pretty much constant up until this morning!
this is by a long way the best i have felt since stopping not sweating half as much and not thinkin about the dreddid weed half as much so things are slowly gettin better not out of the woods yet but gettin their fingers crossed eh
What a blog post!! Very informative also easy to understand. Looking for more such blog posts!! Do you have a twitter?
I recommended it on digg. The only thing that it’s missing is a bit of color. However thank you for this information.
I feel hopeless. Been A Christian for along time and beenn in A.A. for a long time. I just can't get it. I'm so depressed and lonely.