The news here is still all about the tragic killing of the Amish girls by a 32 year old husband, father, and church goer. News media report that he had a 20 year old secret of molesting family members that he could no longer handle. Don’t know if it is true, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it was. A secret sin/trauma eats away at us like cancer. We live a private hell while pretending to others that nothing is the matter. Some can maintain the front for a long time, but the cancer will will win every time if it is not treated.
An interesting thing tends to happen. In an effort to avoid exposing our secret, we wall it off from others (and sometimes from self). But we actually make it grow in meaning and power. It becomes unforgiveable (even if our outward theology would deny this fact), something for which we can never receive comfort and peace. Over time, it grows into other areas of our lives and makes every thing we do relate to the secret. Its no surprise that our logic and bodies break down over time.
Don Miller in Blue Like Jazz writes of a friend who had 2 secret affairs. He probably didn’t want to confess his sin to his wife on the basis that it would hurt her (or maybe because he would lose her). But really, he didn’t want to accept grace. Miller described the terrible effects of the secret on the man,
He said he would lie down next to his wife at night feeling walls of concrete between their hearts. He had secrets. She tries to love him, but he knows he doesn’t deserve it. He cannot accept her affection because she is loving a man who doesn’t exits. He plays a role. He says he is an actor in his own home. (p. 22)
Miller goes on to say later (p. 86),
I will love God because he first loved me. I will obey God because I love God. But if I cannot accept God’s love, I cannot love him in return, and I cannot obey him. Self-discipline will never make us feel righteous or clean; accepting God’s love will. The ability to accept God’s unconditional grace and ferocious love is all the fuel we need to obey him in return. Accepting God’s kindness and free love is something the devil does not want us to do. If we hear, in our inner ear, a voice saying we are failures, we are losers…this is the voice of Satan trying to convince the bride that the groom does not love her. This is not the voice of God.
Sounds about right.
Musings on Faith and Psychology 