God Is Not Mad at You: You Can Experience Real Love, Acceptance & Guilt-free Living by Joyce Meyer Page B

hadn’t done. I’m sure her parents didn’t mean to harm her, but their undeserved punishments made a huge, negative impact on Rebecca.
    When Rebecca was a grown married woman, sometimes her husband would say, “There’s a spill on the floor,” or, “There’s some paint scraped off the car.” Immediately Rebecca would tense up and snap, “I didn’t do it!”
    Finally one day her husband looked at her in wonder and said, “You must have had a rough childhood. Every time I ever mention anything that’s wrong, you immediately think I’m blaming you.”
    That was the day Rebecca realized that when someone commented on a problem, that person wasn’t necessarily accusing her of causing it. Rebecca was forty-three when she had that realization. What a sad thing that she had experienced countless episodes of feeling falsely accused, when the supposed “accuser” was actually just making an observation.
    It is amazing how we view situations when we are looking through a lens colored by a root of rejection. It causes us a lot of pain that no one intends to give us. We get hurt and nobody is intending to hurt us. I believe that as we all learn to see more clearly we can avoid a lot of this type of pain and the tension it causes in relationships.
    When you feel hurt, stop and think! Are people trying to hurt you, or are they just being who they are? Yes, maybe they could be more thoughtful or sensitive, but since none of us is perfect, we can choose to believe the best and move on.
    Don’t let the pain of past rejection rule your future. Face it, deal with it, pray about it and ask God to change you, study God’s Word, and press forward! Even if you feel very convicted as you read these areas I am writing about, just remember that receiving conviction is a healthy step toward change. You don’t need to feel condemned. God is not disappointed in you! He knew all about your weaknesses long before you did.

CHAPTER 8
Guilt and Shame
    And, beloved, if our consciences (our hearts) do not accuse us [if they do not make us feel guilty and condemn us], we have confidence (complete assurance and boldness) before God.
    1 John 3:21
    Guilt can be healthy or unhealthy. If it is the feeling we get when we have done something wrong, then that is healthy. It reminds us that we need to ask for God’s forgiveness, or perhaps a person’s forgiveness. Unhealthy guilt is a false guilt. It is one that lingers even after we have asked for forgiveness. It can also be the result of an oversensitive conscience that causes feelings of guilt over things that are not wrong except in our own thoughts. This type of wrong and unhealthy guilt is what we will deal with in this chapter. I think I can safely say that I suffered more with feelings of guilt in my life than any other thing.
    In
The Phantom Limb
, Dr. Paul Brand provides a vivid image of the impact of unhealthy guilt.
    Amputees often experience some sensation of a phantom limb. Somewhere, locked in their brains, a memory lingers of the nonexistent hand or leg. Invisible toes curl, imaginary hands grasp things, a “leg” feels so sturdy a patient may tryto stand on it. For a few, the experience includes pain. Doctors watch helplessly, for the part of the body screaming for attention does not exist. One such patient was my medical school administrator, Mr. Barwick, who had a serious and painful circulation problem in his leg but refused to allow the recommended amputation. As the pain grew worse, Barwick grew bitter. “I hate it!” he would mutter about the leg. At last he relented and told the doctor, “I can’t stand it anymore. I’m through with that leg. Take it off.” Surgery was scheduled immediately. Before the operation, however, Barwick proceeded with a bizarre request: “I would like you to preserve my leg in a pickling jar. I will install it on my mantel shelf. Then as I sit in my armchair, I will taunt the leg, ‘Hah! You can’t hurt me anymore!’ ” Ultimately, he