THE CONSOLATION PRIZE
By Carol Pearson
Copyright: Carol Pearson - July 2005 - All rights Reserved
One day recently I reached for a chocolate bar. It was far too
hot to bother to get anything else to eat and, anyway, I felt
pressured by others and a bit down. Things weren't going too well;
that sinking feeling down into "depression" was crowding in on me.
As I reached for the chocolate, I realised again how many times I
had done this before. It had become a well-worn path over more than
fifty years of my life! Yes, I wanted it somehow to be a consolation
to me at that very moment! I knew, Even if I'd done something wrong
or just hadn't quite achieved, the chocolate WOULD help me to feel
"Just a bit better about myself and my situation! Again (as I had
many times before) I reminded the Lord that I had been concerned
about my "habit" (to eat this wonderful tasting "stuff" for a while
now but I was powerless to do anything about it. I told Him again
that I wanted Him to reveal any root cause and show me if I should
leave it alone completely. Again, I found myself thinking that
perhaps I could just cut it down. At that point "discipline" came to
the fore and I ate just a third of the bar and put the rest away
until another time!
Later that day my mind flashed back to the thoughts I had when
taking the chocolate and then, as if a light had been turned on, I
found myself thinking about an occasion much earlier in my life when
I was a junior at boarding school. I recalled much detail of this
memory, although this has not always been the case when the Lord has
healed me from past wounds and wrong thinking. At that time we had a
visit from a researcher who was most interested to learn how blind
people "tick", what sort of things we could do, how imaginative we
were and whether we could learn a complicated little route. His
tests were quite numerous and varied and I quite enjoyed them. We
listened to a series of noises and had to tell a story around them,
adding to the story as each noise was given to us. We had a maize
through which we had to walk and most of us got horribly lost. We
had yet another test which involved working out exactly where a sound
came from. There were others also, but I don't remember them now.
I do however remember that after each test we were rewarded with
small bars of chocolate. It seemed to me that some friends got more
than others, and perhaps this was because they were better at the
tests but it may have been because they were "the favourites", and of
course I didn't like that very much. However, we all got some
chocolate each time a test was given and that was the best part of
taking the tests and made it all worthwhile! Truly, when we had done
badly, the chocolate was a consolation!
As I had seen that flashback to that memory so clearly, I then
saw His truth as He revealed it to me! "That's right, Lord," I said:
"The chocolate was 'my consolation' - it was given to me whether I
did well or badly. I reflected, "It was given at other times in my
childhood also. It was the way to say "Thank you very much, little
girl, for your services" as, on a number of occasions, I was forced
to please relations and friends of the family as they allowed their
sexual desires to have full pleasure as they did what they wished
with a small, frightened child. The chocolate bars were the
presents for "being a good little girl and saying nothing to anyone
about these terrifying experiences!" Again, the bars of chocolate
were given as a consolation from Daddy when there was nothing else he
could give to me when he had been away working and I had not been
able to understand where he was and why he had left me! Yes, they
were my "consolations" and "my comforts" and I enjoyed them!
I understood a long time ago that people often took comfort in
their eating and even knew that I did it myself, but now, as He spoke
into my situation and thinking, this became personal to me. I was
able to understand where this root had its beginnings and to face
the lies which emerged every time I ate the chocolate! I knew how
Dad had felt so much better when he gave me the chocolate on his
return from another work trip, but the gift he bore each time soon
became a "must" for his little girl who needed the comfort she
thought it afforded! The chocolate had also served to help those
who took me to their beds to feel better about what they had done to
me and be reasonably sure that I would keep quiet. I had to face it
though, that it only satisfied for a little while, then I needed some
more to be "my fix" for depression, loneliness, bereavement,
disappointments and so many other problems in my life. I needed that
chocolate time and again! What a ghastly state. I knew without a
doubt that I was certainly no better than those who abuse their
bodies with drugs and alcohol and all I could do was to cry out to
the Lord for His victory for me!
I acknowledged before my Heavenly Father that I had substituted
all that He had to give to me and all that He would do for me with
"my temporary fix" of chocolate. For years, I had said time and
again that I wanted to know the riches of God and His abundance in my
life, but over and over again I had chosen my own comfort! I knew I
had treated my Heavenly Father very badly in taking the chocolate
instead of asking for His mercy and great riches. I poured out my
heart to Him and asked His forgiveness. Then I waited quietly to see
what He would say to me. I knew He would speak because otherwise I
would be left with a problem far too big for me to address! I knew
well enough that He would not leave me comfortless but He would come
to me! (See John 14:18.) He had spoken those words to me, as He did
to His disciples, on a number of occasions during my walk with Him,
so they were very precious!
He showed me a picture. A tiny baby lay in His arms. (Yes,
that baby was me.) There was a large comfort blanket tucked under my
chin. I had been sucking it, because it was my comforter. As I fell
asleep, He gently removed it. Then, something else happened. He
spread me out in front of Him and began to breathe into my nostrils.
I was receiving the very life of God Himself! I could no longer use
that blanket to meet my needs because now they were being met by the
very breath of God as He continued to fill me! I had nothing to do
except just to lie there and take in the pure sustaining Spirit of
God!
Now that He has spoken clearly to me and answered my prayers, I
know my need can no more be met with a bar of chocolate! When I
find, for any reason, that I am not coping with pain and grief, fear
and frustration, or anything at all that separates me from Jesus
Christ and causes me to move from my place of rest, I have to go
directly to the One Who Satisfies. Taking the chocolate first and
then going to My Father in Heaven is no longer an option for me. He
requires that I go straight to Him and find He has more than enough
to supply all my need! I have thanked Him that, by His grace alone,
He will work this in me to His glory!
It has been very important here that God has come to me in
answer to my prayers and spoken with me about this problem I had in
my life. Hearing from others about the hold of a habit in a life and
even agreeing with them is not enough! We have to invite the King of
Kings and Lord of Lords to come in and take His rightful place. He
is gracious and heals and restores. He does not condemn us for our
weakness. He understands it and makes us strong as He deals with
everything that we have placed before Him in our lives. There are
some who believe that they do live completely without sin in their
lives now that they are Christians. Well, I long for that day to be
true in my life, but I choose right now to acknowledge the truth and
confess God's Word, as the Apostle John wrote in his first letter:
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is
not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word
is not in us. (1 John 1:8-10 AV).
One day I will know the joy of the power of Jesus living always
and forever in my life. Meantime, I do still reach for that
chocolate occasionally, but now have a far greater understanding of
what I'm doing (yes, committing sin) if I take it to pacify some need
in my life which God wants to meet! Then I have to confess it, get
up again and go on giving all to Him and asking Him to show His
power in me!
I don't know what things you find yourself reaching for when the
going gets tough, but He knows and, if you will only ask Him, He will
work a miracle in your life that will free you from any bondage
however long you have been bound by it! We cannot free ourselves but
we can want Him to free us! He is our God and He has the right to
say to us, "You shall have no other god but Me"! That simply means
having nothing to depend upon (trust or rely upon) or give our
affections to that takes His rightful place!
We can be in bondage to many things or people. We have wrong
relationships where we seek to serve another person, (sometimes
allowing our flesh to be gratified). We go on doing what pleases
others and not what pleases God! We get into such messes and cannot
help ourselves out of them. Praise God! He waits to be gracious to
us and to free us from everything that does not glorify Him!
God doesn't give Himself as "a consolation". He gave Himself
fully when He sent His son to die on a cross for each one of us,
taking with Him all the sin of a fallen, depraved world! He doesn't
offer a consolation prize for being good because none of us are good
in His eyes, but He does offer us His grace in abundance which brings
us from darkness into His wonderful light and sets us on course to
gain that prize of eternal life with Him which He has for every one
of us if we will live according to His rules! Put very simply, we
win only as we put Him first in all things and love Him with all our
mind and soul and strength and that means putting nothing before Him
and allowing Him daily to satisfy all the longings of our grieving,
hurting, wounded, sin-sick souls. Will you go there with me and
offer up to Him whatever it is that you reach for to satisfy every
pain that you bear today? If you will do this, He will give to you
much, much more than you could ever dare to imagine.
If you want to do this but need help to share your pain and
suffering with Him, Safe Place Fellowship offers you help and
security as you find your way through whatever troubles you to that
place of wholeness in God as we find His provision to be sufficient
for all our needs!
End Of Document
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