My father was an abusive alcoholic that beat me and beat my mother. I know what it's like to suffer at the hands of a father that is not a real father.
My mother divorced my father and took me to another country where I grew up as a foreigner. I couldn't speak the language. Meanwhile, my mother, who had the opportunity to make a great life for herself, fell into the sin of self pity. Instead of using the resources available to her to make a good life for us, she chose to wallow in that self pity. She was a victim who blamed every single difficulty on the fact that she had a bad marriage. The, in turn, she abused me emotionally, expecting me, a child, to be her support system.
In her miserable self pity, my mother allowed her life to deteriorate. She pushed people away. She let herself go. Eventually, it was so awful to be around her that I fled from her and that country, and came back to my own country all alone.
All alone in an unfamiliar place, I also started to fall into the sin of self pity. Why was self pity my sin? Because it separated me from the God that I love. My self pity caused me to doubt His goodness. But because He is good, He allowed me to suffer in my self pity until a wonderful friend told me to knock it off and get real. As long as I was wallowing in feeling sorry for myself, she said, God would not move in my life. I had a choice: follow Him, or remain self centered, pitiful and miserable. It was my turning point.
I chose Him. I chose to believe in the God of the Bible. I chose to set aside my skewed, sick thinking, and rely on Him. I chose to hold onto Him as though my life depended on it....because it did.
I know pain, and I know suffering. My 12 year old daughter died in my arms after being horribly disabled her whole life. That qualifies me to talk about suffering.
I understand that you are suffering as well. But you are choosing to allow the sin of self pity to overtake you, and as my friend told me, I will tell you: God will not move in your life as long as you make your self pity your God. When you choose your misery over Him, that is where you will stay. My mother did that and became completely emotionally crippled, pushing every single person who cared for her away from her. She created her own hell and refused to leave.
I did not go in that path. I chose to accept the call of our loving Father. He changed my life, and comforted me as I sent my precious little girl into His arms.
You say that you think He chose you to suffer. Really? I think not. He allowed this to happen so that you could overcome and become a blessing to others. But if you insist on calling yourself worthless because you had a dud for a father, then by extension, so are the rest of us. You cannot claim that God loves some and not you. That is not who He is. You cannot tell anyone else that God loves them with any credibility if you believe that you are worthless. He has told us, on no uncertain terms, that He loves every single one of His children. He did not say that there are some special cases that He torments just for the fun of it. No.... you have a challenge to face. You can choose to follow Him, to overcome, to be victorious, all in His strength Or, you can do what my mother did, and roll around in the muck of self pity. I understand the temptation to do that...if you do, you don't have to take responsibility. You can remain a victim and seek out people to feel sorry for you. But I promise you, that will never satisfy you.
Or you can choose life, and choose God. You have the opportunity to become a physician's assistant and make a difference in the lives of thousands. Or, you can just stay where you are. It is entirely up to you.
But I implore you...do not tell the lie that God doesn't care. Don't insult the Lord who laid down His life for you and me. Don't tell other people that God loves them while saying in the same breath that you are worthless. Because that is a lie from the pit of hell.
Self pity is the devil's favorite playground. It is the most insidious form of pride. It's where he can cripple God's people and render them useless for the Kingdom. We are called, as the children of the God most high, to put on the armor of God and not fall for it. We are not helpless victims. We are God's people called to push past difficulty and love others into the Kingdom. It is your choice which way you go. Which will you choose?
