Self-Pity at the Door
Self-Pity at the Door
The modern technology which has brought us so many helpful new products, plastics, insecticides, and preservatives looms like a deadly curse for a friend of mine.
Linda has been chemically poisoned. As a result, she’s lost the ability to tolerate this synthetic world of ours.
I went to see her last week at her little place tucked back in the Santa Barbara hills. For two weeks prior, I had to go through a total “detoxification” of my clothes, my body, and my hair. I couldn’t use perfumes, deodorants, or soaps. I couldn’t even eat garlic or onion or anything spicy.
As we ate together in her home, Linda described an incident from the previous week. She was forced to endure a lengthy confinement in her bedroom simply because the neighbors down the road were having a barbecue. One whiff of wind-blown lighter fluid can cause her to lose consciousness.
Because of her disability, Linda is mostly alone. She is isolated from friends and family. Yet her solitude is often disturbed by a persistent visitor at her door. This unwelcome acquaintance knocks and knocks, whining and pleading to get in.
His name is Self-Pity.
It’s certainly easy to understand why Linda feels tempted to let this unrelenting visitor in. It would be easy to feel sorry for herself when she has to use an old-style metal telephone with ancient, deteriorating parts that can’t be replaced. Her shouted conversations over that phone leave her frustrated and exhausted.
Does she have it rough? Don’t you think she deserves some time off for a few hours visit with Self-Pity? Some people would say yes—and understandably so.
But Linda? Listen to what she told me:
“No, Joni, suffering and sickness and pain don’t rank high on my list of best possible options for a happy life. But God alone can determine what’s best for me. Only He sees the beginning from the end. He’s the only One who knows what it’s going to take to conform me to the image of His Son. And He spares no pain in accomplishing His will in my life. I don’t need pity; and what I need even less is my own pity.”
We all find days when Self-Pity, like an obnoxious salesman, keeps ringing the bell and pounding on our door. Days when we feel as though nobody has it as tough as we do. You know those days: a dish clatters to the floor, the phone rings, the garbage disposal chokes to death, the automatic garage door opener goes on strike, and the bank informs you that another check just bounced.
Ah, poor me! you think to yourself.
Before you offer hospitality to old Self-Pity, remember Linda in the Santa Barbara hills. Linda who endures so much aloneness, but surrounds herself with the prayers of caring Christian friends … and refuses to allow that persistent knocker entrance.
If she can keep that door closed and latched, so can you.