Oh, and mine is for the Discouraged Mom. I think I swapped the two because though we can feel both unappreciated and discouraged, I'm not seeking to help moms feel appreciated. Their families, friends, and even society simply need to appreciate moms better. But while that appreciation may take a while, meanwhile, I do wish moms to feel ENCOURAGED now. So I guess MY letter addresses what one might plot to keep a mom from finding encouragement.
My Dear Wormwood,
I congratulate you on helping your patient to feel an obsession with comparison. I call it the ever-present measuring stick. I am writing to point out that though you may think it helpful that she is focused on trivial measurements (things like the number of cute outfits in her closet compared to other moms), even comparisons of a deeper nature (like the well-being of her family to other families) can serve our purpose to lead her to discouragement and despair. The despair over perceived inadequacies of meaning can, and likely will be as debilitating as the despair over frivolities.
In fact, the BEST measurement is the feeling that even her discouragements don’t measure up. She offered to watch the children of a friend whose husband has been diagnosed with cancer while the friend ran errands. You can taint every bit of joy she may feel from that service by suggesting to her, in her moments of exhaustion, that she is far too ungrateful because at least her husband isn’t terminally ill.
These measurements of “righteousness” or “worthiness” are far greater tools of defeat! Let her concern herself with ALWAYS measuring her own acquisition of our enemies attributes with those around her! Not only will these never feel trivial, but she may begin to believe that discouragement IS sin and weakness failure, making our jobs all the easier! (Has she seen the recent Facebook post that suggests discouragement IS giving in to the evil one? I’ve been pleased with the time your subject spends on social media, and this idea, as well as a host of other measuring sticks to depress souls are easy to find there.)
If her discouragement is a passing thing that will go as her children become more independent, don’t ever let her know of it’s natural easing, nor of the cycles of rest and productivity. Not only may this knowledge comfort her during the discouragement to come, but she is so much more easily manipulated if she has the expectation that she can always be ANYTHING - even happy, or fulfilled, or serving others. Thus both phases, when not seen as part of a cycle, work to our advantage: even the good times can, with your help, set the expectation that selflessness and service need never be followed by rest and quiet moments to herself.
Perhaps keeping natural things like cycles and her real needs from her gets to my point: above all you must keep her distracted from seeing things as they really are. Our enemy, if the humans would ever be quiet enough to hear Him, often asks them to look, and then He fills their minds with light and knowledge - an understanding not only of themselves and those around them in the very moment they really look, but also a vision of how things may really be.
Don’t be so foolish as to congratulate yourself on keeping the real needs of those around her from her attention. Her family and even strangers may feel her love, even as she meets their wishes and whims and misses the bigger picture. This love has a power to fill in the gaps of what she does and the greater good she could have done. Our enemy is skilled at taking the meager offerings of his minions and working miracles with them. And besides, she may come to realize on some level that she can’t fully understand anyone perfectly but herself.
This can become dangerous for you if she ever tries to understand herself perfectly. She may be quite hurried now, but beware of any quiet moment, even a discouraged, overwhelmed, and giving-up moment when she really examines her heart and comes to know how she really is. If she ever stops to acknowledge how overwhelmed she is, she might recognize the expectations we have helped her to have aren’t based in reality, or on her skills, talents, or interests and DO something to change either her expectations OR her circumstances.
She has learned from our enemy to value selfless service. You skillfully turned that into a vague feeling that she should do for her family what they are capable, certainly much of the time, of doing for themselves. If she ever awakens to the realization that she can ask for help, not only have we lost in creating the sense of overwhelm for her, but by doing and serving their mother and wife, her family will grow as well, and that will make our work with all of them all the more difficult.
Though it may be effective to suggest other woman get by just fine without the help she needs, better to keep the idea of even recognizing her own needs as far from her conscious mind as possible. Keep her discouragement, her loneliness, her need to be understood as vague a feeling as possible. You’ve done great work on building resentment, as she doesn’t ask for and so doesn’t receive the assistance she needs. But don’t let her mind even acknowledge that she FEELS resentment. Better to keep that pleasant pit of bitterness in her heart growing unnamed than to have her ever suspect what it is and where it comes from. It’s so much more likely to remain if the pain in her heart only ever causes guilt that she feels pain at all!
Finally, aside from the conscious awareness of her measuring sticks and a perfect knowledge of herself as she really is at the moment, there are a hundred other truths our enemy might reveal to her about herself and the people around her to bring all our progress to ruin. It has been sheer genius that you have caused her to feel she builds her relationship to Him by listening to what others have to say about Him. There is so much other distraction in social media, anything she might come across there will be incredibly diluted. But even her sense that she should study His words can be yet another measuring stick, and if so used, may keep her worrying she hasn’t read her scriptures “enough” instead of noticing she feels overwhelmed with worry and just talking to Him about THAT. Let her feel “spiritual” by reading a few nice thoughts about the enemy here and there, and never really connect to Him with honest, sincere, and open prayer. Given such an opportunity, He is likely to fill her heart with peace about herself, not to mention the clear ideas about how she might help herself grow AND serve the people around her, and then so much of our work on her, as well as on those she influences, will be lost! Continue in diligence!
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape
Here's the one that ruffled my feathers: http://www.onepeterfive.com/a-screwtape-letter-for-the-unappreciated-mom/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=postplanner&utm_source=facebook.com
I love yours! And not the other one. .. yours is motivating and encouraging. Thanks
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Delete