YOU CAN'T COME IN!!!

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“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness...’” Matt. 22:11-13

I was talking to someone near and dear to me the other day and she told me that lately she had been troubled by some bad memories.

Having literally met with thousands of counseling clients I can tell you I have been introduced and re-introduced to this scenario hundreds of times over the past thirty years.

But to return to my initial story.

As my relative and I talked and she expressed how certain memories were causing her mental anguish, I decided to share an analogy with her that I have used in the past.

“Madelyn, (not her actual name) let’s say you decide to have a party and you invite ten of your friends, and you are enjoying yourselves, and then suddenly there is a knock on your front door. You go to the door and throw it open, and there before you is the nastiest, meanest, most ferocious creature you have ever seen. Do you invite him in? (An admittedly rhetorical question).

The ghosts of the past often attempt to intrude on our present. However, ghosts can’t hurt you unless you greet them, as it were, and invite them into your life. The longer we ‘entertain them’ the longer they will trouble our thoughts and potentially even our function.

When they come it behooves us to shut the proverbial door in their faces. Granted, it can be more difficult than I have expressed, but I think the more we purposely deny such memories entrance into our daily lives, the more adept we will become in shutting that door in their faces.

By William McDonald, PhD