Pity Party Pooper

Young people of today might not know what a party pooper is, as it is an old–fashioned expression for someone who ruins the mood. Well, if one is going to ruin the mood of a party, it should be a pity party that gets ruined.

Self–pity was my worst weakness. I spent hours and hours feeling sorry for myself, going over and over how I was wronged or misunderstood, and imagining how sorry those people would be if I killed myself because they were so indifferent or cruel.

I sure was sorry for myself after my husband left me when I was 31 years old. I saw myself as the long–suffering wife who was married to an alcoholic, and then I found out he was unfaithful, too! I insisted that he go to AA, but he didn't want to do that. He decided to leave me. I was shattered and had a nervous breakdown.

I blamed myself, though, for losing my husband. I was far from perfect. Maybe if I had been an exemplary Christian, instead of a backslider, the marriage could have been saved, but there's no way of knowing this.

In my distress, I was not abandoned by the One who always loves us, in spite of our character flaws and the mistakes we make. I felt the Presence of God in a deeper, closer way than ever before in that troubled time, and afterwards, too. He gave me dreams and visions that helped me heal.

One of the visions came in a dream. I was walking through an unfinished basement, which was symbolic of my situation. I was in abasement. Humbled. No longer a beloved wife; now I was an abandoned wife. I saw a demon with a horrible, black, bubbly–looking face. It was very scary. Suddenly, his face fell off and I saw it was just a mask. The demon now looked like a big, fat kid wearing a striped T–shirt, hugging himself as he rolled about on the floor, moaning and crying. I looked at him in amazement.

When I woke up, I asked the Lord, "What was THAT?" He replied, without any taint of condemnation, "It's self–pity. It's immature." I realized that He was saying this about me, and that it was time I grew up. There were photos of me as a baby, wearing a striped T–shirt. The black, bubbly mask looked like a marshmallow when it gets burnt. That was me, a big marshmallow, moaning and crying about how I had been burned, cheated of what was rightfully mine, starting from my childhood onward to that present time.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and that one sure worked for me. First of all, self–pity is a demon. Secondly, it locks one into weakness and immaturity. I needed to see that big, blubbering, over–grown cry baby to see what I was, in order to not be that way anymore.

When the people who hurt me said I was a cry baby, it just made me mad. They were acting like jerks, angry that I was holding their abuse against them because it wasn't convenient for them that I held a grudge. Neither did it help for onlookers to point it out, as this tended to be a put–down, an impatience with my pain. But when Someone who loves me so much that He gave His own life to save my soul said it to me, I knew He did it for my liberation, not for a selfish purpose.

I didn't stop being angry about past wrongs right away, or with new offenses. It prevented me from feeling sorry for myself anymore, though.

It sure was a good thing Jesus brought that lesson home to me because I had lots of occasions where I could have wallowed in self–pity in the years that followed. However, it wouldn't have helped anything. I needed to be strong. I had big challenges that have driven other people to suicide. But this was the Word of the Lord at the very beginning of my fiery trial, "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD." [Psalm 118:17]

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