The "Double Yoke" Syndrome

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Hope in a Prison of Despair:Wikimedia Commons 
The food we feed our minds and the things we tell ourselves make a great deal of difference in whether our cross feels light or heavy. Half the problem with feeling "doubly yoked" is what we believe about ourselves and others mixed with what we may not believe nor trust about God. Many people feel overwhelmed and weighed down but the truth is that feeling heavily burdened is often the result of a lack of hope.

Despair is the heaviest thing in the whole universe. Even a little bit is hard to carry.

What we believe or disbelieve about ourselves can leave us locked into patterns of living that make it more difficult to respond to God's freely given grace. If we don't believe that we, or others, or even a situation, can change we have the tendency to slam the door on grace. Very often there are hidden areas of hopelessness in our lives that God yearns to touch deeply with his grace but because of the things we believe about ourselves and others we keep the door closed through our own hardness of heart. A strong and stubborn belief can be a hard obstacle to remove. It can be done but we have to ask God to open up these painful wounded areas to hope. As in "Lord, please pour your hope into this area. I have difficulty believing I can/she can/he can change and I hand it over to you. Touch this part of my life with your grace. May the light of  hope cast its rays on the dark corners of my heart and may your love be the balm that heals this brokenness within me."  continue reading>

Comments

  1. Nancy Shuman10:28 am, February 19, 2014

    Mary, I LOVE this post. Thank you for sharing it here!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mary N.3:30 pm, February 19, 2014

    And thank YOU for your kind comment, Nancy :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Eileen Frank10:26 pm, February 19, 2014

    Beautiful! ...and a perfect way to end my day, which started out -- and continued on -- steeped in "hope": the focus of my own post today. :)
    So nice to meet you here, Mary, as well. God bless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mary N.10:27 am, February 20, 2014

      Nice to meet you too, Eileen! Thank you for your comment! I enjoyed the "feast of hope" you shared in your post :)

      Delete
  4. Melanie Jean Juneau11:01 pm, February 19, 2014

    as someone who has gone through years of inner healing, I can relate. You express the process perfectly

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mary N.10:34 am, February 20, 2014

    Thanks, Melanie - I ask for inner healing every day. It's been a long process for me but one I am so
    grateful for! I can see that you have gone through it as well when I read your blog because I find myself saying, "Yes, Melanie hit that one right on the nose again!" Thank you for commenting :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mary N.10:37 am, February 20, 2014

      Though I have to admit it hurt a lot at first because I was way off the mark. I think God met up with a lot of inner resistance in me for a while because I didn't know how to entrust myself to someone else. It's easier now though :)

      Delete

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