A lady told me in a conversation, how their family moved 11 times before she had reached teenage years, due to her father’s work. It impacted her profoundly… she became withdrawn, resisting friendships to avoid the pain of them inevitably ending.
Statue of John Wesley in Shoreditch. Photo: Andrea Nonni, pexels.com
During childhood many things shape us in becoming the sort of people we will end up as.
You can imagine how forming friendships would be difficult for the person I described above. Our family background is hugely formulative. The home environment, the dynamic we experience with parents, what we see modelled, our relationships with siblings and extended family are all huge ‘shapers’ – for good, though sadly for many – not so good.
Events at school, plus significant influencers like teachers, coaches, counsellors or doctors can all play a part in moulding aspects of our personality and behaviour as we enter adolescence. Lasting impressions can also be imbedded through intrusions of trauma, sickness, an accident, abuse, the passing of a loved one – literally a host of factors contribute to the development of our understanding of ‘who we are’ and our place in the world. Subtly forming responses to events we experience, we internally compile information. Some barely registers in our consciousness, nonetheless this conditioning shapes the inner conclusions we settle on, about ourselves.
It’s for this reason, words become vital in healing damage on the inside. Our sense of value and identity is shaped greatly by words – blessing or cursing, words build us up or tear us down, make us feel worthy, or cause us to feel hopeless and inadequate. Words of blessing are powerful and can never be overestimated in bringing healing to wounded hearts.
There’s a graphic illustration regarding John Wesley, who is said to have halted the erosion and changed the face of English society as he travelled hundreds of thousands of miles on horseback preaching to vast crowds. Three hundred years on, this ‘father’ of the Methodist Church, still influences the world.
Five-year-old Jacky (as he was called) was asleep late one night when a devastating fire destroyed the family home in February 1709. An older sister awoke to burning pieces of wood falling from the roof of their house, onto her bed. Her father, unaware their house was ablaze was confronted with flames in the hallway, when rising to investigate a voice outside yelling, ‘fire!’
The parents and eight children present in the home had few viable evacuation options. A servant’s bravery rescued younger ones from a nursery, with all eventually reaching safety outside…at least, it appeared so until Jacky’s frightened little face appeared at an upstairs window. With no time to find a ladder, a quick thinking neighbour stood on another’s shoulders, stretching to pull Jacky through the window just as the roof collapsed into his bedroom.
Re-united with her beloved Jacky, his mother declared enduring words over him that he’d never forget, “Thou art a brand plucked from the burning – God must have some special purpose for thee.” Those words proved crucial in shaping John Wesley’s destiny- throughout childhood and beyond, they sustained and motivated his purpose.
What words of hope might you give, to shape someone’s future?
Moving house. Photo: Karolina Kaboompics, pexels.com
