My previous 2 entries (Part 1 & Part 2) was on RenJie - a prison inmate who had not went home for 12 long years =(
I was saddened when I read about RenJie's tore relationship with his family. Because of his broken promise to his parents to turn over a new leaf, his Dad quarreled with him. In his anger, RenJie stormed out of the house and decided never to return. In his own words,
I was saddened when I read about RenJie's tore relationship with his family. Because of his broken promise to his parents to turn over a new leaf, his Dad quarreled with him. In his anger, RenJie stormed out of the house and decided never to return. In his own words,
心里狠狠想，你们不要我，我就堕落给你们看
In the end, because of unresolved anger and disappointment and anger, RenJie and his parents were separated for the last 12 years.
A thought came to my mind even as I ponder on his story :
RenJie is serving out his sentence in a physical prison because of his mistakes in life. Similarly, we may also be trap in “prison” in our hearts because of unresolved issues (e.g. anger, bitterness, disappointment) with people in our lives.
As a result, just as the walls of a real prison separate the inmates from the outside world and restrict their freedom, this emotional prison separates us from the people we have issues with. We also find ourselves having no freedom whenever we are around the persons.Personally, I myself had been “imprisoned” before when I felt let down by people and my expectations were not met.
- Emotionally, I could be angry or disappointed with them.
- In my mind, I will be thinking in frustration,” How could he or she
act or think like that?” - A wall starts to be built up between them and me.
- When the persons are around, I will feel uncomfortable as seeing them will ignite the negative emotions.
- Worse still, every small thing they do or say will somehow make me feel uncomfortable and at times I will find unnecessary faults in their actions or words. I could also be harsh with them, either in thoughts or in words.
- After a while, I find myself avoiding them because I either could not stand the sight of them or I do not want the “ugly” self in me to surface.
Before I know it, I find myself serving my sentence in my prison of the heart! =(
The question we should be asking ourselves is this (the same question all inmates like to ask) : How can we break free from free from this heart prison?
Well, in my next entry, I will share with you the keys to open the door to this prison so that we can be set free!
2 comments:
i guess the feelings of disappointment/anger/resentment are even stronger especially when they are towards ppl you hold dear to your heart.. and it may take a long and slow process to unlock our hearts from that prison.
Yeah. There is a fine line between love and hate. The person whom u love the most is also the person that can hurt you the most. You are disappointed that your trust and love are misplaced. =( But I guess the way to learn to forgive someone is to 1st realise that all of us had and will make mistakes and need forgiveness. We can forgive someone becos we 1st receive forgiveness from other people.
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