They’re all looking at me!

In a village in rural Russia, about the year 1950, a little girl was sent by her mother to get bread from the shop. It was very early, but many people were waiting in line. The little girl burned with shame. Once again she had been sent out without any money, and would have to ask out loud for bread ‘on the slate’. Once again everybody would know that she came from a poor family. The shame of poverty was crushing her human spirit.

Sixty years later, after a life of work, she was still afraid to speak before people or voice an opinion. She was ashamed and afraid to be noticed. But then God reached in, healed her crushed human spirit, washed away her shame and restored her joy and life in abundance.

I have found that many things can crush the human spirit and restrict the flow of life itself - poverty, criticism, rejection, abuse, failure, shame – so that we feel we’re not living, only existing. But I have also found that God is able to ‘restore the years that the locusts have eaten’ (Joel 2:25) and give us life in abundance.

I want to encourage all those, who aren’t living but just existing, that there is hope. God can come to the place where your human spirit was crushed, bringing healing and restoring life and hope. Perhaps you would like to invite Him to do that by praying something like this:

God, I don’t know how to pray properly. I’m not even sure if you’re there. I feel like a walking shadow, not fully alive. Please heal my crushed human spirit, so that I can live again. I want to rejoin the human race. I want to know what it is to be alive. I want to be able to hold up my head. Please help me. Amen.