Dealing with feelings of loss and internal pain.

[Voyager]

All my life I have felt a nagging pain inside my soul. It's like a wound that never heals. I've always had low self-esteem. I wouldn't say that I have a poor self-image. I guess it's more like a feeling of sadness, like you would feel after a great loss. I've struggled with this all my life. I'm not sure if it came from the trauma that hit my home when my dad abandonded us when I was almost two-years-old, but I would guess that has something to do with it.

All through my teen years I drowned this inner pain with drugs and alcohol. Then when I was 22 I began drowning it with pentecostalism. I was able to replace the drugs and alcohol with periodic "pentecostal highs" that my church provided. I also believe that the supportive atmosphere of the church may have satisfied the deep feelings of loss within my soul. That is, until I had to escape the church after the abuse became too out-of-control. I was there for 12 years.

Within a few months of leaving the church in 1998, I started trying to find something to quench my deep inner pain. I didn't consciously know what I was doing at the time - I just knew that I was hurting. It's like I was back at ground zero again. No drugs, no booze, no church - just me - and I was hurting inside. So I started drinking a little here and there. Then I had to have shoulder surgery in 2001 and they put me on hydrocodone pain pills. Needless to say, the pain pills helped get rid of the physical pain - and the emotional pain also - temporarily.

I haven't become an alcoholic, because I never have problems when I drink. I don't drink all the time. But I probably do drink when I am down. I still take a pain pill once or twice a day also. But not for my physical pain, which is gone. I take them for my internal pain. A pain that never goes away. I take very small doses of the pain pills, and I am probably not addicted (I have gone several days without them).

Lately I have noticed signs of depression getting worse. I have been dealing with insomnia and not wanting to get out of bed in the mornings - I lay there in so much inner pain that I just don't want to get up. I find myself (and my wife) passing on our low self-esteem to our older daughter who is nine-years-old. I read this article the other day, which made my depression even worse:

Self-esteem is caught as well as taught. Therefore, another effective way to give a child a healthy self-image is to have a healthy self-image yourself. If you love and accept yourself in a healthy way, it will be natural for you to love and accept your children the same way. If you don’t like yourself, it is nigh on impossible to teach your children to like themselves. Unfortunately, we raise not the children we want but the children that we the parents are.

If a child already has a poor self-concept, parents can help change it for the better. Given lots of unconditional love and acceptance, and being freed from any critical attitude, a child will respond beautifully. To do this, as already noted, the parent needs to resolve his own issues and work on improving his own self-concept. The fact is that we can only give what we have received for ourselves. In other words, we cannot give what we haven't got.

Resolve resentment. If a child has been hurt deeply by anyone, especially if he or she has been abused or neglected, professional counseling may be needed to help the child work through the resulting emotions of fear, hurt, guilt, shame, and/or anger. Without resolving these deep damaged emotions, a child doesn't have a chance of having a healthy self-concept.

Parents need to accept responsibility for their children’s self-esteem. As one person stated, "Your child’s self is a gift from God, but his or her self-image is in your hands."

This article puts me in a catch-22 situation. First, I am responsible for my child's self-esteem. Second, I cannot give what I don't have. So therefore I am frigging screwed. My wounds will become my kid's wounds. My kid will grow up without any self-esteem, and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. She will probably be looking for a bottle or a pill to drown her pains by the time she is in her mid-teens.

I know that I already had wounds before I went to a church. But now, I am between a rock and a hard place. Because of my church experience I am now totally anti-church. I despise all "religious authority" with a passion. So, going to another church to find support and help seems out of the question. I don't know where else to turn.

I have tried to find an addiction counselor locally, but when I call places the people just refer me to A.A. I tried going to some A.A. meetings and I didn't care for them. They seemed cold and lacked the warmth that I felt in church. Most of the people there had wrecked cars, lost jobs, etc., and I haven't had those problems. Not that I am better than they are, but I feel like I need specialized counseling to work through the issues that drive me to self-medicate.

I've never been this candid with anyone other than my wife, let alone online - so please don't brow-beat my post or condemn me. I know that I need to get some help. As much as I try to be emotionally available for my family, the pain within my soul keeps me from being able to do that 100%. I still provide for them very well and I am not the least bit abusive (I don't even spank our kids).

The article above stated:

If a child has been hurt deeply by anyone, especially if he or she has been abused or neglected, professional counseling may be needed to help the child work through the resulting emotions of fear, hurt, guilt, shame, and/or anger. Without resolving these deep damaged emotions, a child doesn't have a chance of having a healthy self-concept.

I see myself in this state. I probably need professional counseling to work through my deep internal wounds. I have made several attempts to do so, but with no luck. The last time I tried a counselor, in our first session she told me that she had a dream where my son and I were playing football in a park, and asked if that meant anything to me. I told her that I didn't have a son, and then asked to go to the bathroom. I hit the back door as fast as I could and bailed on the session. I think she was a religious whacko.

Thanks for listening and caring.

:cool:

[Beloved of God]

Oh, Voyager, you are breaking my heart! I am so very, very sorry. I will re-read your post this evening so that I can pray for you with more understanding. I have been addicted to Hydrocodone (not saying that you are). I have suffered abuse almost all of my life.
Voyager, I sincerely hope that my name does not "trigger" you. Forgive me, please if it does. God's beloved................

[Sheep]

[QUOTE=Voyager] I guess it's more like a feeling of sadness, like you would feel after a great loss. I've struggled with this all my life. I'm not sure if it came from the trauma that hit my home when my dad abandonded us when I was almost two-years-old, but I would guess that has something to do with it.

Voyager,

It is amazing to me that God knit me together in my mother's womb. I fell out of a car at two years old and my parents' friend didn't even know at first that I was gone! It's incredible the details that have come back with this memory and the messages I received from that trauma. I have grieved much over this recently and continue to tell myself that I am important. God has reassured me that He was with me then and it is He who helped me to survive. He will never leave me or abandon me. Here's to hoping that you will let the sadness come and allow yourself to grieve...for I am learning that grieving is such a normal part of life.

Thanks for sharing,

Sheep :)

[Florence]

Friend Voyager,
Thank you so much for sharing your heart with us. As I read your opening comments, I felt as though you had looked inside my own heart and were putting to words what I have found difficult to say:

"All my life I have felt a nagging pain inside my soul. It's like a wound that never heals."

My father died when I was three years old. When my brother told me that he was never coming home again, that Daddy had gone to heaven to be with God, all my little three-year-old mind could think was, "God must think I am a very bad girl to have taken my daddy away." And while I spent the rest of my growing up years trying to change God's mind - trying to be "good enough" for God, I somehow knew in my heart that I never would be.

I was not raised in a Christian home, so I really knew very little about God or Jesus - just what some fanatical Bible school the neighbor's drug us to once in a while had to say - all hell-fire and damnation. I finally heard the truth about Jesus when I went to college - that it was true, I never would be "good enough" but that I didn't have to be because God loved me enough - so much - that He had given Himself for me.

But, childhood experiences run deep and I think that is why it was so easy for me to fall prey to the abuses that I have experienced - I continue to struggle with the nagging inside that says that I have not yet measured up. I know the truth, but it's hard for me to fully embrace it.

I think I want to have a real, live, "father" figure who will give me that unconditional love that my own father was never around to give. I want someone who will be Jesus with skin on - someone who will never reject me or abandon me.

I wonder, too, if I need counseling, but I know a couple of counselors and over the years I have, in casual conversation, spoken to them about spiritual abuse and they never seem to have even heard of it, and I'm not sure they even believe it exists. One of my friends who was in counseling told me that for her, all counseling really was was paying someone to be her friend. I sometimes wonder if we all had friends who were truly Christ to us, would we find healing from our wounds much more quickly and easily? I don't know . . .

A lot of people have told me that I need to realize that God is my father and that no one can love me unconditionally except Him. But, I think God gave us fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, and friends to extend His love and His grace to us.

I just wish it weren't so hard to find those kind of people.

Florence

[Voyager]

I think I want to have a real, live, "father" figure who will give me that unconditional love that my own father was never around to give. I want someone who will be Jesus with skin on - someone who will never reject me or abandon me.

I could say the same thing. When I was in my former church, I felt like I had that. There were a lot of good people there, but the system was corrupt from the top down. It was like one big dysfunctional family. It looked organized and functional, but it was all a sham. It was glued together with shaming, humiliating, manipulating, and brainwashing - all the ingredients of a classic dysfunctional family. So I had to flee. I felt like a teenager leaving behind his younger siblings when he ran away from an abusive home.

The rejection and abandonment issues seem to be trauma bonds that I relive over and over. Maybe I am drawn to situations where they will occur, I'm not sure. I don't have relationship problems with my wife, but she came from an alcoholic dysfunctional family too. It's a miracle that we have it together at all. I think we are the misfits from our families - we actually want to have a functional family!

It's amazing what we find when we dig below the spiritual abuse issues. All that religion did for me was to mask the inner wounds that I have. I spiritualized them and then swept them under the rug. They were still there, but I put them in the "old man" compartment. Since I was now living in "resurrection life" I could deny them in hopes that they would go away - but they didn't.

:cool:

[Voyager]

I fell out of a car at two years old and my parents' friend didn't even know at first that I was gone! It's incredible the details that have come back with this memory and the messages I received from that trauma.

It's amazing how vulnerable our little minds were at that age. I think we share a common issue. We were traumatized at an early age, and it obviously left deep wounds on our souls.

:(

[Savedbygrace]

Dear Voyager,

I am so grateful that you trusted us enough to write this post. That in itself is a huge step in the right direction. Sharing the hurts of our past does bring relief and healing. I pray for you that while you have been left so battered by your "religious" experience, that somehow God will find a way to help heal the anger, hatered and resentment you are holding. I am not "brow beating" you for the way you feel, actually just the opposite. I pray that you can feel all of this hurt and anger, and somehow work through it.

I have to agree with the other post that talks about needing to greive. Keep in mind the "footsteps" poem. God is carrying you, even at these times when you feel so utterly alone. Those that abused you, especially the ones who did it in the name of God, will reap the consequences of their behavior. Please believe that one. But also know that holding onto the anger and resentment will only hurt you. Does that mean you have to go back to church? Absolutely not! I just hope you can work through the hurt so that someday when you see a church, or a preacher, or whatever it is that triggers you today, that someday it will not hurt so much. That you can find a measure of acceptance about the situation. (I hope came out in the loving way I intended.)

As far as your daughter goes, I am going to gently "correct" one thing you said. It is not hopeless! I hope through all of the pain and disappointment you have experienced in a church setting, you still can believe in God's grace and mercy. It is not religious. It has nothing to do with church leaders, or pastors, or ministries, or any of that. It is a personal love that he has for each one of us. You can find it in a church, an AA meeting, or in your bathroom at home. I find it regularly while I take my morning shower or drive in my car to a job. Why? I think it is because those are the moments when I am truly alone, and I can focus on him. My spirit is ministered to through music, reading, recovery groups, and good Godly friends (ok, maybe it should say "friend")

I pray for you to find a place of support to work through these issues. Personally, I find Christian support more helpful than secular support, but then again, it depends on the Christians. The only advice I can give you is to keep trying until you find something that feels right. Here are a couple of ideas:

Christian 12-step recovery ministries, like Celebrate Recovery or Overcomers Outreach. They usually are open to people struggling with any typ of emotional pain and addiction.

Christian Counseling - try several. Interview them over the phone, discuss the type of abuse you have experienced, and see how they react. If the phone interview goes well, then make an appointment. If that does not feel right, try another. remember you are worth the effort.

Have you ever considered anti-depressants? Maybe they could help you stand on "higher ground" and give you the energy to work though your pains. It is safer than using the pain killers, and probably far more effective. Just a thought.

As far as the guilt of what you have done to your daughter, that sounds like it may be false guilt. If you have done your best in raising her, then you have done your best. With every day of your recovery, you become healthier, so will the way you parent. You are here, and that says a lot. You want to do better for your daughter than your parents (or lack of) did. Remember, too that the Lord loves her and is watching over her. She will be ok and so will you.

To me, healthy self esteem is seeing myself the way God sees me, and believing it. It is being able to filter out the negative thoughts about myself, seeing them as the lies that they are, and replacing them with positive thoughts. I hope you will be able to find a support system to help you do that.

((((((Voyager)))))))

Trish

ps. I hope this is not triggering to you. If it is, I am sorry. I probably said way too much. Know it is all said in love.

[Doug64]

One will probably never find someone in this life who loves them unconditionally in the truest sense of the word. However, someone who loves us in spite of our faults and imperfections is a very close second. I think spouses often fall into this category and so do parents.

Voyager, I think that setting a basically good example for your children will help them see how they should be. Perhaps you can explain to your daughter that you have these bouts with depression and it isn't how you want to be. She will be able to see that depression is not desirable, but is something some of us live with.

Something I learned from my dad (and probably came by naturally to some degree) was pessimism. He always saw the down side and the problem(s) with everything. Shortly after our first child was born, I realized this in myself and made an attempt to not indulge so much in that way of thinking. I never got rid of it completely, but made some improvement. Our three kids are basically optimists although our daughter (the youngest) tends more toward being pessimistic than her brothers.
Recognizing something is half the battle, so they say. don't know who "they' are, though.

Doug :cool:

[Voyager]

I probably said way too much. Know it is all said in love.

No way, it was not too much. It was all great and I really appreciate it!

:cool:

[Voyager]

Something I learned from my dad (and probably came by naturally to some degree) was pessimism. He always saw the down side and the problem(s) with everything.

My mom is that way too. I try not to be, but the depression makes it difficult for my optimism to be of much good. Once you lose hope, all the optimism in the world doesn't help any. Pessimism is being totally negative about things in general. I am much more of an optimist, but at the present time the hopelessness and depression have got the best of me.

When I try to tell myself that the people in Iraq and the victims of 9/11 have it worse than I do, it doesn't seem to help much. Oh sorry me. I guess I'm just in a pit of self pity (no one likes a pity party, right?). I wish I could rise up in the name of Jesus and defeat all the demons of depression and grief, but I'll have to leave that to the TV preachers.

:cool:

[Willow]

(((Voyager)))

Thanks for posting so vulnerably. It feels good to be back in the regular rhythm of the old forum style again. i think we can grow and there is hope. I understand the need to self medicate. I do it in many ways. I think a lot of people do. I mean... everyone I work with has their own method. One lady shops too much, another guy works too much, one fella is a religious dogmatic, yet another is a computer game addict. I wonder if we're not talking about human nature here? I wonder if there is a "healthy" form of self soothing we can adopt? I'd love to find one that feels as good as the destructive ones. Maybe it's a matter of doing all in temperance instead of going overboard.

I wish I had healthy advice for parenting... I haven't ever been a parent, but I am thinking of the bible phrase, "love covers a multitude of sins (shortcomings)". I read an article once where they studied different styles of parenting, from very strict to very lenient. To their surprise, the common denominator in the healthiest families waas not "parenting style", it was the presence of love. I hear the love in your post for your daughter.

I think you are a great dad!

Amy

[diva]

I can so relate to much of what has been said in this thread! As I heal, I find I have a slightly different perspective which I will offer in the spirit of love and in hopes that it might be helpful.
Before the perspective, a bit of background -- one many of us could claim, I think. I am the adopted child of an abusive alcoholic mother (a bit unusual, I admit). When I look back at the old photographs of my childhood, my siblings (biological children of my parents) are wearing nice and relatively expensive children's clothes while I am often almost cut out of the picture wearing whatever was on sale at Sears (the KMart, WalMart, etc. of my youth). No matter how good I was (and I tried very hard), how smart I was, etc., I was never as good as the biological children. I remember the beating at the buckle end of the belt for getting a C in phys ed. I remember the scalding water thrown at me -- can't remember why. It took years of hard work, on my own and with various mental health professionals, but I began to get a sense of my own talents.
A rare disease, a mistaken diagnosis of cancer -- I couldn't read Rabbi Cushner's "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" because it didn't apply to me. My mother had been right, I was unworthy and God was hitting me with a cosmic 2X4 to get worthy, but there was no instruction book. I just kept going to church, feeling that while the message of grace was preached, it didn't apply to me -- the unworthy.
More years of work, again I felt I had made it to a healthy Christian outlook. I began to realize that God had not called me out as an example of the unworthy. I moved to a new state and, of course, a new church. The church called a new pastor. Suddenly the children's sign language choir I had started and directed was "offensive." Get real -- I should have known that children can stand before a congregation and do almost anything and people are charmed, not offended. Because what was being said made no sense, I assumed I was the problem, I labeled myself depressed, sought counseling and started taking an anti-depressant. When the med didn't seem to help, the docs added higher and higher doses. I now see that I was almost psychotic sometimes, scaring myself with anger I could not control.
A year passed in which I chaired a committee that raised more for Habitat for Humanity than anyone ever dreamed possible, I voluntarily worked on a software implementation for the church. I had a serious episode of anger in the church offices, borne of frustration with the software company and the lack of necessary support for the implementation.
I'll never forget the meeting where I was told I was offensive to the staff and many in the congregation and that I was no longer welcome in the church office. I left the church suicidal and only the realization that I might kill some innocent driver kept me from committing vehicular suicide.
Now, the perspective I have gained --
A child raised without love can never replace that love. Unconditional love will always come as a shock. A child raised without love is not, however, condemned to repeat the problems of the parents. And, as I am learning, once victimized does not mean forever victimized. I was abused as a child, but I am not condemned to a life of victimization. That very realization will help me avoid abuse in the future. When problems come up, it doesn't mean that God is punishing me. When sad, sick people (even clergy) try to tell me I am bad, it ain't necessarily so.
I felt criticized on a different thread when I talked about my view of forgiveness, but I feel forgiveness is part of the healing process. I forgive my mother for her abuse. I firmly believe she did the best she could given the broken world from which she came. I do not forget the abuse because it makes me, I hope, more empathic with others who suffer. I forgive the pastor who abused my spirit because I now see it as a part of his human brokennes. I do not forget the abuse because I feel I must use that as I find my way to healing and because I can use that memory, perhaps, to help others.
I could not be a parent, but I seem to collect children -- neighbors, kids at church, nieces and nephews -- many say children are drawn to me because I treat them with respect, pay attention to them just as I would to their parents. Maybe that is your answer -- be open to your children, respect their thoughts and lovingly respond to them. I'm certainly not an expert, just another ragamuffin trying to find her way.

[Reg]

I felt criticized on a different thread when I talked about my view of forgiveness, but I feel forgiveness is part of the healing process. I forgive my mother for her abuse. I firmly believe she did the best she could given the broken world from which she came. I do not forget the abuse because it makes me, I hope, more empathic with others who suffer. I forgive the pastor who abused my spirit because I now see it as a part of his human brokennes. I do not forget the abuse because I feel I must use that as I find my way to healing and because I can use that memory, perhaps, to help others.


Reading about Voyager's depression and Diva's terrible childhood are the realities of how we were victimized as children. :(

It touched deep feelings within me. What I liked about Diva is her spirit of forgiveness. :p

We had our last session of Divorce Recovery last night and it was on the second part of forgiveness. It was a moving experience that included having all our hurts written out an a piece of paper we had written out over the last 6 weeks as we examined ourselves and how we were affected by what others did to us and what we did to ourselves. :(

We were all given a candle and then the lights were turned out. It was pitch black until Barb, who designed the course, lite the candle on a table with a silver bowl beside it. We tore the paper with all our hurts on them in little pieces and then one-by-one deposited them in the silver bowl on a table with the candle beside it. At the same time we lite our candles. Little by little, the room became brighter.

The candle on the table represented the love of God and His forgiveness being passed on to each one of us. It made the darkness - LIGHT. What a powerful way to demonstrate what forgiveness can do in our lives. I wish each one of you could have been there to experience it. Not many dry eyes were evident afterwards. It made a lasting impression how valuable forgiveness is in our recovery.

I'll post some quotes from Philip Yancey's book, "What's So Amazing About Grace?" on a different thread.

[Florence]

Where did I once hear that when you don't forgive it's like swalling poison and waiting for the other person to die?

[Voyager]

It's difficult for me to forgive in my current situation. That's because I can legitimately blame my former pastor for my current life situation. The fact that I am paranoid of churches is my former pastor's fault. The fact that I cannot trust people is my former pastor's fault. The fact that I have no support system for my family is my former pastor's fault.

I went through the grief of losing a girlfriend before I was married. That was like a divorce. However, I was able to move on and forgive. That's because this person didn't ruin my whole life. I was still able to trust people. It didn't make me paranoid of future relationships. It didn't rob me of everyone outside of my immediate family.

My situation could be more accurately compared to being falsely imprisoned as opposed to being divorced. It's like I was falsely accused of a crime and then thrown into a prison for no reason. If this happened to you - could you freely forgive? Tell me that if you were sitting in a 6' x 8' cell indefinitely that you could forgive the person who put you there. I'm sure you would be singing hymns all day and saying, "Oh Lord, I forgive my accuser, it's no big deal. My life really wasn't worth much anyway. I don't mind being in this prison - it's like being on a permanent vacation."

The fact is, you wouldn't know if you could forgive them unless it happened to you.

:cool:

[Voyager]

P.S. - Don't get me wrong, I am not upset with anyone for bringing up forgiveness. I just wanted to put my situation in perspective. I would like to forgive and not be a victim. I would like to get unstuck and move forward with my life. But it's like I have a 600-lb. barbell across my chest and I cannot get it off without some help. I have no support system. There is no one to turn to for help. The last time I turned to God for help, look what happened. The last time I turned to a church for help, look what happened. My subsconscience won't allow me to go there, even if I was that much of a glutton for punishment to attempt it again. Where else is there for someone who has no family or support system to go except for a church? The Elks Club or the Moose Lodge?

When I see my immediate family suffering the consequences of what this pastor did to us, I become an angry father. I cannot find it within me to forgive.

:cool:

[diva]

(((Voyager)))
To forgive is a process and it doesn't require that we forget. To forgive, I believe, begins with recognizing the duality of the anger. You are angry with your former pastor for what he did to you and you are angry with yourself for falling victim to the abuse. First, forgive yourself. That may be the hardest step of all. You did not ask for abuse. You did nothing to deserve it. You are human and thus make mistakes, but you did not make this mistake. Then it may be easier to think about the former pastor as having made mistakes. Yes, this feels worse than the word mistake feels, but it is nevertheless true. This human made a mistake. For me, I had to go beyond that and look at what causes a person to abuse another. I realized that the abusive pastor must have had a serious mental need to dominate, subvert, whatever. I found I had to pray for healing for the abusive pastor. Then I was able to forgive him for what he, a sad, sick person, had done out of his pain. I refuse to forget what was done to me, but I can forgive it as the woeful human brokenness of another.
Don't be hard on yourself -- this process can take years and it is VERY hard work.
There is a positive to going through all the pain and hard work of forgiveness -- it is a very freeing experience to come out on the other side. I find I am more prolific in my writing than I have ever been, the sun shines a bit brighter and the world, once covered by a thin scrim, is clearer. I will continue to pray for you and all victims of spiritual abuse.

[Reg]

(((Voyager)))
To forgive is a process and it doesn't require that we forget. To forgive, I believe, begins with recognizing the duality of the anger. You are angry with your former pastor for what he did to you and you are angry with yourself for falling victim to the abuse. First, forgive yourself. That may be the hardest step of all. You did not ask for abuse. You did nothing to deserve it. You are human and thus make mistakes, but you did not make this mistake. Then it may be easier to think about the former pastor as having made mistakes. Yes, this feels worse than the word mistake feels, but it is nevertheless true. This human made a mistake........... I refuse to forget what was done to me, but I can forgive it as the woeful human brokenness of another.

Don't be hard on yourself -- this process can take years and it is VERY hard work.
There is a positive to going through all the pain and hard work of forgiveness -- it is a very freeing experience to come out on the other side. I find I am more prolific in my writing than I have ever been, the sun shines a bit brighter and the world, once covered by a thin scrim, is clearer. I will continue to pray for you and all victims of spiritual abuse.

Diva, I am so glad you understand the therapy of healing that comes with forgiveness. As long as we view ourselves as victims as true as that is, we will continue to review the hurt and pain that was done to us. It never ends. We will try to medicate ourselves in order to cope but it keeps coming back. It is like wearing a patch that infects our hearts and attitudes. Only the balm of forgiveness will soften our hearts and take the pain away. Then we are truly free of it.

We all need this medicine applied often, even daily with all the little hurts and things done to us. We live in a fallen world and will constantly receive injury from others who are imperfect and suffering themselves because of the sin in the world. We just have to let go and leave it in God's hands. He's the only one able to deal with it properly. He said, "Vengence is His." not ours. He will repay. We don't need revenge to get back at the other person. God knows. As long as I know that, I have the confidence He will deal with it much better than I could.

I have witnessed Him take care of many such things over the years. I actually am a bit fearful of someone doing something against me now. I know my Father will take care of business and hope the other person has a change of heart. If not, may God have mercy on him.