Sermon Central
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Do You Want To Be Right, Or Do You Want To Be ... PRO
Contributed by Sermon Central on Jun 11, 2011 (message contributor)
DO YOU WANT TO BE RIGHT, OR DO YOU WANT TO BE WELL?
Dr. David Seamands tells the story about a young woman he counseled in college several years ago. She had suffered every kind of abuse in her own home--psychological, sexual and physical. The very place that was supposed to be nurturing was instead a frightening and brutal place.
He had been counseling with her several times. At last she said she was ready for him to pray for her emotional healing of the past. But as he was praying, she suddenly let out a scream that chilled him to the bone. It was so loud that he was concerned about what the secretary and people in the hall of the church might think. He turned to her and said, "What is happening? Why did you cry out like that?"
She said, "I can't give them up."
He was unsure of what she could not give up and said, "Please explain what you mean."
She said, "My resentments. I cannot give them up."
Dr. Seamands said, "Why not?"
She said, "They are all I have."
Twice more they met for counseling, but it was evident that her heart was no longer in it. She had come to a fork in the road and gone another way. She never returned for counseling after that.
Years later, Dr. Seamands was preaching a series of meetings in another state, and at the close of the last meeting a woman came up to him who looked older than her years. She said, "Do you remember me?"
He said, "I'm sorry, but I am afraid I don't."
She told him her name and said, "Surely you remember the counseling session we had where I screamed in the middle of your prayer."
Then it all came back to him, and she said through bitter tears, "Two divorces and one nervous...
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