"자녀를 건강한 아이로 키우려면? 부모 자신부터 감정 다스려라 부모의 감정이 무엇보다 자녀의 감정에 큰 영향을 미친다 / 셔터스톡 부모라면 자녀의 감정을 존중하는 것의 중요성에 대해 들어봤을 것이다. 하지만 부모인 당신의 감정은 어떠한가? 임상 사회 복지사이자 심리 치료사인 힐러리 제이콥스 헨델과 심리학자이자 양육 교육자인 줄리 프라가 박사는 신간, 『부모도 감정이 있다(Parents Have Feelings, Too)』에서 통념을 뒤집었다. 즉, 정서적으로 건강한 아이를 양육할 수 있도록 하기 위해선 먼저 부모 자신의 감정을 다스릴 줄 알아야 한다는 것이 핵심 메시지다. 이들이 부모들에게 어떤 조언을 했는지 CNN과 함께 알아본다. 부모에게 가장 중요한 감정, '분노' 헨델은 부모가 다뤄야 할 6가지 핵심 감정으로 ▲분노 ▲슬픔 ▲두려움 ▲혐오 ▲기쁨 ▲흥분을 꼽았다. 그러면서 ‘분노’를 가장 중요한 핵심 감정으로 보았다. 그녀는 “분노는 파괴적인 잠재력을 가지고 있기 때문에 사람들을 곤경에 빠뜨리는 감정이며, 그래서 우리는 대개 그것을 묻어버린다. 그런데 이때 분노는 안으로 폭발하여 우울, 죄책감, 불안, 수치심으로 나타날 수 있다. 혹은 밖으로 폭발하여 공격성으로 표출될 수 있다.”고 설명했다. 중요한 것은 분노를 ‘행동’으로 옮기지 않고 ‘경험’하는 방법을 배우는 것이다. 이는 분노에 이름을 붙이고, 신체에서 어떻게 느껴지는지 알아차리고, 그 순간의 충동이 무엇인지를 인식하며, 궁극적으로는 그 에너지를 방출하는 것을 포함하는 내면의 과정이다. 이에 더해 헨델은 분노를 두 개의 분리된 단계로 이해할 필요성을 말했다. 분노를 경험하는 내적인 과정과 스스로와 가족에게 건설적인 방식으로 분노를 표현하는 외적인 과정이 그것이다. 한편, 프라가 박사는 엄마와 달리, 아빠들의 경우 ‘분노’라는 감정처리에 더욱 익숙하지 않다고 지적했다. 하지만 아빠들...
Thanksgiving in suffering
“Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the
stomach of the fish, … But I will
sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving That which I have vowed I will
pay Salvation is from the LORD” (Jonah 2:1, 9).
Suffering is painful and distressful.
And when we are in pain and distress, we usually groan in wounds and
tears. We even make a grudge. We blame others. We have to blame somebody for it. We blame a situation too, not just the
people. We blame the people and the
situation, but we do not blame ourselves.
The reason is that if we are so painful and distressful, we tend to
become more selfish. And if we are
selfish, we will not only able to think that suffering has come because of
ourselves, but we cannot. That’s why we
cannot learn through suffering. Not only
that we cannot learn about ourselves through suffering, but also we cannot
learn the Word of God. As a result, we
are not thankful to God in suffering.
But the prophet Jonah decided to give thanks to God in the midst of
suffering and to offer sacrifices to God in thanksgiving (Jonah 2:1, 9). How is this possible? How could Jonah be determined to give
sacrifice to God in thanksgiving (v. 9), in the situation where he was hurled
into the very heart of the seas and the currents swirled about him (v. 3) and
he was inside the fish (v. 1)? How could
Jonah have been thankful to God in the painful feeling of being expelled from
God’s sight (v. 4) and when his life was ebbing away (v. 7)? What was the secret?
First, the secret was
because Jonah remembered the grace of God's salvation, which he had already
experienced.
Isn’t this
something we cannot understand? Wasn’t
Jonah in the stomach of the great fish and suffering? Then how can we talk about Jonah's experience
of salvation? God saved Jonah by
preparing the great fish and commending the fish to swallow Jonah (1:17). Jonah, who experienced this past grace of
salvation, was able to give thanks to God (2:1) [The Hebrew word for
"prayer" is used as a meaning of thankful prayer (1 Sam. 2:1; 2 Sam.
7:27)]. How could Jonah be grateful for
Gods’ salvation of being swallowed by the great fish and was suffering in the
stomach of the great fish? Isn’t the
salvation that we usually pray for and expect deliverance from suffering like a
"big fish stomach"? But Jonah
didn’t offer the prayer of thanksgiving when he on the dry land Jonah 2:10) ,
but when he was still in the stomach of the great fish (vv. 1-9). Although he was saved from one suffering from
another (greater) suffering, he was able to give thanks to God in such
suffering because he remembered the grace of God's salvation that he had
already experienced. Even in the midst
of suffering, those who remember the past grace of salvation and celebrate in
the present cannot but give thanks to God.
Let us give thanks to God even in the greatest sufferings as we remember
God’s grace of salvation that we have experienced in the past.
Second, the secret was because Jonah had the
assurance and hope of God's salvation for the future.
The reason why we can give thanks to God in the midst of suffering is
not only because of the grace of salvation that God has given us in the past,
but because we believe that God, who saved us in the past, will also save us
from our present sufferings. Because of
this conviction and hope of salvation, we are able to praise and pray in
thanksgiving to God, even though we are now going through suffering. That’s what Paul and Silas did in Acts
chapter 16. Paul and Silas prayed and
praised God (Acts 16:25), although they could have been executed the next day
in prison. How could this be
possible? It was because they had
confidence and hope of God’s salvation.
Especially because Paul believed that God would lead him to Rome and
stand before Caesar, he was sure that God would save him from the prison in
Philippi. That was why he was able to
pray and praise God. Likewise, Jonah was
able to give thanks to God in hope of salvation because he believed that God,
who had saved him in the past, would also save him from the stomach of the
great fish (Jonah 2:1, 9). In other
words, he believed and hoped for God's faithful love of salvation, so he
decided to give thanks to God and to offer a sacrifice to God with the voice of
thanksgiving in the midst of suffering.
We believe that the faithful God who saved us in the past will not only
save us in our present sufferings but will also save us from the sufferings we
will face in the future, because our God of salvation is the same yesterday,
today, and forever (Heb. 13:8). When we
believe and hope in this faithful God of salvation, we can eagerly desire and
hope in God of salvation and give thanks to God even though we are in the midst
of such ‘a stomach of a great fish’ that seems despicable.
Third and last, the secret is because Jonah kept the grace of God in his
heart.
Look at Jonah 2:8-9: “Those who regard vain idols Forsake their
faithfulness, But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving That
which I have vowed I will pay Salvation is from the LORD.” Here the phrase “vain idols” is described in
two Hebrew words: (1) ‘Hebell’: Breath that evaporates quickly; (2) ‘Sseo’:
emptiness, void. In other words, vain
idols mean something like vanishing as quickly as breathing. Those who serve vain idols that vanish as
quickly as breathing abandon God's grace.
For example, if we love material more than God, and worship false
material, we abandon the grace that God has given us. As a result, we cannot worship God with the voice
of thanksgiving. When we live in this
world, pursuing the vainly worldly things from Monday to Saturday, we are
forsaking the God’s grace that God is giving us on the Lord’s Day. If we fail to keep God’s grace in our hearts
from Monday to Saturday, then we cannot have thanksgiving in our hearts when we
go to church on the Lord’s Day and worship God.
Not only that we cannot come in before God with thanksgiving in our
heart but also we cannot praise and worship God with the voice of
thanksgiving. But if we keep in our
hearts the grace that God has given us, we can thank God in the Lord's presence
on Sunday and give thanks and praise to God.
Interestingly, idol worshipers abandon the grace of God and worship the
things that quickly disappear like breathing, but God worshipers go to God and
worship Him with thanksgiving in their hearts by keeping God’s faithful
covenant love (Hebrew: "Hesed") in their hearts. It was Jonah who worshiped God. He was able to give thanks to God in his
sufferings because he kept the grace of God in his heart. Jonah determined to offer sacrifice to God
with the voice of thanksgiving because he realized little bit of God's covenant
love of not forsaking Jonah who disobeyed God's command and forsook his mission
and tried to flee from God. In the end,
those who have experienced the grace of God cannot but offer a prayer of
thanksgiving and decide to worship God with thanksgiving in their hearts. We must also give thanks and prayer to God as
we experience God's grace in our lives.
To do so, we must faithfully keep the grace of God in our hearts.
Though suffering is painful and
distressful, we must glorify God through our suffering. To do so, we must look to the God of
salvation in suffering. And we must
remember the grace of salvation that God has given us in the past and celebrate
those graces in our present sufferings.
As we faithfully hold on to the past graces God has given us, we must be
convinced in the present suffering that our faithful God of salvation will save
us now in our present afflictions. When
we have this conviction of God’s salvation, then we can hope in God in
despair. When we have this hope of
salvation, we can endure our suffering with faith. We can look at God's salvation quietly. We must look to the God of salvation in
suffering. We must remember the past
grace of God’s salvation, the present conviction of salvation, and the hope of
future salvation. In doing so, we will
be able to pray and worship God with thanksgiving in our hearts.
With a heart of gratitude for experiencing God's
grace in the midst of suffering,
James Kim
(Friday afternoon)
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