This is territory I go over and over again in my own thought life and prayer life. But I need to, and every time I have to discover it and make sense of it anew:

As a child:
Being so different from the rest of the family, and the relatives.
Made to feel ashamed of the way I am.
Not belonging.
Alone as a boy, in my own family.
Deep sadness, although I didn't know at the time.
Deep wound--taking on board the sense of being rejected, left out, ugly, ashamed, not proud of myself, unworthy, unvaluable, having no right to appear and speak up. Don't belong--i belong on the outside, in the dark, in the cold. My soul bears a stigma, a weight.
The boy naked in the cold alone outside, no warmth, no love.
(An exaggeration of my life, but an image with truth to it nevertheless).
I once dreamt of being left outside in a pram with the rain beating down on my face.

How needy we all are of love!!!
How much pain and pathology comes from not being fed love!!!
Love--our food, our life, our healing, our light, our warmth, our home, our calling, our destiny, our everything--our God!

In my memory I pretended being back there as a boy, feeling unwanted, in the shadows. I told Jesus to come to me then, to uphold me, to love me, to infuse in me my value, my dignity. To sustain me, strengthen me, put the spine back in me, to make me shine with pride.

An image of the Father exerting his authority in an explosion of light about me as if to say this child is mine and I KNOW how beautiful and precious he is--all of your rejections and misunderstandings of him are false. I AM and he is mine.
The Son clinging to me as beloved. He knows what it is to be rejected. We share that knowledge together now. It is a gift.
The Spirit lovingly dwelling in me as his home.

love and prayers
Bertil.