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THE WELL
Welcome to the well.
At the well we meet with Finnish Christian adults.
Today we have our second meeting with Salme Blomster.
Salme Blomster is an author, therapist, editor and
educator from Espoo.
She has written numerous books dealing with sexuality,
self-esteem and restoration. Her latest book deals with
the identity of human beings and will be published in 2008.
Salme Blomster has one child and one grandchild.
Welcome again to the Well, Salme Blomster.
Thank you.
I know that you have had difficult experiences in your life,
and books have been born out of these.
What do you think, what experience in your life
has influenced your relationship with God the most?
There have really been various things that have influenced it.
I might say that God has called me closer to Him in layers and
the last layers of insecurity were perhaps peeled off
when I fell ill with cancer in 2003.
Why was this particular experience so significant?
It was significant because it made me realize
and understand the reality of life and death,
i.e. the reality that we'll die some day.
It also made me ponder the question
what the supporting pillars in our lives are.
And contrary to what you might expect
this experience turned into an experience of deep peace.
Instead of stirring up fear it brought me very close to God.
When we fall seriously ill, we are somehow stripped of life.
Not much is left. Were you afraid of death?
No, surprisingly not. In fact, I realized at once
when the idea of death became possible
that it's a relief in one way.
And the thought began to crystallize that death is only
a curtain, that we are moving to something much more wonderful.
But on the other hand it gave much more meaning
to the time I have left.
I noticed that I began quite consciously and clearly
to put more weight on certain things and values
and to reject any that are not very important in life.
It crystallized the old cliché that values are put in the correct order.
In situations like these it's quite natural,
and to some extent one is forced to do so.
In what way did it affect your faith or your life?
It surely changed my faith and life. I have always felt the need to
somehow control things or events, to arrange my life to feel secure.
At the time when I became a freelancer
God was teaching me that he even will take care of me financially
and that there is no need to worry.
But it has been a long road from making things secure,
being anxious and worrying to a complete trust
that life carries me, that God carries me.
And that there is nothing He is not aware of,
nothing He cannot take care of. There is nothing to fear.
While you were ill and were going through the cancer process,
were there moments when God came near to you
or in some way met with you and touched you?
Yes, I was at first surprised when after having been told the diagnosis
in quite an abrupt way and directly without any scruples,
I suddenly experienced there and then God's peace.
At first I thought: is this the shock stage,
am I denying this thing and so on.
But then I experienced a similar peace at the hospital
before the operation.
The doctor was a bit annoyed wondering if I understood
what kind of process was at stake, as I was so calm.
He seemed to think that I was either shocked by this thing
or denying it. At that point I almost became restless
when I thought that I don't really know yet if there
are any metastases and what this situation actually means.
But at that stage I had learnt that when I start thinking
in the old way, this worried way, I stop it immediately.
And I confessed it to God telling Him that now
in the situation again where I can't do anything but trust You.
I'm leaving myself completely in Your hands.
You can do whatever you like. I really had nothing to lose
because death was not a frightening possibility.
But He answered immediately with such great love and peace
and such joy that those at the hospital
probably thought that I had gone mad,
because I really was in an euphoric state without medicine.
It was astonishing.
And there I somehow felt God's love as deeply as never before.
Did your understanding of God change in any way
through that encounter or through the whole process?
It was strengthened.
In a way God's work in me had continued for a long time
and my part has been to understand who God really is,
because I, like many others, have had a distorted image of God
and a distorted image of myself and especially of our relationship,
of what we are compared to each other.
Usually we think of ourselves stressing our sinfulness and
we completely forget Jesus' death on the cross and
sanctification and redemption.
Somehow this near death experience
made the whole work of Jesus concrete.
Oh, I'm not a slave, nor am I an earth worm.
I hate to hear that we are merely wretched earth worms.
Of course, in a way we are,
but yet we are a royal priesthood and we are God's children.
It somehow started to become clear to me
that I am really beloved and whatever I face in life ...
having regressed in a way a little bit to childhood,
as illness always causes, but in this case in a good way ... .
regressed to understand that I can leave myself completely
in the hands of our Almighty Father.
And He is able to take care of me.
I need not try to make sure of it all the time.
He has the authority and power to do so
and moreover, He desires to do so.
I'd like to go back a little.
A while ago you mentioned that you began to realize
that death is also a relief.
But this doesn't mean a negative attitude to life, does it?
No, it doesn't mean that I have a suicidal wish that this life should
come to an end soon so that I would go to heaven.
It's not in line with a healthy faith just to long for heaven all the time.
We have been placed on the earth to live here.
In a way a paradoxical thing takes place here:
when you understand heaven in quite a new way,
you also understand this life in a new way.
I recollect one lady who had fallen ill with cancer saying that
she discovered colours for the first time in her life.
She suddenly understood how beautiful
the flowers in her garden were.
And she sat for a long time looking at the sea
admiring the sky at sunset.
She began to see that this world is magnificent;
she was given new glasses.
This is certainly what often happens when there is a standstill in your life.
Only when you are suddenly losing whatever you are losing,
you understand the value of it.
You wrote a book called "Levottomuudesta rauhaan"
(= From restlessness to peace) dealing with this process.
What do you think, what became clear?
In fact, the subject ot the book was not meant to be this process.
At that stage I had begun to understand a little about shalom,
which means peace that does not depend on circumstances.
It's not an on/off-peace: now I feel fine, ok now God loves me,
but when somebody says something nasty to you the peace is lost.
That is not real peace. It is the peace of the world
to which Jesus refers saying that he gives something different.
And I had begun to understand a little about this.
And I thought it would be a natural continuation
to my books dealing with feelings
to talk about what the process and emotional hurts lead to.
It brings us to inner peace and an ability to find it.
My illness occurred while I was writing this book and
it served to give it greater depth.
It was interesting the way it suited the theme.
Exactly. Jesus says that my own peace I will give you,
I don't give you as the world does.
How would you describe it, what does this shalom mean?
What did you discover?
I discovered the fact that this shalom,
the peace and concept Jesus speaks of,
is an all embracing condition which involves our whole being,
our thoughts and feelings and our body and
which does not leave us, whatever might happen.
In other words, the on/off human being
changes into a stereo typical human being,
making it possible for me I at the same time to experience
pain without losing the awareness that in my life
there is now a secure factor that is permanent, everlasting.
It is said of the apostles that they sang hymns and
praised God in prison.
They had just been tortured, stoned and sneered at and whatever.
Praising God, thanking Him and worshipping Him in all situations
as the Bible urges us to do, or in agony and pain,
is not possible without that shalom.
It becomes possible in that experience which is
beyond our understanding that despite all things,
all pain and tribulation and everything else,
the heart, the centre of it is anchored in God all the time.
What do you think, how is it possible to find such shalom peace?
Can a human being do something?
You had such a distressing experience and
there were various processes. But how can we find it?
It is a process. In my case and also in the case of others
I have found that it's a process.
A peace that is of shorter duration, which comes and goes ...
people have such experiences of peace
for instance in praise gatherings or during wonderful prayer evenings,
but even these are of a kind that come and go.
They are in a way tied to our feelings.
But the kind of peace that is of a longer duration is shalom.
The Bible actually says it in many places,
but one such place is in the first epistle of Peter,
where it says that may the grace and peace that knowing Christ gives
become part of you more and more.
I have noticed that if one wants to remain in that peace,
it's necessary to remain in Christ. This means in practice
that I keep to my morning prayers if at all possible.
Not to perform something, but in this way
God's love becomes real and ignites love in your heart.
You want to be with your beloved and it is not a duty any longer,
but what you wish for yourself. It's a desire to be near God.
This peace we often lose in certain circumstances.
As you said, in God we have a shelter that is permanent.
Even if heaven and earth disappear, God's Word will remain.
So there is one thing that remains.
But we have sorrow and we have worry.
Are you familiar with worrying?
I'm a typical ex-griever and maybe I'm still sometimes
apt to grieve. I can't say that I never worry any longer, but
one thing that takes away the peace is, on the whole,
a wrong idea of what faith is. Faith is not a feeling.
And people measure their faith by feelings.
I'm depressed now and now I have these troubles, OK,
now God is not with me, since He has given me these troubles.
They have nothing to do with each other.
And there is another, psychological thing.
We might even have the false idea that worrying means caring.
When I worry, it means that I care, or when I care excessively, I care.
This does not hold true. We are actually called to
something that might be quite a strange concept to
the mourner at first. We are called to holy carelessness.
Characteristic of a really strong faith is that you can say:
Father will take care of it.
I need not worry because He is already aware of this.
What do you think, how consuming is such worrying?
How much does it gnaw away at our lives?
Worrying is a real consumer and killer of energy.
Worrying is something that really exhausts any one.
And moreover, it can go to such extremes that
it could be called a sin.
I myself would be inclined to call it a sin, because it is unbelief.
A mourner does not leave the matter to God,
or does not trust that God's will is good,
or does not trust that He will solve the matter,
although He has promised to do so. The remedy for worry is to
choose to trust God's Word by faith, to trust God and not one's feelings.
"The remedy for worry is to choose to trust God's Word by faith."
What is the background to this kind of worry?
Is it some kind of control or fear that if I don't hold on tightly
to everything, the whole thing will collapse?
What do you think, what sort of things are there in the background?
All these things, in other words insecurity,
the fear that things won't go as I want,
which in itself adds to insecurity. This leads to a desire to control.
Some people even think that if they prepare something long in advance
they will manage it more easily,
that if they make sure beforehand that they do not fail,
they will get over it more easily. And this is not true.
It only means that if I am worrying now about next week,
I am losing to worry the whole of this week,
when I could live in complete freedom.
If the trouble comes, the moment when it comes is enough.
There is no need to worry in advance.
The Word says don't worry about anything.
What do you think, is it really true?
Yes, it's true. But the worry should not be
confused with genuine caring and genuine concern.
This does not mean that I should suddenly be
totally indifferent or that I should be without experiencing
different kinds of feelings related to concern for my children and so on.
It does not mean anything like this, but it means being able to discern
between what is genuine caring and what is excessive.
I start to carry things that I am not meant to carry.
I carry excessive burdens, I take up two yokes
when only one is meant for me and so on.
I am myself in a way guilty of being unable to leave things,
to give myself up to be taken care of.
You are a mother, and mothers often grieve and worry about their children.
What is healthy caring and what is worry that should be allowed to go?
It has been said that the deepest guilt in the world
is the guilt and grieving of mothers.
Mothers always worry about their children,
wondering what I did wrong and what I did right.
I think that healthy caring is age-bound,
it always depends on the age of the child.
A baby must be taken care of 100 per cent.
But then you have to learn to let go gradually.
When we let the child learn to walk,
we cannot take his or her hand all the time,
otherwise the child would never learn to walk.
We must let the child grow into adulthood.
The caring must be in relation to the matter,
and if the grieving or the worrying takes away the right of another person
to be responsible for his or her own life, then it is wrong.
Under the guise of our own grieving and worrying we have
no right to interfere in the lives of our adult children for instance.
Or to start guiding a child who is old enough
to make his or her own decisions.
How is such wrong worry reflected in our prayer life?
It is reflected in it to a great extent. Persistent prayer, prayer battles,
differ from attitudinal prayer expressing worry.
In these we only say the same thing over and over again.
We don't really give the matter to God,
but keep repeating the distress in our prayers.
It's as if we had turned towards ourselves in that prayer
and not towards God. We don't let go of the matter.
And then another even more serious thing that is related to it
is that the griever encounters difficulties in understanding
the concept of grace, a state where we are told:
let go of all wrongs. Worry is often related to
some injustice or something similar,
and then forgiveness should be involved.
If we can't let go, then we can't receive grace and love.
"If we can't let go, we can't receive grace and love."
What would you say to a person who faces life with fear and anxiety?
I would look up such places in the Bible that
tell of a caring and loving God.
And I would feed the worrying child with these.
I use the word child, because when we grieve and worry,
then it really is the child in us who worries.
An adult does not worry.
It's an insecurity that we have learnt, a reaction to some insecurity
or a state which we have learnt and in which
we in a way become helpless.
And then it's worth talking to oneself in a reassuring way,
to tell oneself for instance that Zephaniah 3: 17 says that
God will make you new in his love.
Be patient, there is nothing to worry about.
And the Bible says that God is love and unchanging.
And God's will towards you is good. God will not hurt you.
This faith must be expressed and read aloud.
That's what counselling is.
Our psyche is capable of hindering our spiritual growth and
therefore we should be able to see the traps and
emotional locks and hurts, because they hold us fast to wrong things.
We must learn to let go of these psychological things,
so that the spirit might freely take the soul along.
Have you seen that God has been able to heal
and make new a person who has been very insecure
and sorrowful suffering from various fears,
for instance that she will fall ill or that her child will fall ill?
Yes, under the pseudonym ... one who has experienced it... .
I have really experienced it in my own life.
Having been a worrying, fearful, timid, careful and
overprotective mother I must say that God has done a lot.
It doesn't mean of course that I am now a completely
holy carefree person in all situations.
We mothers are such that always when our children
are in trouble or face difficulties, our heart is seized with pain.
But I I have learnt to let go and at least at the moment
I'm not worrying about the most trifling matters.
You went through this process of course, but what would you say,
what were the first steps towards this holy carelessness?
I think that the first steps were that
I really began to trust that God is love,
that my image of God started to become more correct and
that I was no longer afraid of Him.
I dared to come closer to Him and let Him come closer to me.
And this naturally increased my feeling of security
and the peace we have been talking about,
and in this way God was allowed to take care of me.
God surely takes care of a person if we give Him permission to do so.
But people forget that God is utterly discreet.
He is so discreet that He does not come into our psychological regions,
our intimate regions unless we give Him permission.
It means that if I still cling to something tooth and nail,
for instance ... Many people do pray Our Father,
Your will be done, but in their minds, they add unconsciously:
don't by any means take my spouse or
don't let me fall ill or it would be absolutely dreadful if I lost my home.
This is conditional. And only when we are able to
leave ourselves to God without conditions
do we begin to see an immensely mighty God.
And God has taught me in practice, not by force:
Salme, fine, take care of it yourself.
But then when, due to exhaustion or something else,
I say from my heart: ok, you can do whatever you want.
As to worrying, I really got fed up with it,
I even got angry with it and said that now it's finished,
my worrying is finished, it's totally contrary to faith.
I dismissed it. And it worked.
I said: God, it must come to an end now. I have had enough.
Salme Blomster, let's continue next week.
Then we'll talk about identity. Thank you for this interview.