I was 22 and sitting in an uncomfortable chair when my counselor said some life-changing words to me:

“I think you have some transference issues when it comes to how you think God views you.”

I had never heard the term before but got an explanation quickly: basically I was taking the way other influential people in my life had treated me and transferring those feelings directly to God, just automatically assuming that’s the way He would treat me as well.

I instantly knew that I had been doing just that for years.  And that habits sometimes die hard.

– — –

I did something today that was unusual for me.  I picked up the phone and called someone in my life and more or less said “I’m struggling right now, I need emotional support, please help me.”  It was a hard call to make, a risky move on my part.  But this person’s role in my life would put them in the line-up for people I could expect emotional support from, so I humbly asked for it, even saying “I’m sorry I have to ask you for it, but I don’t have a spouse or significant other so you’re the next place I know to go to right now.”

They declined.

– — –

It’s a little after 1 a.m. now and I’m just laying here thinking about it, silently crying.  I have no answers for transference, no solution of how we somehow stop seeing other people’s faces when we’re looking for God’s.

All I know is that we’ve got to figure it out quickly before a whole new generation of girls start to believe that they don’t matter to God.

All because they didn’t matter to the person in their life who first looked most like Him.

– — –

One day I will write a book and, on the very first page, I’ll list lyrics from what may be the single most powerful song I’ve ever heard:

“Oh no, I trust you’ve seen that skin?

It’s the same she’s been standing in

since the day she saw him walking away.

Now I’m left cleaning up the mess he made.

On behalf of every man,

looking out for every girl,

you are the god and the weight of her world.”

Daughters (Acoustic Version) | John Mayer

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