Ruth had to sit down a moment to catch her breath. She still had the phone in her hand. The person at the other end had hung up abruptly. Ruth stared at the receiver wondering how such a good friend could treat her so rudely.  Ruth had recently joined a support group for divorcees and made a few friends. After a few months it looked like the honeymoon in these relationships was over. The small group of women had turned on her like so many other former friends. Ruth had no explanation for it.

She turned her thoughts to work. Her supervisor at the plant was harassing her again, asking the impossible, she felt. After she left her last position she believed this would take care of the problems she was having.

For a brief moment Ruth scanned a panorama of her life. Unhappy home life as a child, years of studying to be a social worker only to quit at her first position rather than be fired; a marriage ended in divorce, several churches joined and abandoned. The list of hopeful contacts and the ensuing ruined relationships was too painful to consider for more than a few moments.

A terrible thought sank into her heart like a cold dagger. What if it was something she were doing?

"A plan in the heart of a man is like deep water, But a man of understanding draws it out."
(Proverbs 20:5)

Sometimes we are completely unaware of the reasons behind the patterns in our lives. When we keep repeating certain themes in our life situations, it is possible that we are pursuing a hidden and destructive agenda.  It takes much wisdom and understanding to discern the reasons and purpose of our agenda. I believe that we formulate these secret agendas based on a series of losses that we experienced early in life. We internalize the trauma of our younger years, adopt it as normal, and create our world-view around it.  No matter how crazy or unfortunate our life, it becomes a model of what we consider "status quo." From there, probably without realizing it, we actually draw people to us who are similar to our family members with whom we have unresolved conflicts and try (without knowing it) to repeat our early drama, in an attempt this time, we believe, to make it work out. This is a way of trying to make our lives work. Unfortunately, it doesn't make them work; it actually becomes the fuel that helps destroy them.

Does history seem to painfully repeat itself in your life, like in Ruth's? Even though her story is an exaggeration, a compilation of several people who have sought my help over the years, do you ever wonder why you feel stuck in certain unhealthy relationship patterns? Or wonder why things always seem to turn out disappointingly the same? Like a hamster on a wheel, you keep running along the same path and can't get off? Are there certain "trigger" situations in your life in which someone says or does something that pushes a button inside of you and sets in motion negative reactions, feelings and behaviors? Do you get out of one maddening relationship just to fall into another crazy-making scenario?

The Scripture says that we reap what we sow. One application of this concept carries over into our perceptions and how we react to situations and other people. It would imply that we carry a hidden set of perceptions into every relationship, into every situation.  For many years I worked with people and saw plenty of confirming evidence for the presence of destructive patterns in their lives. Helping them understand when and why they were triggered to do destructive things proved to be a gateway to healing.