(P)Helmut...
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(P)
Helmut Thielicke tells the story of a woman who came to her pastor and complained bitterly about her brutal and cruel husband. She frankly acknowledged that actually she could only hate him and certainly could never love him again. The pastor then counseled her to think of him, in those times of inner anguish, as he was in the days when they were first engaged, of how he wooed her and how the best side of him came out at that time. For that was what he really was.
And the gradual appearance of brutality and lack of understanding was something alien which had crept into him and turned him away from his real nature. To the degree that this woman was able lovingly to get past this alien thing and see the real person in her distorted husband, she was able to love him again and thus bring a creatively new and constructive impulse into their ruined relationship.
-- Anton
Helmut Thielicke tells the story of a woman who came to her pastor and complained bitterly about her brutal and cruel husband. She frankly acknowledged that actually she could only hate him and certainly could never love him again. The pastor then counseled her to think of him, in those times of inner anguish, as he was in the days when they were first engaged, of how he wooed her and how the best side of him came out at that time. For that was what he really was.
And the gradual appearance of brutality and lack of understanding was something alien which had crept into him and turned him away from his real nature. To the degree that this woman was able lovingly to get past this alien thing and see the real person in her distorted husband, she was able to love him again and thus bring a creatively new and constructive impulse into their ruined relationship.
-- Anton
