This message is so timely for me and if for no one else, Samuel. Thank you for sharing this.... My husband and I are separated yet again because we have not recognized a healthy way to fight our "self-wars." He has had an emotional affair with his supervisor for 5 years and refuses to acknowledge it. I am going to counseling, have done Harboring Hope and even counseled a little with Rick. One of my self wars is rejection as well. After all the work I've done on myself, I was crushed the other day when my husband told me that I was still unhealthy and he couldn't come home to me because " I still needed a lot of work." I was so angry and upset and 'fell off the wagon" so to speak by all this anger bubbling up. I felt like all the work I had done dissolved in that phone call. But it wasn't the whole day and in a couple of hours time and some reflection and remembering that God loves me and will never leave or forsake me and I don't have to be perfect for Him to love me, I recovered. I recognized that my husband was in a sense right because if I was totally healthy, I would have listened and politely told him to go have a nice life and to kiss my a. . . ( I don't normally say that but if feels right.) He was pushing my button and I was being rejected all over again and it was frustrating when I've been working so hard. As a pastor, he speaks of commitment and confession, yet he struggles with so much shame, he can't confess and can't go to a place where he might be in the wrong. That's his self war and I'm sorry to see he hasn't found a healthy way to battle it but turn to other women who adore and soak up his words and presence. I've prayed that you two would cross paths some day and you would be his "Nathan" or someone like you (we live in New Braunfels). His church plant has not worked out and the "mother' church is letting him go so I pray that is a step in the right direction of a time when he find his self-wars and learn how to work with God to fight them.