Martin Luther probably had anxiety

Respect yourself enough to stand up for yourself; your feelings, concerns, and opinions and ask for what you want. Also, learn how to say “no” without feeling guilty
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garyhermesch52
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:00 pm

Martin Luther probably had anxiety

Post by garyhermesch52 » Tue Aug 23, 2011 3:03 pm

I watched a program about Martin Luther one time and they said that when he was a kid even his mother beat him
until the blood flowed. I guess thats just the way the culture was in that part of Germany in the 16th century, so if that's true it would stand to reason that he would have had a very low self-image. According to the program as I remember it his
parents wanted him to be a doctor or lawyer or something. When he was in his later teens, he took a trip somewhere on
horseback and a terrible storm came up. He thought sure he was doomed, so he got down on his knees and prayed to
God that if he made it through this storm alive, he would become a monk. He made it through and so he joined a monastery that was one of the most strict and austere of any of them. He was evidently so hard on himself that he
would sleep outside on a board in the middle of winter and his fellow monks would drag him back inside half dead.
When he would go to confession, he would be leaving afterwards and he would think to himself "I wasn't really sorry
for those sins", so he would go back in the confessional and confess not really being sorry. Then he would be leaving
again and he would think "I wasn't really sorry that I wasn't really sorry for those sins", so he would go back and do it
all over again. This evidently went on for a while. His spiritual director recognized something was wrong and assigned him to a teaching position to attempt to draw him out of this excessive introspection. Then some reason came up for him to
take a trip to Rome. When he got there he found out quite a few people down there were living a fairly easy life sort of high on the hog. That disillusioned him and made him mad, and his attitude changed to one of not wanting any authority over him at all.He started looking more critically at other abuses that were going on in the Church and before long he was nailing his 52 theses to the door of the church at Whittenberg or wherever it was and thus started the protestant reformation.
After it really got going and turned into something like anarchy, he was actually horrified at what was going on.
Thats the way I heard it anyway.

NeverQuit
Posts: 162
Joined: Mon Dec 06, 2010 1:22 pm

Re: Martin Luther probably had anxiety

Post by NeverQuit » Mon Aug 29, 2011 2:31 pm

That's interesting, I haven't heard much about him not wanting any authority over him at all, in the movie they portrayed him as actually very respectful to the Catholic church, but I can definitely see that he had anxiety. I think it came from his beliefs about God, and therefore everything else flowed from those. When he delved into the scriptures for himself he saw that God wasn't Who he had been taught He was. That gave him the courage to stand up to the church, and to use his assertive behavior!! You're right, he's a great example of someone who has overcome anxiety and made a difference!!

peony
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon Mar 26, 2012 3:08 am
Location: Canada

Re: Martin Luther probably had anxiety

Post by peony » Thu May 03, 2012 7:39 pm

Hey, what a great example of being assertive! And standing up to authority, especially after he had been cowed by authority for so long.

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