Abandonment

I think all of us have abandonment issues ... just some more than others. My wife and I just returned from a midweek dinner date where that topic of conversation came up more than once as we discussed what God is doing in our lives and the lives of those we love. A couple of the people we discussed at dinner fell into the "more" category. Ultimately such conversations always return to God as He is really the only "person" who never truly disappoints ... not that we always see it that way.

Some of us begin with God at an early age [this was true for both Janna and me] and end up running far away searching for what our hearts long for. This is now more my story than Janna's. Like Paulo Coehlo's The Alchemist, our long journey will lead us back to where we began, but we return as a changed people with new eyes to see what once we were blind to. In my medical practice I meet many people who are running from God, angry with God, and yet at the same time desperately searching for Him. If God is love, it is maddening to be running from Him and yet be searching for love at the same time.

I am reminded here of a couple in crisis that I know where the wife has huge abandonment issues. Abandoned by her father she was almost certain that her husband would do the same thing. He would eventually come to his senses and get out of the relationship. She knew it wasn't possible for him to love her unconditionally and she seemingly was determined to prove it. Sadly, sometimes the thing we want the most, we fear the most.

When it comes to love, often we are our own worst enemies. When we've been hurt in the past, when we feel that love has betrayed us, we can easily become the enemies of love. To see if it's real, we do everything we can to destroy it. We tell ourselves we're testing it, but actually we are resisting it.

This carries over into our relationship with God. The truth of the matter is that we're uncomfortable with God. We're disoriented by the way He loves. We want God to love us for an endless number of good reasons. While at the same time, we find ourselves nervous before Him because He sees right through us and knows everything that isn't lovable. He tells us that He is our place of rest and acceptance and unconditional love, yet we cannot reconcile this love. We know who we are. We know all that is unlovely within us. We wonder how we have become worthy of such love, and that is what worries us -- we know we are not. So we run. We run from God because He sees us best; we run from God to escape our own sense of unworthiness; we run from God because we are certain that the closer we come to Him, the more guilt and shame we will feel.

The truth is, it is just too hard to believe that if we come near to God, we will find ourselves not drowning in condemnation, but swimming in compassion.
Jesus called all who were weary and who found their souls exhausted to come to Him and find rest. He is telling us that God will be for us our place called home.
We run from God because we long to be loved and we have convinced ourselves that the One who is most loving could not and would not embrace us.
We run from the One our souls crave.

Yet it is a paradox to run from God and search for love.

At least on an unconscious level, a part of our struggle with God is our discomfort with love. It seems no matter how beautiful or wanted we are, there is always something inside us that remains insecure. All of us find ourselves uncertain when it comes to love. We have no real experience of truly unconditional love, and it goes without saying that conditional love always leaves us wanting. But at least with conditional love we have some control over the situation. The downside is, however, when we don't meet the conditions, we default on the love. Sadly, in our earthly experience, all too often undying love meets a premature death!