UNWANTED~BEING ABANDONED

 UNWANTED~BEING ABANDONED

Being abandoned hurts our inner person. Abandonment harms and destroys our trust in people. Abandonment alters the view of self and changes the outlook. The self view that is interpreted says that we are unwanted as a person, not worth wanting. The emotional damage has fall-out that impacts the person and the person's relationships. There are many ways humans are abandoned by other people. None of them are without repercussions.  Knowing someone didn't want us or wasn't willing to fight for us is a devastating thought. We compensate, or get angry, or act out our feelings.  Some choose to over-perform, to show their worth and value to others, trying to dispel the inner belief that they weren't wanted by someone who should have wanted them. This pain is often unacknowledged or unrecognized.  A person goes on with their life, doing the best they can.  Until the pain surfaces and cannot be ignored any longer.

Interventions come in many forms. Psychologists and counselors do their best to help the suffering understand the out-working of abandonment.  Psychological therapy is useful and helps with understanding the processes and inner workings of feelings of being unwanted, the natural result of being abandoned. However, understanding is not healing. Counseling helps...a lot. Behaviors can modify, can overcome, and can compensate. Yet, they do not remove the pain nor cure the hurt, they are unable to heal the emotional wound.

I experienced abandonment three times in my marriage.  The pain was beyond belief. I had not been raised with these sorts of things. The innocent became less innocent. She became a person in control on the outside but deeply wounded and devastated on the inside. The pain felt like an assault on my inner person.  Although I came to understand many things about my mate (his stuff) and myself (my stuff), for many years, in my ignorance, I did not know why I could not seem to experience joy or happiness.  I had forgiven and I had followed God, but the hurt remained.

There came a day when I gave it all to God. I chose to remember the times of abandonment and hurtful words that had been spoken to me years before. I asked God to come in and heal my hurts, heal my memories, and to release me from their pain. I cried in deep anguish of heart, the sorrow so real that my heart physically hurt and I gasped. It was then that God gave me a picture of His love. I saw the painful sword that was imbedded in my heart, deeply piercing my heart, bleeding drops of blood year after year. He slowly removed it from my heart. God lifted the sword and formed it into Christ's cross, where my suffering was borne by the One who accepted my pain in His sinless flesh, bearing my shame and my hurt in order to set me free. God assured me that He had healed me, that the pain had been removed, even though the scars would remain forever.

The release was complete.  A few weeks later I began to notice a change in me. A whisper of joy entered into my being.  It had been years since joy had been part of me. The delight grew in tandem with my belief in a good God. A God who not only loves and forgives but also heals and restores.

That happened ten years ago. At times the pain will resurface at odd and unexpected moments, but it no longer has power over me nor do I feel dead inside. I have been fully released from its devastating effect on my emotions. Praise Him!

~ To Be The Glory~