Make me

Once upon a time, there lived a little girl who did not know how to make decisions for herself. While she was a baby, her father did grad-school work and bottle-fed her while her mother worked at a beauty salon. After her subtly controlling mother quit this job, she was primarily comfortable functioning in the domestic realms of the kitchen, the dining room, and the laundry room. Her father was haughty, domineering, insecure, emasculated and socially inept all simultaneously, and he was primarily comfortable functioning in the academic realm of his office desk where he studied the Bible and foreign languages. When the little girl was too young to remember what was happening, her mother whisked her away to her grandparents' house so that her father could complete important academic work. It was at her grandparents' house where the little girl took her first steps.

As if this extended trip were not enough of a separation, the little girl's father treated her more like a science experiment than a person. He would teach her foreign-language words and expect her to know them and learn them as adeptly as he did. When the little girl was five years old, she learned what the word "blank" meant from all the test questions that her father read to her one day. On at least one occasion, her father would take her to the university where he studied so that her conversations could be observed by his professor and recorded on audiotape. During these extended field trips when the little girl was away from her mother, the academic men tried to get her to talk, but she just wanted to draw pictures.

But before she spent those extended times under the invisible microscope, even though she had two parents, she was constantly surrounded by guardians who would make decisions for her. On at least one occasion, the relatives sang in unison to shame her to the point of tears. One day when the little girl was three years old, she was replaced and cast aside completely when a new sibling was born.

Because her family was highly untrusting of outsiders, the little girl's family members meshed onto one another unhealthily. When the little girl was six years old, her family moved to a new city where she was given her own room. Shortly after the move, her grandfather came to live at her house, and her parents gave her grandfather her room. After trying to fix up her own space the way she had wanted it, she was forced to share a room with her extremely untidy sibling. One day, the little girl took the bus home from school as usual, but nobody was home. She was locked out of her house. She noticed her dog on the other side of the fence in the backyard, and for a very long moment in time, the little girl was completely alone in the world with only her dog. Then her mother, grandfather, and sister finally returned home from shopping. They were cheerful, and they were not worried that the little girl had been alone outdoors, otherwise uncovered and unsafe.

Then when the little girl was nine years old, her family moved again to another city where she was told that she would attend a private school. Immediately after she took the entrance exam to the school, she vomited in the bushes outside from the stress of the exam. But the entrance exam could not have prepared the little girl from the trauma that she would endure from just one semester at the school. The trauma was not abuse per se, but to the stressed, shamed, rejected little girl who was not allowed to make her own decisions, it was monumental. One Friday during P.E. class, while no teachers or supervisors were around, the non-athletic little girl attempted to play kickball with her classmates. In the middle of the game, one of her classmates condescendingly guided her to a bench at the end of the gym and told her to sit there. As if this were not humiliating enough, later in the dressing room, the little girl's classmate asked her if she had any friends. Of course the little girl did not have any friends yet at that point in her life. If she did, perhaps she could have felt protected, accepted, and nurtured. During the ride home that night, the little girl lay down in the backseat of the car and cried unabashedly, but her family did not touch her, hold her, or otherwise comfort her while she fell apart. Perhaps this was the evening that she first decided that she should comfort herself. The little girl continued to grow up emotionally detached from humanity and yet unhealthily attached to her mother (and, later, motherly female friends). She began to see that certain things in her life were wrong, almost as if had been constantly told that the world were striped, but she could see with her own eyes that the world was actually polka-dotted. The little girl began to sink into herself and drown internally.

When the little girl was 15 years old, her family moved yet again to another city. This time, she decided that she wanted to break out of her shell. So, the little girl became a social teenager who was musically inclined and comfortable performing academically. She blossomed. Her blossoming into womanhood attracted the attention of many young men. Unfortunately, she also attracted the attention of an old man who took advantage of her one day in the youth room of a church building. She did not want his advances, and she knew that they were wrong because he was married, so she told the pastor's wife. The pastor's wife also happened to be the little girl's mother, who told the little girl, "Don't tell your father." The abuse continued, and the little girl who had grown up not knowing how to make decisions, not believing that she was worth accommodating, not knowing that her feelings were valid, and not understanding how valuable she was as a human being… well, she endured the involuntary make-out sessions from the old man, who told her not to tell anybody. And who would have helped her? The abuse occurred inside a church building, which is supposed to be the safest kind of building in the world. The people who failed to protect the little girl were her pastors, who also happened to be her parents. Two years after this abuse ended, it began all over again with another married man who took advantage of her also in another church building. Yet again, the little girl failed to stop the abuse herself, and she told her mother who also yet again, along with her father, failed to stop the involuntary adultery.

Meanwhile, the little girl had gone away to college, where she still failed to learn how to make decisions for herself. She became involved in abusive churches where the decisions were made for her. This decision-making became so extreme that she believed that God Himself had made the decision for her that she was to work for Him in a foreign country. By this time, the little girl's decision-making abilities had become so warped that the most forceful decision she would make for herself would be to end her own life at age 24.

When the little girl's parents went to pick her up from the psychiatric hospital and the counselor had left the little girl alone with her parents, her father clinically quoted a statistic about suicides tending to occur between the ages of 18 and 24. During her subsequent counseling, a leader at the little girl's church -- without knowing much about the little girl's history -- said that a great deal of her healing would be making decisions for herself.

So, the obedient little girl continued her growing-up process quite awkwardly as an adult, enduring poverty, debt, singlehood, codependent relationships, non-relationships, disappointment, sadness, and grief. But during her growing-up process, she also enjoyed contentment, abundance, artisticness, healthy relationships, intimate friendships, hope, happiness, and joyful resolve. She began to allow her Creator to show her how wrong things in her life had become or had the potential to become -- from the creepy way that her father held her hand one time to cross the street when she was a teenager to the absurdly creepy way that her mother was willing to carry a child for her in her own womb.

So, as a growing-up adult, the little girl decided to obey her Creator and separate herself from unhealthy influences in her life that He instructed her to stay away from. She decided to allow Him to straighten the crooked places inside her, become her covering, and protect her the way a little girl should be protected. Her new life became a lonely one as a result, but she understands now that her Creator provides for her, takes care of her, and enjoys accompanying her everywhere she goes, even though she often feels completely alone in the world with only her cats. At least now she has decided to make her own decisions. She believes that she is worth accommodating, she knows that her feelings are valid, and she understands how valuable she is as a human being.

"For He will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help." (Psalm 72:12, NIV)

OK, so the little girl I just wrote about is me. It was all a true story, as far as I can remember the details as they happened or as they were told to me. I'm learning that my God is a God of vindication (see Psalm 26). I think He enjoys vindication. I think He doesn't mind sitting back, waiting, and then at just the right time, saying, "See? You didn't just imagine it all. It really was that bad. Now let Me fix it."

Lately, I've been following a news story about the three women in Ohio who had been kidnapped as young adults, literally held captive, and abused beyond belief. Their story is a heinous one, and I appreciate how they asked the media to respect their privacy. They have a lot of healing to go through, and I trust that they'll regain their dignity as they walk through their recovery. I'm absolutely NOT ignoring the severity of their story, but I think it's natural to let my mind wander to the "WTF" questions. How could their abuser have thought that he could get away with his extremely horrible actions? Why didn't the women try harder to escape sooner? The answers to my curious questions are probably none of my business (or the media's business), but there is something that I have learned from my own story.

Freedom ministries and secular counseling continually emphasize how the only person you can control is YOU. The only person I can control is ME. If you do something to hurt me -- whether verbally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, etc. -- the responsibility for dealing with how it affected me is MY responsibility. Yet, I've had a hard time settling this inside myself. After growing up in a house where I would get blamed for stuff that wasn't my fault and getting educated in a school system where teachers would point out my mistakes in front of my classmates and openly gripe at me for getting bad grades, frankly the last thing I need on my plate is a teaching that tells me that everything is STILL all my fault. So, I've been learning from my own story -- and from senselessly tragic news stories online -- that everything is NOT my fault.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across an obscure Billy Joel song named "Laura." (I think all I did was Google "Billy Joel melancholy" after I was intrigued by a Facebook friend's status update.) I'm guessing this song didn't get much radio airplay, because it has the "F" word in it (which I think reclassifies a "pop" song to "punk" in no-time flat), but besides having an intoxicating melody, I'm way too familiar with its storyline. In the lyrics, Billy Joel sings about a leechy codependent relationship he has with a girl who he can't get off his phone. He complains, "Every time I think I'm off the hook / she makes me lose my cool / I'm her machine / And she can punch all the keys / She can push any button I was programmed through." I think he's describing a situation in which he feels manipulated into reacting a certain way, and he's probably getting yelled at for trying to be a helpful friend, and now he's stuck with somebody who's addicted to his attention. In the song, he says that she's in control, and she "makes" him react a certain way. But whose fault is it really? Couldn't he just hang up on her whenever she calls him? Or would it be rude and unloving of him to set that kind of boundary? Or would the responsibility of not pushing his buttons be Laura's?

In the workplace, if an employee isn't doing his or her job correctly, and the manager isn't looking after him or her, whose fault is it -- the employee's or the manager's? Is it the employee's fault for slacking off, or is it the manager's fault for slacking off? I think sometimes there's a balance. Sometimes it takes two to tango. There are some situations in which both parties are at fault. But I think there are other situations in which only one party is at fault.

I am absolutely, definitely, indubitably responsible for working through my own healing, i.e., forgiving, letting go, processing, allowing God to squeeze out any crap that's been floating around inside me, etc. In addition, I think there are also situations that I was absolutely, definitely, indubitably NOT responsible for whatsoever. As a child, would it have been appropriate of me to be assertive with my neglectors or abusers about not looking after me when they were supposed to, if that child is constantly told to obey their parents in the Lord, for this is right? I didn't even know that saying "no" was an appropriate thing to say to an abuser until I was in my 30s. Another thing I know for sure is that God wants to heal me. I also know that He wants to use what was intended for evil and use it for good. I'm not a victim anymore, but I can relate to abusive situations now that I understand that I've been abused. I've never been physically tied down, but I know what it's like to be forced to do something or believe something. I understand what it's like to be told how to feel or that I don't feel. I understand what's like to see a polka-dotted world with my own eyes, try to tell the people in charge about it, and then be told by those same people that nope, the world is actually striped.

I rarely take notes during church sermons because I usually absorb the information much better if I simply pay attention and listen, but I did take a few notes during my pastor's sermon on 5/2/10. He said that the four stages of maturity are 1) "Give me" 2) "Use me" 3) "Search me" and 4) "Make me." According to this sermon, the "Give me" and "Use me" stages are selfish (like when you're a little girl who wants to have her own way) and that the "Search me" and "Make me" stages are submitted to God (like when you ask God to turn on a flashlight and check out your soul and let Him do whatever He wants with you). I hope I'm somewhere in the "Search me" or "Make me" stages now. I think after a lifetime of allowing other people to "make" her do things, this little girl would like to let God "make" her into whatever the heck He wants. While He's cleaning house, He can take away or add whatever He wants. He can remodel however He likes. Heck, if He decides to forget the house thing altogether and design a shack, an igloo, or a mansion instead, He is more than welcome to do so.

Meanwhile, this little girl is enjoying making her own decisions -- the way she cleans house, the way she does laundry, the way she prepares her meals, the type of company she keeps, the kind of job she holds, the brand of car she drives, the genres of music she listens to, etc. And all of those things I just listed are under Jesus' Lordship, including the process by which I've been making these decisions.

Why do I keep rambling about my life like this online? Well, in a way, this is my web journal. And you're welcome to read it or not read it; I won't force you. Also, if God cares enough about me to lead me to this type of place and just hang out with me here while He's healing me, I'm pretty sure that means He cares about you in a similar way, too, reader.

And in case you were wondering, this little girl isn't helpless anymore, and she's more than ready to defend herself if necessary. Grr!

And I also decided to put a photo of my cats at the beginning of this post -- even though they don't really have anything to do with this post -- because I can. Aww!