Acceptance, abandonment

The other night while I was driving home, I asked myself out loud, "Why is acceptance so foreign to me?" I thought this was a heartbreaking question to hear myself ask myself. This still bothers me. This evening while I was at the beautiful coin laundromat, I asked God if my statement from the other night broke His heart to hear. He was like, "Not really. I designed you with every intention of accepting you." I guess maybe I broke my own heart. Good grief! Does it ever end?

Eventually. It will more than likely end eventually. I guess I have to just accept that.

Wait. Did I just hide behind humor again? Arrrgh, Tirzah, stop protecting yourself! Bah! Psychotherapy overload!

"Jesus answered and said to him, 'If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.' " (John 14:23)

I think I can safely substitute "she" and "her" for "he" and "him" in the verse above.

Speaking of homes, I think I had a hard time settling in one when I was a kid. Anytime life would get hard, the family would move. "Where are you from?" or "Where did you grow up?" are usually unpleasant questions for me to answer, because the most accurate answer is "Texas." It's the truth. I was born in Austin. When I was a baby, we moved to Bastrop. When I was 6, we moved back to Austin. When I was 9, we moved to Dallas. When I was 15, we moved to Odessa. While I was in Odessa, if you count my college years, we lived in 4 different houses. It was maddening. On the bright side, I am somewhat of an expert in moving.

"The church you grew up in" evokes similarly unpleasant emotions. While we lived in Austin, we went to 3 different churches. While we lived in Dallas, we went to 4 different churches. While we lived in Odessa, we went to 2 different churches. And I think I may have missed a couple. And I didn't count all the ones that we visited while Dad was filling the pulpit. Honestly, I think church congregations nowadays take it for granted that everyone who has a church background automatically knows the words to hymns. Perhaps that is one reason why I hate hymns in general. Sometimes I grew up in an English-speaking church, and sometimes I grew up in a Spanish-speaking church. Sometimes I would sing hymns in English, and sometimes I would sing hymns in Spanish. By the time I was old enough to become remotely interested in the music, I was recruited (honestly, I was kinda guilt-tripped) into becoming the church pianist. (Off topic, is it just me, or is "pee-a-nist" just a totally weird pronunciation for that word?) I didn't really get a chance to memorize hymn lyrics. On the bright side, I am somewhat of an expert in adjusting churchwise.

So, I grew up in an environment that was constantly discontented and where people and things were constantly being replaced. Almost nothing lasted for very long. Almost everything was replaceable. If you didn't like something or didn't feel appreciated, you could just pack up and leave forever.

Speaking of abandonment, recently after an extremely difficult emotional day, I was sitting in my car and talking to God, and I asked Him when I first started feeling a fear of abandonment. He was like, "You've always felt it, even when you were in your mother's womb. Your mother would abandon your needs to meet the needs of your father." When I say this, I don't mean to disrespect anyone; I mean to be honest, and I mean to understand why I struggle with the things that I struggle with. I was raised by a woman who found her identity in being a mother, and I was raised by a man who was perpetually a child. They were a perfect match for one another. I just think they accidentally kicked me to the curb in the process. Even my therapist said that they abandoned their roles as parents. I honestly felt treated more like a student than a treasure. Students are relationships that tend to only last temporarily. They're in your classroom for a while, and they're supposed to remain at a distance. They're not supposed to inherit your fortune or help you grow old or connect with you emotionally on a permanent basis. They're supposed to leave. Eventually.

And yet, as a perpetually, unnecessarily traveling family that didn't trust outsiders, we had to cling to one other to survive. I think we were emotionally distant from one another while we were enmeshed with one another. Maddening! Psychotherapy!

So, this is making sense. I wondered why God was telling me that I have a fear of intimacy. I've heard that the fear of intimacy and the fear of abandonment are interchangeable. I already thought I was plenty intimate with God, but maybe I'm shrinking back in a way that I'm not noticing. Or maybe God wants to pull me even deeper and help me feel emotions that are even more explosive.

I think my rejection issues and my abandonment issues are intermingled, and I think they're exposed and freaking me out a little bit right now. But not in a despairing, hopeless way. I'm just glad to see all of these things coming together right now. I want to work through them.

Even when I started writing this post, I felt petrified, and I felt a tear roll down my cheek. My cat sat on my thigh and purred.

My cats. I have known them and have stayed with them for 14 years. That's not normal, and that's not consistent with a rejection/abandonment lifestyle.

I'm not designed for perpetual temporariness. I'm designed for faithfulness. The latter feels more natural to me. I think maybe that's why my upbringing was so hurtful, even without me realizing it at the time.

I think inside me, I'm expecting everything that's precious to me to disintegrate and float away forever, just like everything else. I think inside me, I'm expecting everyone to turn their backs on me and replace me with a newer, younger model, just like everyone else has in the past. My expectations are rejection and abandonment, instead of acceptance and intimacy. My expectations suck. I think I need some new ones. I think I need some healthy ones.

God is definitely the place to start. He makes His home with me. He lives inside me. He's here permanently. He won't pack up and leave just because He's unhappy. He'll slice me open, dig around, and clean me out so intimately that I'll beg for more.

So, when I first started this round of psychotherapy, my therapist explained that she usually sees clients for 8-10 sessions. Today, she explained that she will see me for 12 sessions. She explained that some of my therapy goals will be accepting that some things in my past were just the way they were.

But, as I mentioned previously, acceptance is so foreign to me. And I think I know why. And I don't think it needs to stay that way.

You know what? I'm worth it. God certainly thinks so. My cats certainly think I'm worth hanging around. These three are the ones who know me the best and see me the most, and they want me. I want me, too.

People can want me, too. I don't have to be utterly shocked anytime anyone sticks around in my life for longer than a year or two. I don't have to wonder when the excitement with my presence in their lives will wear off. Maybe it never will. Maybe some of the people in my life don't want it to. Maybe not everybody is programmed to pack up and leave at the slightest hint of imperfection.

Dang it. No wonder I need therapy!

My cat is purring on my thigh right now, and I'm not forcing her to get this close to me. I think she actually likes me. I don't think she's actually using me for my Purina-serving skills.

Wow. I don't have to be afraid of acceptance, either. God doesn't make fun of me for being honest. Maybe other people won't mock me, either, for being myself when I try to get close to them. I really do belong. I really am enough.

I think this will take a really long time to sink in. And you know what? I hope it takes an extremely long time. If I'm going to get rebuilt, I would like for the job to be done the right way. And I trust the Builder to do His thing perfectly, just like He always does.

So, I can accept that things in my past/present have been/are terrible. That is OK. And even I'm acceptable. Some people are quite possibly going to abandon me, period, especially when they see what I'm really like deep, down inside. And if they're going to reject me, anyway, I would much rather them see the real me than some fakey-fake people-pleasing whitewashed me. I think that means that the people who accept me will treat me to a relationship that is that much sweeter.

Also on the bright side, "abandonment" doesn't always mean "to walk away forever." It also has a positive definition. If I abandon myself TO something, I give myself over to it completely. If I abandon myself TO God, I give myself over to Him completely. That is worship. That is ripping myself open, sharing the most precious parts of myself, risking total rejection, possibly even setting myself up for total desertion. But worshiping somebody or something that would pervert my abandonment would be foolish. Worshiping the only One who will never, ever leave me or forsake me, period, the only One who will always accept me because of His purity, isn't foolish. It's what I was created for.

If you need me, I will be in a fetal position while hugging myself and taking deep breaths.