"Not the mama"

Speaking of intimacy, in this post, I'm going to talk about father figures (in case you didn't figure that out from the title of this post). From what I understand, theologically, technically, God is genderless. So, when I talk about Him being my Heavenly Father, theologically, technically, I think He's really more of a Heavenly Father-Mother, a Heavenly Parent. But for the sake of simplicity, for the sake of the kind of stuff He's been teaching me lately, and for the sake of explaining an infinite, eternal mystery in a way that will conveniently fit into my finite brain, I will refer to God my Daddy in the masculine form of His Parenthood -- my Father.

Also, depending on your level of sensitivity, this post might be rated R. And I might repeat some stuff that I've already mentioned in previous posts, but sometimes repackaging helps me.

Did you ever see a TV sitcom called Dinosaurs? It was Jim Henson's idea, and it was produced in the early 1990s, long after he passed away. This was a live-action puppet show, and it was very much like a satirical cartoon. It was about a dinosaur family. The feistiest character was the baby dinosaur who loved his mama so much that he would wake her up at 3:00 in the morning and demand to be fed. "No concept of time! I'm the baby! Gotta love me!" However, the baby was not so fond of the daddy dinosaur. Instead of calling him "Daddy," he would call him "Not the mama!" and smack him on the head. This show was hilarious.

It's funny how something so small can remind you of something so enormous. 

Yesterday in the early evening, while the sun was still bright, the breeze was cool, and children were outside playing before dinnertime, I walked outside to check my mail. In the distance, I heard what sounded like a young child practicing a tenor saxophone. I could tell that this was a beginning musician, and the tune being practiced sounded like "Go Big Red." After I checked the mail and began to walk back to my apartment, the musician was still struggling to play the right notes at the right time. I looked up, and I saw the top of a bassoon poking out from an apartment balcony. Ah. So, it wasn't a tenor saxophone that I heard. Then I heard voices discussing the notes, and I gathered that this young musician was possibly having a bassoon lesson. I wondered why this musician would be allowed to practice outdoors, because neighbors could potentially complain about music noise. But then I remembered how thin our apartments' walls can be, and I gathered that perhaps the bassoon sounds better when its soundwaves are disseminated outside instead of confined indoors. At any rate, the indoor-outdoor cat who lives in the bassoonist's downstairs neighbor's patio seemed to be enjoying the music.

My neighbor bassoonist reminded me of my young band days. I played the French horn from the 6th grade through the 9th grade. Learning how to play an instrument can be an extremely challenging thing, and when you're a young adolescent who's already quite insecure about herself, learning how to play a wind instrument can add plenty to life's challenges. But music as an academic discipline can do a really good job of keeping a kid out of trouble.

Today, I still play my guitar, and I try to keep up with my piano keyboard. Yes, cats enjoy music, but as their feline reputation implies, they can be pretty darn picky. Near the beginning of this post, I shared a picture of Macho, who loves for me to play my keyboard. Usually when I turn it on and begin to play, he perches on my couch and listens. (And sometimes he meows along. Actually, he might be begging for food, but still, he has excellent rhythm.)

However, anytime I grab my guitar, Macho bolts out of the room before I even begin to play. I like to think that perhaps this is because when I play my guitar, God's presence comes, and Macho considers this process to be intensely intimidating. But I hope he doesn't sprint away because I stink as a guitar player. (Do I really suck that bad?)

"There is an evil I have seen under the sun, as an error proceeding from the ruler: Folly is set in great dignity, while the rich sit in a lowly place. I have seen servants on horses, while princes walk on the ground like servants." (Ecclesiastes 10:5-7)

My birth father was an expert musician who was proficient in several instruments and had perfect pitch. Nobody could match him, and nobody could top him. He was the best. And he made sure we knew it. He demanded respect, and the people around him didn't have a problem giving it to him. My birth father was held in very high esteem. People looked up to him, and they depended on him for spiritual guidance. That was how people outside the family saw him.

Inside the family, however, I honestly think my birth father was one of the most immature people I have ever met. I truly think he had multiple mental health issues (OCD, possibly bipolar, possibly severe depression, possibly an anxiety disorder, possibly a personality disorder), but to my knowledge he never sought professional help for any of it, because according to him, modern psychology was humanistic. And also because my birth mother enabled him. Lucky us.

So, while everybody at church saw my birth father as a highly skilled, tremendously gifted, extremely capable, polished man, we at home saw him as an effeminately emotional, whining basketcase. He would frequently throw temper tantrums, and anything would set him off. He would literally scream anytime, anywhere. We would be minding our own business, and we would hear a scream from across the house, and we would run to see what had happened. My birth father would be doing something like pouring himself a glass of orange juice and spilling a tiny bit of it on the kitchen counter. That would prompt the extremely loud scream. This kind of thing would happen ALL THE TIME. By the time I was a teenager, I learned to ignore or at least minimize the screams, because my birth father was more than likely NOT in any danger. He just needed to turn it down several hundred notches. People would come over to our house, hear a scream from across the other end of the house, and wonder where the fire was, and we would nonchalantly reply, "Eh, it's just Daddy." That was my life.

The last Thanksgiving I spent with my birth father, he literally threw a tantrum on his front porch after he returned home from Walmart because the cashier misplaced part of his broken computer equipment when he had returned it, or something like that. Um, sorry, but what did you expect would happen when you showed up at Walmart on Thanksgiving, hours before the official start of Black Friday? The last Christmas I spent with my birth father, he used up most of our family time (Wait. Did we ever officially have a "family time"?) by distributing photos of his mission trip to Israel to all of our computers and by having two separate slide shows in the living room. Um, sorry, but I didn't realize Christmas was supposed to be a holiday that revolved around you and your missionary endeavors. Can you please consider the fact that you're not the only person who exists in the universe?

So, put all that together -- the extreme talents, the immaturity, the volatile disposition, and the narcissism -- and add a stubbornly unrepentant religious spirit to the equation. Voilà, you have a first-class spiritual abuser.

After I went off to college and was baptized in the Holy Spirit, I would return home for holidays and summers and endure my birth father's spiritual abuse. Please keep in mind that another term for "spiritual abuse" is "spiritual rape." My birth father would lecture me incessantly about how "these charismatics" claim to speak in tongues but really, it's "self-hypnosis." He would prattle on forever, leave the room, and then he would remember a few more extra points and return to my room to continue prattling on. Whenever I had a job to go to, I didn't have a car, so my birth father would drive me and lecture me some more during the drive. At one point, he got me to confess that the baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs at salvation (which it doesn't). I was extremely confused. My sophomore year of college, I pulled back from church a bit, and I think it grieved God.

While I was at home, my birth father would usually look down and heave a deep sigh before spontaneously lecturing me about how wrong my new beliefs were. Years later, anytime he would sigh, my insides would still freak out, even when a lecture wouldn't follow the sigh. I was living in fear. Towards the end, when I would visit my birth parents, I would get up early for breakfast, and he and I would be the only ones in the same room, but he wouldn't make eye contact with me. He was ashamed of me. Not only was I living in fear, but I was also an embarrassment to the family, and I was always wrong. (Do I really suck that bad?)

I'm told that the way we perceive our earthly parents tremendously effects how we perceive our Heavenly Father. I'm learning that my abusive relationship with my birth father has majorly affected my relationship with my Heavenly Father. Once in a while, God has to pull me aside, remind me of who my birth father was, and tell me very clearly, "I'm not that guy."

So, God has been helping me embrace intimacy at a deeper level. He's been healing how I perceive, pursue, and enjoy intimacy with Him. At the beginning of this intimacy-healing journey, I think I was in my living room, I possibly had my guitar, I was more than likely trying to sing to God, and I think I was scared to death. God basically told me, "You think I'm going to violate you."

Yesterday, I heard myself pray one of the weirdest prayers I've ever prayed. I told God, "Strip me naked spiritually and tell me what's wrong with me." I'm a Psalm 141 kind of woman. I can take a healthy rebuke. But God had to gently, firmly remind me of my birth father and tell me again, "I'm not that guy."

This is terrible. I should fear God, yes, in the sense of respecting Him, in the sense of being in awe of Him, in the sense of understanding that He's the Best, in the sense that He's the most powerful Person in the universe who could very easily squash me like a bug and destroy me. But I think I keep waiting for Him to do so. He adopted me. He bought me. He wants me. He loves me. He takes extremely good care of me. Why would He want to destroy me?

I think He would remind me of my birth father and repeat, "I'm not that guy."

God is right. He isn't like my birth father at all, not one iota.

God isn't interested in spiritually violating me. He isn't a spiritual rapist. He isn't a spiritual abuser who demands respect, makes the people around Him feel stupid, and royally freaks out whenever He doesn't get His way. He doesn't expect me to mess up, wait for me to mess up, and then shame the living daylights out of me after I mess up. He won't lecture me for 45 minutes at a time because He disagrees with me about something. He isn't a first-class hypocrite who breaks His own rules but then attacks me whenever I accidentally break one of them. And He isn't a wuss who allows the ushers in His own church building to physically violate His own daughter.

God is a loving Father who covers me, protects me, and leads me. Sometimes He does so gently, and sometimes He does so very loudly. I can talk to Him about anything. He corrects me, but not in a way that makes me feel bad. He corrects me in a way that brings me hope, that bonds me closer to Him, that makes me want to crawl into His lap and let Him hug me until I peacefully fall asleep. He's my Friend. He doesn't spend time with me because He's obligated to do so. He hangs out with me -- nay, He abides with me -- because He wants to.

God didn't create me, beginning with my DNA, because I was some accident that was the result of a passionate encounter with my birth mother. God didn't freak out at the doctor's office when he first learned about my existence. God doesn't look at me with a very pathetic look on His face because He thinks He's homely and I look just like Him.

Nope, God is not that guy.

God my Father created me because He wants me. He redeemed me -- paid for my life with the life of His only Son Jesus -- because He wants me. He spends time with me because He wants me. He heals me because He wants me. He wants to get to know me -- even though technically He already does -- because He wants me. He wants me to get to know Him because He wants us to have a fabulous relationship and also because He wants me. He has absolutely, completely, 100% zero intention of violating me, spiritually raping me, or harming me. He wants to keep me safe. He wants me.

He's a good Father, the best there will ever be.

So, my therapist assured me that Mother's Day will more than likely be a tough day for me to endure from now on. However, I think Father's Day will more than likely be an extremely pleasant day for me to enjoy from now on. Even after I separated myself permanently from my birth father, I was already starting to enjoy Father's Day with my Heavenly Father. Perhaps this year, He and I can enjoy some music together. Or maybe I could pretend it's Memorial Day and microwave some hot dogs while I pretend that He's a sports-enthusiast dad and we watch my VHS tapes of Olympic coverage. Perhaps we could go to the movies together, and He can speak something major about art like He usually does. Or perhaps we could simply just enjoy being together, quietly and peacefully, safely and strongly, just like a daughter and her Father are supposed to enjoy each other all the time.

Methinks the possibilities are endless.

(I don't think I really suck that bad. At least, Choochie doesn't seem to think so.)