Food, family, and fellowship

I should warn you that this post is long and rambling. (In fact, it's probably my longest blog post ever.) Warn you about it, yes. Apologize for it, no. If I don't tell my story, who will?

To be perfectly honest, in this season of my life, it is easy to tell who is close to me and who isn't -- or at least who takes the time to read my internet posts. The ones who don't, and the ones who still keep me at a safe distance, will ask me this question: "Are you going to spend time with your family during the holidays?"

Nervous chuckle. Um, well, it's an innocent, legitimate question. But the short answer is no.

The long answer is once upon a time, there lived a little girl named Tirzah who grew up with what her therapist would call a disorganized attachment style (please check out this previous post if you would like more information on that). The little girl grew up to become a woman who desperately needed some major inner healing which, unfortunately, involved permanently disowning herself from and cutting herself off from her immediate family. To process this event and its multitude of consequences, repercussions, and effects -- and also because people who have disorganized attachment styles need to spend time reflecting on their lives in order to properly heal -- I am going to blog about it here yet again. My intention in doing so isn't to be like, "Oh, look at me and how über-wonderful I am!" Rather, it's to be like, "This is my blog, and I need to unravel some stuff out of my brain. Thank you for reading, and please feel free to relate to any of it if you need to... although I honestly hope you won't ever need to."

The way I see it, Christmas is a holiday that you're supposed to spend with family. You buy or make them presents, you observe traditions, and you enjoy the day as cozily as you can while trying to not stuff yourself with too much food.

So, since Christmas ought to be spent with the family that's closest to you, that's exactly what I decided to do this year. I don't have an immediate human family anymore, but my immediate family is God and my cats. So, after praying about it, I gladly spent Christmas with Him and them. In this post, I have shared a picture of the food spread that I enjoyed yesterday. Since my cats have their own food to eat, and since God never gets hungry, I was the only one who ate my Christmas lunch. (I ate at 10:56 a.m., so I guess technically it was a Christmas brunch.) Forget turkey, ham, or steak. Give me some chips, dips, and sandwiches, and I will be in holiday-food heaven. Seriously. When I had an immediate family, my favorite holiday meal was a picnic-style deli spread that mom would make (usually around New Year's). So, my extremely simple palate and I went to town yesterday.

And I totally disrupted my babies' nap schedules with my classic rock DVDs. I know it wasn't your typical traditional way to spend Christmas, but so what? I enjoyed myself. Merry Christmas to me!

"Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to 'set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law'; and 'a man's enemies will be those of his own household.' " (Jesus talking in Matthew 10:34-36)

"And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life." (Jesus talking in Matthew 19:29)

"Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, 'Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.' And Jesus said to him, 'Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.' " (Matthew 8:19-20)

Last weekend at church, while I was singing in the choir during one of the services, Jesus and I were having a conversation (which caused me to miss at least one of my entrances, but I don't think He minded). He caught my attention by randomly telling me, "I don't have a place to lay My head, either."

After I wrapped up that afternoon at church and was walking to my car, I thought about how awkward it must have been for Jesus to have grown up with Mary being His mother, God being His Father, and Joseph not really being His father. ("Hey, Jesus, how come You don't look anything like Your dad?" "If I were to tell you, you wouldn't believe Me.") When I arrived at my car, Jesus asked me, "Now do you get it?"

"If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it -- lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish'?" (Jesus talking in Luke 14:26-30)

"But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." (Philippians 3:7-11)

A few years ago, I was walking through some heavy situations with some leaders at church. After they prayed for me about something, they said that they felt like God was saying that He was giving me a gift: I was feeling His pain. At the time, I thought that meant for that particular situation. Now I think I understand that God has been allowing me to feel a lot of the pain that He feels anytime He feels misunderstood, rejected, neglected, left out, or just plain stuck in a very awkward place.

Gosh. Jesus knows how I feel. He can relate to me. And I think maybe I can relate to Him a little bit now.

Jesus was, no doubt, the most patient Person to ever walk this earth. And He still is. He would plainly talk about Himself and the things He was going to do, but so many people didn't understand it.

"Jesus answered and said to them, 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' Then the Jews said, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?' But He was speaking of the temple of His body." (John 2:19-21)

As far as my life and all its current awkwardness is concerned, I've come up with three analogies to describe what it's like to disown yourself from your parents and/or explaining it to people:

1) In the movie Home Alone, Kevin McCallister is, quite frankly, a little turd to his entire family. Due to an innocent oversight, his family leaves for Christmas vacation without him. When he notices that they are gone, he thinks in horror that his turd-like actions caused his tragedy: "I made my family disappear."

Then when he realizes how mean his family was to him, he rejoices: "I made my family disappear." No, dear sister, he was in fact NOT what the French call les incompetents. He turned out to be quite the little powerhouse who singlehandedly prevented his entire house from being robbed.

Yes, when I first "made my family disappear" a few years ago, I grieved tremendously hard. But after I realized how terrible they really were to me, I eventually rejoiced pretty hard. And, as it turns out, I am in fact NOT what the French call les incompetents, either. Bless this highly nutritious dinner and the people who sold it on sale. Amen.

However, unlike Kevin McCallister, I won't be reunited with my family.

2) In my favorite movie of all time, The NeverEnding Story, Bastian is very interested in reading Mr. Coreander's book. Perhaps trying to use reverse psychology, Mr. Coreander tells Bastian that he isn't really interested in books. But Bastian insists: "I've read Treasure Island, Last of the Mohicans, Wizard of Oz, Lord of the Rings, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Tarzan..." Mr. Coreander says, "The books you read are safe. By reading them, you get to become Tarzan or Robinson Crusoe." Bastian says, "But that's what I like about them." Mr. Coreander is like, "But afterwards, you get to be a little boy again."

I often hear people talk about how they're away from their family and how hard it is. And I understand that it is; I'm not minimalizing that at all. But my situation isn't like theirs. They are only away from their family temporarily. Maybe they'll get to see them once or twice a year. They still have a relationship with them.

When I first joined my choir, I tried to get to know people, and I dove right in during one conversation. The girl I was talking to was like, "So, do you have any family here in town?" I braced myself and replied, "Uh, I left my family." She was like, "Oh, OK." Then I think she talked about how her family was in Louisiana. And she asked again, "So, do you have any family here in town?" Um... never mind. I was hatched from an egg. Yeah, let's go with that.

In my particular situation, I don't have a long-distance relationship with my immediate family. I don't have them anymore, period. I didn't set a boundary with them. I amputated myself off from them. I'm not connected to them anymore, period. I'm not living vicariously through some fictional book character. I AM the book character, and the story is occurring in real life.

And if you don't understand that, I don't know what else to tell you. Unless I make stuff up. Um... my parents are international spies. That is why I never see them. I'd tell you who they are, but then I'd have to kill you.

3) Leaving your parents is like allowing your hair to turn gray in due season. (Some people look very good with dyed or highlighted hair, so what I'm about to say doesn't apply to them.) Sure, you could just color it red or black. But after a while, your aging skin and countenance are going to be a dead giveaway -- even against your jet-black dyed hair -- that you are getting older. You won't be able to hide it anymore. Sooner or later, you're going to have to face the truth, embrace it, and just let your hair turn gray and eventually white. You'll talk openly about your aging process, and maybe you'll say something like, "Honey, you're gonna have to speak up, because I'm an old lady. Now, what did you just say? I couldn't hear you."

I'm finding that the subject of my family isn't an easy one to avoid in conversations anymore. Sure, I can change the subject or encourage the other person to talk about himself/herself instead, but I won't be able to do that forever. I can cover up the truth for as long as is humanly and honestly possible, but sooner or later, the truth is going to show up quite loudly at the roots. It's awkward and uncomfortable, but I'm just gonna have to come out and say it: "I disowned myself from my parents because they were abusive. It's a very long, very terrible story."

"Then one said to Him, 'Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.' But He answered and said to the one who told Him, 'Who is My mother and who are My brothers?' And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, 'Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.' " (Matthew 12:47-50)

Leaving my family has been the hardest thing I've ever done, and I think it's been the most awkward cross I've ever had to bear. I say "I think" because I don't know what my future is going to look like. Maybe God has way more awkward stuff up His sleeve for me later on. He isn't mean or cruel. He just likes surprises. And I really don't know anything. He knows everything.

So, permanently walking away from my immediate family has been excruciatingly hard, and yet it has been excruciatingly freeing. Yes, I was raised by wolves. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just trying to be accurate. If you were suddenly released from a lifelong bite-grip of wolf-fangs at your throat, you'd probably feel just as free as I do.

While I'm on the subject, I truly don't think my birth mother is saved. I think she thinks she is, but when I pray for her, I get the impression that she isn't. I think the fruit I saw in her life confirms it: She would only read her Bible whenever she was at church or whenever she had to teach a Sunday School lesson, she constantly lied, she always gossiped, she hated everybody, and she only cared about looking good. I hope I'm completely wrong about this, but I don't think she knows God at all. (When I knew her, she wouldn't ever log on to the internet, and she often wouldn't listen to me. Maybe if my relatives are reading this, they can help point her to the Way, the Truth, and the Life.)

"Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife." (Proverbs 17:1, NIV)

"In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, 'Rabbi, eat.' But He said to them, 'I have food to eat of which you do not know.' Therefore the disciples said to one another, 'Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?' Jesus said to them, 'My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.' " (John 4:31-34)

When Jesus was on this earth, He was accused of extremely ridiculous things. I wonder if when people were cruelly telling Him that He had a demon, or when they told Him that He was being blasphemous, or when they were beating the crap out of Him, if He was thinking something like, "Eh, this is nothing compared to the sting of being betrayed by a friend for 30 measly pieces of silver."

When I realized that God was telling me to leave my parents, and when I was counting the cost of doing so, there were a lot of things that I didn't realize that I needed to factor into my cost-counting. I didn't know that I would need to permanently separate myself from my sister or her in-laws, too. I didn't realize that there would be certain geographical areas that I would need to avoid because I would no longer feel safe there. I didn't know that I would have to hear one aunt choke back tears or that I would endure another aunt feeding me a guilt trip. I didn't realize that my walking away from my parents would eventually contribute to my walking away from my former best friend as well. I didn't know that I would encounter a seemingly endless deluge of disappointments as time went on and that the only replacement immediate family that I would have would be God and my cats.

But they're good company, and I'll certainly take them. Truly, they are enough. Father God takes impeccably good care of me, the Holy Spirit is the most faithful Coach you'll ever know, and Jesus especially understands how I feel. He likes me enough to let me know Him in the fellowship of His sufferings. For example, if anyone from church word-slaps me, of course it stings, but I sometimes work through it with the logic of, "Eh, this is nothing compared to the sting of being abused by your family who supposedly loved you."

"Fellowship" is an interesting word. I'm discovering that it can have more than one meaning. My college pastor helped me see this for the first time. He explained that "fellowship" isn't necessarily hanging out in the fellowship hall at church and eating refreshments with a bunch of people who you're only socializing with on a surface level. According to this pastor, "fellowship" is really supposed to mean digging deeply into one another's lives and living life together.

I think maybe Jesus does this when He lets us share in the fellowship of His sufferings. Maybe He'll say something like, "You feel rejected? Yep, I do, too. All of your friends left you when you needed them the most? Yep, Mine did, too. You feel like your father turned his back on you? Yep, I know how that feels, too. You feel like chopped liver? Yep, I do, too, and so does My Father; why do you think He likes to reward those who diligently seek Him?"

"If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also." (Jesus talking in John 15:18-20)

I think I get it now. And yet, I may never fully get it at all. At any rate, Jesus, if You're looking for a place to lay Your head, please come lay it right here between my shoulders, or in my lap, or in my arms, or in my hands, or on my pillow, or wherever You like. Please consider me to be Your friend, Your family. Please make Yourself at home in me.