Come Out, Come Out Wherever I am!!

This journey to shed oneself is painful.

I don’t like it.

But it is necessary if I want to really KNOW not only who I am, but who my new Husband and Abba is. Where did that little girl go? I remember her as being a bit of a tomboy, very verbose (my parents would say CONSTANTLY chatty), very strong-minded (my parents would say stubborn), and quite unconcerned with what others thought of my favorite tennis shoes with holes in them, the fact that I hated to comb my hair, or my muddy lizards named Cinderella (I named them all Cinderella…I don’t know why).

Where did she go? (Me not Cinderella) I think she went in to hiding the first time my father asked me to skinny dip in front of him. I vividly remember arguing with him, telling him “That’s sick! I will NOT do that. It is wrong!” I will never forget how I felt when he yelled back at me, “Well if you think it is wrong, then YOU are the sick one.”

I didn’t want to be the sick one. I wanted to be like every other tween/teen. I argued with dad some more, but the little girl retreated behind a wall and only peaked out to quietly proclaim her right to keep her clothes on. More words, more retreating…until finally the little girl was gone.

It wasn’t until I was in my thirties and my dad committed suicide that the impact of what he did really reached my soul and burned a hole right through it. For the majority of my life I didn’t want to be the “sick one”, so I gave in to just about every dysfunctional relationship that surrounded me. Financial and emotional abuse in my marriage, spiritual abuse in the church, and that never-ending fear of what people thought of me.

I think I’ve spent many of these dysfunctional years either wondering where God was or projecting on to God’s personality that of my abusers. I have seen Him in my minds-eye as a strict, harsh, disciplinarian who only gives us wonderful things when we do everything right or when we don’t sin “too much”. I’ve never really understood grace the way Christ intended it to be.

I want to.

I want to embrace it with the tenacity of a pit bull in a fight to the death. I want to understand and KNOW the Love of God in such a way that I don’t…no…I can’t waver when some pious, religious, self-righteous or just plain mis-guided Christian tries to explain why my decision to end my marriage is sinful. I don’t want to hear the continual recorder going round and round in my head saying, “You are the sick one,” when someone doesn’t understand or see the complete brokenness and inability to stand up and take it in my marriage because a chronic deceiver said, “I’m sorry,” one more time.

When I consider the judgment I will get when news of the divorce gets out, it is the same fear that rises in me when I heard those fateful words as a young girl. I don’t know why I think of those words, but I do. This is why the little girl hides.

I love what Brennan Manning says in his book, Abba’s Child. “Christians who remain in hiding continue to live the lie. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others. We cling to our bad feelings and beat ourselves with the past when what we should do is let go.”

I have utterly and completely forgiven my dad for everything. How do I know this? Because, after I run to my Jesus, I want to run into the arms of my dad and tell him how much I love and missed him. Because when I think of him now, a sweet reminiscent smile graces my face.

You see, he was a frightened little boy retreating behind a wall only to peak out to quietly proclaim his right to not get beat in the garden shed by his dad. That is how I see him now. That is how Jesus saw him thirty five years ago.

Now…I’m off to find that little girl and bring her from behind the wall.

Come out, Come out, wherever you are!