From Enable to Able

One of the hardest titles for me to shed is enabler. It is ingrained into my personality like a strand of DNA. Being raised with an alcoholic, enabling in one way or another became a survival technique.

Where was Al Anon when I was 13!

“At the heart of every enabler is someone with a low sense of self-worth,” according to Angelyn Miller, MA (The Enabler, 1988).

The impostor in me rises in indignation! Me have a low sense of self-worth? Confident, outgoing, loves the spotlight…me?

Yes. Me.

What a surprise revelation that my need to enable someone else’s dysfunctional pattern or addiction points right back at me. It seems rewarding to help people with their problems, so fulfilling to pick up someone else’s burden or dysfunction and help (i.e. enable) them to continue in their self-imposed pattern of implosion.

No wonder I get so tired! This is one title I long to shed like itchy, scaly skin. I wish it were so easy.

What would happen if my friends exercised for me? Lifted weights for me? Or better yet, what if they did my push ups and crunches? The sugar I so love to eat would find a final resting place on my thighs, my friends would grow stronger, and I would grow weak and ill.

This flaking, crusty title must be shed one wise decision at a time. It is so much easier to remain an enabler than reflect the Able one. It is a long, sometimes painful process to shape our character to the one we strive to reflect. But oh how I long to resemble my First Love. The Able One.

I am my Beloved’s

I want to really understand this. That is the cry of my heart these days; along with healing, strength, wisdom and a plethora of other requests. But this one trumps them all. I am my Beloved’s.

I was raised with an alcoholic father who used his “liberties” as the authority figure in my life to tell me I was the sick one for setting boundaries. Then, as an adult,  my ex-husband used the spiritual liberties granted him by man’s version of submission. Oh I don’t blame my ex-husband and father. I take full ownership of my crown called co-dependency and my scepter known as enabling. They are mine…temporarily that is until I figure out how to get rid of these pesky things.

But I really, REALLY want to grasp, grapple, press in, and absorb the concept of being His Beloved. I want to understand this as the foundation of my personal worth - not the opinions of man. I am probably my own worst enemy in this mistaken identity. I love what John Eagan said in his journal “We judge ourselves unworthy servants, and that judgment becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We deem ourselves too inconsiderable to be used by a God capable of miracles with no more than mud and spit. And thus our false humility shackles an otherwise omnipotent God.”2

I am more than mud and spit. I am in His image (I wonder if he has a dimple on his left cheek). Recently, I started defining myself to myself as one radically beloved by God and you know what? I have sensed a “falling in love” with my Jesus. I have truly felt a sense of intimacy with Him that I don’t remember feeling for a real long time.

Some in the church would believe me to be in rebellion; clearly not capable of such a close and intimate walk. That is something reserved only for the submitted and obedient (i.e. not divorced for non-Biblical reasons…whatever that means). I used to be one of those judgmental people. I am definitely reaping what I’ve sown. Ouch.

I’ve always had this sense of disappointing the Lord. Always afraid of what He really thought of me and my many hours of whiling away in an imaginary world. Then I remembered standing unobserved at the door of my children’s room watching them entertain Big Bird or Barney in some great plot or adventure. I would smile, turn, and leave them to their play, perfectly content with the fact that if they needed me or wanted to spend time with me, they would search me out. At which time, I would open my arms wide, envelope them completely, and savor the scent of blessed innocence in my beloved.


Is that how He sees me?

2Abba’s Child, Brennan Manning, NavPress, 2002.