Love Unconditional...

What I am about to share is deeply personal and not without some still stinging pangs of shame, partly because showing the level of vulnerability I'm about to offer up is still trapped under the guise I was reared into: showing weakness is bad. However, I feel that for anyone who has felt as remotely hopeless as I have, it might help. And if sharing my triumph while yet weak helps someone overcome, God's will has been done.

As this year has been painfully difficult - panic attacks, anxiety filled with stomachaches at times reaching a point where I would throw up over my worry, weeping for the constant onslaught of insults leveled at me by people perfectly content, even proud of, their ignorance, I've struggled with my own rebellion. I have rebelled at an under-the-radar pace for quite some time, knowing myself to have deep anger and resentment for the pressure placed on me as an oldest child, partially sustained by my own need to be praised and desire for attention from authority figures who give the rules and make or break worker bees. My year teaching at an at-risk high school (while not economically high-risk) has unearthed my rebellion and shown its deepest, darkest potential. I had never been so unwilling to work and be creative in my life. And what birthed it? It wasn't so much the students. It was my anger and resentment at having worked and waited for what I thought I was missing, and feeling like I had been denied over and over again. But I couldn't place my finger on what that "missing" was.

Then, something happened over the weekend as I prayed, having let my grading catch up to me with sickening anxiety over my head (imagining confrontations from not having everything perfectly done, envisioning scolding from authorities that I have needed approval from) and coming down from physically shaking Thursday and Friday. I had been able to relax Friday because things were finally finished. And I decided it was prayer time.

My constant, underlying anger veiling a sense of sadness mingled with injustice was mystifying to me. I knew that I could not change the past of enduring a divorced family and I had forgiven the many rejections experienced, but this lingering anger was eluding me. Until I examined my arch nemesis, loneliness. While it is normal for any single woman to feel an acute pining for affection and love from a man in seasons of waiting, I wasn't willing to admit that I had been banking on it to give me what I felt I was lacking: unconditional love. Because I'm not very open about my romantic desires (I feel awkward really talking about it, and only lately have opened up about it to a sweet friend about things, and she's an awesome listener), I counted my reserved attitude as a reflection of being emotionally "okay." What an error, but I just wanted to negotiate the feelings of loneliness away, not really consider that there might be an underlying issue flooding into the forefront of my emotions and actions. It was the "missing".

But there was an issue, in my face and I was going to have to confront it with what I knew and all my fallen frustration and personal sadness. I had felt denied love. Somewhere in there is a little girl who did not feel good enough - who felt like she had to work for praise, love, and affection - who learned avoidance of disapproval by doing what she was told, but always looking behind her back, worried that the slightest mistake would mean a denial of affection. And she was thinking there would be a time for unconditional love, but that would have to be a long time down the road when she was older. Fine, she would wait. God would honor her patience and she wouldn't wander around pursuing it. She was trained well - did what she was told - God said not to pursue it, she wouldn't. But still, she would count on it to give what had been denied.

And the wait continued. Has continued. Only, I didn't realize I was angry and bitter about it. Not even an inkling, a liking, an affection, just...nothing.  Unable to tie all of this together, but having bits and pieces of a story, in conversations with my mom, I knew that I had felt denied SOMETHING...I had a hard time saying "no" to indulgences and spoiling myself in my own way, whether it was eating whatever I wanted, spending whatever I wanted, or acquiring my heart's current material desire. I told her this and she knew that I had thought it out and was on to something. I could not figure out what I was denied at the same time being angry about it.

Then this weekend, I was praying, and knowing that my current struggle in school was reminding me of the inadequacy that my schooling often made me feel (echoing that little girl's notion that she isn't good enough and that she has to earn and warrant the praise, affection, and love of others) I had to pray because I had known it for a long time to conflict with the Biblical knowledge that there is nothing in us that can earn the Lord's love, the best kind of love. It is not earned. It is a gracious, precious gift. I realized - what I've felt denied and angry about is unconditional love. And in my foolish little heart, I had thought I was so patient and honoring God so well as to warrant love to come my way in the form of a permanent romantic attachment. My conscience wouldn't let me get away with thinking I was honoring God though. I knew my rebellion very well. After all, a look in the mirror would tell me.

So, my overcompensation for my anger at feeling denied? I didn't deny my appetite for food, entertainment, or possessions. The consequences for the indulgence at my deeply embedded sense of indulgence are obesity, debt, and just way too much stuff. God's grace never fails, though. While still sensing my loneliness, God really showed me as I prayed and thought about Him and how grateful I was to Him for salvation and this head-knowledge of love that before I even knew these things about inadequacy and earning love, I had been saved at about age 6, having a very firm sense of belonging to God by the blood of Jesus. What God showed me this weekend was that I had always had what I had longed for before awareness ever set in but had never understood it. I was waiting on what was already mine, rebelling against being denied what I thought would bring it.  And though still feeling lonely, my anger very much subsided and bitterness melted away. I knew what to pray finally - that God would help my unbelief about His depth of affection for me and that I would not place this pressure on another fallen person, but trust in His freely offered love by the blood of Jesus. What a liberating prayer - to know what to pray and to finally TRUST God's love and teaching - something I had so struggled to do.

I pray that the death of this unbelief would bring new life to my need for self-control. In reminding myself that I have not been denied what I desired most of all, my prayer is that by the power of the Holy Spirit, I would take a healthy approach to denying myself the excess I had excused and permitted for so long. Finally feeling healthy - having a healthy understanding of my calling in the Lord and His offer of love to me - is more than I could have imagined for a weekend prayer session on a lonesome Friday night.  No need for rebellion or sense of injustice. Jesus loves me, this I hope to truly know.