Abandonment - [Erik]

I'm going to take an emotional dump. Feel free to poke it with a stick and then maybe chase your friends around with the biznass end. Or just ignore it and walk on. Either way, I live for this kind of thing.

I struggle with feelings of abandonment...along with anxiety, anger, arrogance, self-loathing, etc., but one thing at a time.

Abandonment - a·ban·don (-bndn)
tr.v. a·ban·doned, a·ban·don·ing, a·ban·dons

1. To withdraw one's support or help from, especially in spite of duty, allegiance, or responsibility; desert: abandon a friend in trouble.

2. To give up by leaving or ceasing to operate or inhabit, especially as a result of danger or other impending threat: abandoned the ship.

3. To surrender one's claim to, right to, or interest in; give up entirely. See Synonyms at relinquish.

4. To cease trying to continue; desist from: abandoned the search for the missing hiker.

Dictionary definitions fail to communicate the full force of a thing.

Abandonment feels like being a 5 year old who was just dropped off by his parents in the middle of a very large, strange city and then told to go home. It happens when people don't care about you and leave you to fend for yourself with no help or guidance.

It happens in a million-plus ways everyday. Children are left without a father, not because he left town with his mistress, but because he's in the other room watching football or reading theology books and has no time for your video game playing ass. It happens when your christian mom takes you to the edge of faith and then retreats from her angry unbelieving husband leaving a child to defend God...all in the name of submission to God-given authority. We all know that it happens in the church everyday. The pastor talks a good game; you believe him and decide to take a seat and rest…only to have the chair pulled out from underneath you.

And it happens when I care more about me and getting mine (out of fear of abandonment) than I care about loving others. And the beat goes on.

Abandonment is an excellent weapon in the arsenal of evil. It leaves people sheltered and hidden from the world, clamoring for safety in selfish darkness all in the name of never letting history repeat itself.

"I will never be that vulnerable again." Lock your heart in a box and there it will never have to feel again as it grows cold and dies.

But abandonment is also the solution to the great evil of abandonment.

Abandonment - a·ban·don (-bndn)
n.

1. Unbounded enthusiasm; exuberance.

2. A complete surrender of inhibitions.

When we finally get it straight that God is not our parents or our teachers or the church, and we believe that what He says is true...that He loves us without condition or reservation, that He desires to live His holy life through us - His offspring...then we can abandon our selves to the all powerful One who will never abandon us. Then we can live in exuberance unbounded.

You are living in eternity right now. What you do with this matters.

[ping]