Abandon

I keep running into the word abandon lately. And might I say that God knew when to present this word to me, because had He presented it to me six months ago it would have sent me into a full blown panic attack with hives.

I never knew I had abandonment issues until the past couple of years. Honestly, I am not quite sure how they developed other than just twists and turns of life, and the fact that I have always kept so much of my pain hidden from sight. In a way I abandoned myself believing that if anyone knew the real me they would high tail it on out the door. Regardless of how it happened, abandonment was a very real fear of mine.

Then I picked up Lisa Harper’s book, “Untamed – How the wild side of Jesus Frees us to live and love with ABANDON”. Then I go reading the book I already started, Lysa Teurkurst’s book “Becoming More Than A Good Bible Study Girl” and she starts talking about living with ABANDON! It has always been ever presently clear to me that when I hear a word in more than one place in my life, especially a word as strong as ABANDON, I need to pay attention.

The root of my abandonment fear is that I am ultimately very afraid to be alone. Alone means fundamentally flawed, and fundamentally flawed is at the core of my shame. Hence, I have believed one of two things, 1. if I let someone in, I had better hang on to them with all the might I have 2. sometimes it’s just better not to let them in than to risk losing them and being left abandoned.

But Christ, He calls us to abandonment. He calls us to live in such a way that we would lay everything else down and follow Him. So many of us sit here with such a burning Holy emotional passion for Him, but we stop short of abandon. We stop short of the action because our emotions don’t follow. Our emotions say, wait a minute, are you really sure you want to put ALL your eggs in this one basket, what if He fails you? Then where will you be? And our internal dialogue goes something like this: Love Him, but keep your self at a distance, you really are a mess, what if all this Bible stuff isn’t true, you need more than just Him, you can’t even touch or see Him, Abandon, Really?, you can’t do that.

Lies. They are all lies. Abandonment and fear lie hand in hand. We may carry around emotional scars that leave us fearful to the core of being abandoned, but one thing is true. When you forsake everything for the sake of the Cross, HE WILL NOT FAIL YOU! When you decide to love Him with abandon, you suddenly free your heart to be completely His. And when your heart is His, you can rest assured that He does not abandon. He will ask you to love others, and you need to love others, and others to love you, but your heart will always remain in His hands, and regardless of what would be abandonment wounds inflicted by man, He will protect your heart with His jealous love. Living with abandon is not easy; I haven’t figured it out yet. But I know the first place to start is to let go of my fears, to ask Him to help me overcome my doubts and unbelief, and to jump with both feet into His arms, and to willingly pour out my heart to others knowing that my Savior will never abandon me.