Currently, I'm reading a book by Henry Cloud called Changes that Heal. One of the societal and psychological issues addressed within the book is about bonding emotionally, and what healthy bonding looks like. My friend put it nicely when I mentioned how much his book was helping me. "Well if you only look at the bad stuff, you'll only see bad in the world." This is exactly why it's so important to have a grid of what proper and God-given bonding looks like. Personally, I haven't had a lot of great bonding experiences, especially with my father. While I'm reading this book I'm beginning to identify what was missing even with my mother, and how much intimacy and emotional bonding even with friends has been nothing less than a nightmare in my life. He speaks about something psychologists call "object constancy". This describes our ability to have a placeholder and memorization of emotions we felt regarding our mothers, friends, fathers, and God. The question he poses is "how good are you at remembering how much others love you when you're in the midst of challenges?" I don't have an answer... If I did have an answer I probably wouldn't have battled with depression as hard as I did this weekend or last week. Throughout my life for that matter.
But why is it so hard? Why is it so impossible for me to look at this question and say "Yes, I definitely know that my loved ones love me, and they are what motivate me to keep moving forward."? Then I must ask the question "Do I love them?". Even to the point of allowing the littlest things to bother me about a person. I don't much like being disturbed while I'm sleeping, mostly because I'm a light sleeper, and for that reason, I am really not a fan of having a roommate. But I must ask myself "how could I come to the point of tolerating, or even enjoying the sounds that my roommate makes?". That would be a little closer to enjoying, or loving them more fully.
Yet, I still have the problem of not trusting that I am loved, which is why I called this post "roots of rejection". Lately, there have been many events where I have legitimately felt rejected by the people around me in a completely illegitimate way. There was no real reason for me to think that my friends were thinking ill of me, but I realized that as a kid I would get ditched often by my own friend group. I didn't know how to handle it, and I remember that there were a couple years in elementary school where I felt extremely alienated from my group. From that point on I don't remember developing healthy relationships in group settings within my internal structure. Sure, I was friendly with people, and there were friends that I had, but I never felt that I belonged. I never truly felt like people loved me and accepted me into their friend group, even though they had verbally affirmed this to be so. What I didn't have was the ability to trust and develop intimacy in that trust. I didn't trust that they had accepted me, that they wouldn't betray me, nor that I would ever legitimately be accepted into the group. Even though I was.
What the enemy stole from me was acceptance. To that degree, I refused to be the person who rejected someone from hanging out with my group and always tried to be inclusive because I KNEW how much it damaged me to be left out, and how much it still hurts to be left out. Yet this is the error and the over-correction on my part because of the reaction of my own fears. The course correction is knowing I belong to a family, and that Jesus has brought me into His sheep. He will never forsake me, even though my friends did, and may do so again. He didn't forsake me even then, and that is the righteousness that I'm trying to stare at, even though sometimes I've forsaken Him. In Him I belong. In Him I am a part of something. In Him I can be me.