“DON’T LEAVE ME! PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME!! DON’T LEAVE ME!!!”

I’d accidentally closed the front door thinking he was already in the car. As I placed the key in the lock, I heard him wailing as he descended the steps within.

I held him, said I was sorry, and that I would never leave him.

Abandonment.

Had a stepdad who would drive me to the edge of the property in the bed of our old brown farm truck, drag me out and tell me to walk home. Then he’d jump into the truck and drive home.

Had a drunken neighbor drag me to his car, drive me into the woods, and lock me in the trunk of a rusted out car, with a pile of leaves he’d lit on fire before closing the trunk and race away.

Mom would marry men for their strengths and end up with their weaknesses, every time, except for one. She and her last husband were together for decades and he truly loved her. They got it right.

My dad married and divorced many times as well, one of his wives, though, inspired me to marry Jaclyn.

Each divorce, via both of them came with yet another abandonment.

I’m only sharing this with you because you said I couldn’t relate.

Oh, and I’m hardly the perfect Christian. Just out of high school I met someone very precious to me. She headed off to college and we promised each other to each other.

I became very angry, thinking, here I was, one more time, being abandoned. She wasn’t abandoning me, of course. It was my own fear and experiences that moved me to that conclusion.

I broke off our relationship and would spend years considering that the worst sin I had ever committed. I mean, I know sin is sin, but, this was one I had been a victim of and had now become a perpetrator.

My first wife would go on to have three affairs, the last with my little sister’s husband, making that the weirdest of abandonments. I remember thinking that phrase, “you just can’t make this stuff up!” That affair would end with my nearly empty house and not knowing where my wife and children were that night.

“She left me, too, but I will never leave you nor forsake you.”, the Holy Spirit said.

THAT, THAT is what upended it all! Ask anyone who was there at the time and you will hear that what should have been the ultimate abandonment of all times, resulted in the absolutely mind blowing, heart exploding, realization of the supernatural ability Jesus has to know EXACTLY how we feel!!

“For our high priest is able to understand our weaknesses. He was tempted in every way that we are, but he did not sin.” – Hebrews 4:15

Jesus.

It didn’t happen overnight, and clearly it is still a series of memories I can recall as my little boy’s desperate wailing wiped the dust from it for me to share with you.

“”Be strong and brave. Don’t be afraid of them and don’t be frightened, because the LORD your God will go with you. He will not leave you or forget you.”

Then Moses called Joshua and said to him in front of the people, “Be strong and brave, because you will lead these people into the land the LORD promised to give their ancestors, and help them take it as their own.

The LORD himself will go before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forget you. Don’t be afraid and don’t worry.”” – Deuteronomy 31:6-8

It would not have had to have been said if we were not ALL prone to experience abandonment.

Those verses became the salve of my fears, a supernatural realization, a lens through which to see an aspect of God I had never thought possible.

Every ‘abandonment’, past, present, and future would from there on out, simply and deeply be reminders of God’s presence with me when all others were no longer there.

I can relate.

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