Abandonment

So often I get this feeling over very subtle things that I'm not important to anybody, or that I'm not worth their investment of time and honor. I'm not writing this to whine or belly-ache and make excuses like a little kid, I'm just describing what I've been going through. So much of my life I've felt like I'm expected to figure everything out on my own. Since men are made to come through in the clutch, it is natural for humanity to expect that of us. It is a design that even unregenerate people can sense, just like that women were made to be captivating and inviting and nurturing. However, we were not made to do this alone. Like the Scripture 'Less men should boast', we were not designed at all to blaze our trails on our own. It is a part of us to want to make a way for ourselves and blaze our own trails because we were each created with our own individual identity that was intended to reflect God's glory in it's own way. It is unique, and if it doesn't come out, then a part of God's creation is not complete. So much opposition comes against us through shame with this area. However, like the phrase 'Turtle on a fencepost', it was not at all in our makeup to conjure up our own identity by ourselves. In the Old Testament the fathers always gave the name and the inheritance and passed down their blessings. This is a double-edged sword that Satan can obviously use to cripple people if their parents are not whole in their own identity, but nonetheless it shows that God intended for others to play a part in our growth and identity. One defintion of the word father is 'The one who gives meaning'. Fatherlessness creates a disease of lack of identity and direction, so naturally people will rely on their own survival instincts(i.e. their strengths which are chemically driven) to try to stay afloat. One of the reasons why teenagers are sexually maturing so much faster nowadays can be linked to this, because broken families mean less affectionate love being given, so the body starts looking for other ways to get that need met, and sexual oneness is the first place where that feeling of intimacy and adoration can be FELT.
Anyway, at my job I have felt often fed to the wolves to figure things out that I have no clue, and customers of course expect the employees to do so. It makes me feel hung out to dry and expected to somehow conjure something up that's just not there. Like somebody who has never read the Bible and is expected to recite John 3:16(outside of God inspiring that, because I know that that is always possible). I feel just this weight of isolation and loneliness, really orphanage. It brings up alot of anger and frustration because it doesn't seem fair for me to be expected to offer something that's just not there. On the other side, it brings healing because alot of underlying hardness and brokenness finally comes out of hiding so that it can be dealt with. I also have noticed that most of the customers and people in general that I'm dealing with are middle-aged men who put on a bravado of 'self-made man' toughness as their identity. I do not all condone wimpiness in men, because that is what has castrated this country, but posing I do not like either. You can't solve the problem of violent, over-bearing, self-righteous, bigoted men by trying to turn them into geldings! But alot of times people use their strengths as a crutch to barge their way through life, and it is an exalted form of pride, often combined with shame because they feel if they don't, then they will never win the approval of other men, and at a deeper level, their father. It's the difference between William Wallace and Edward the Longshanks in the movie Braveheart. Posing aggressive men are not moving out of a center of knowing who they are, and therefore they will fall on their strength that is driven by testosterone to try to make it through life. This is one reason why many men go through what psychologists call a 'Mid-life crisis'. The physical strength and bravado starts to wane with their testosterone drop, and their is no grounded strength in their soul and spirit because they were relying on outward things for their identity(remember, whoever seeks to save their life will lose it). They were not founded on a Rock, but on sand, just as church bodies that are founded on knowledge and doctrine alone quickly fizzle out because the real need of Intimacy and Relationship with God is not there, and they fall into Phariseeism and worship of the Law instead of the God of the Law.
Oh how I need to be aggressive about pursuing father-figures in my life. It's one of my greatest desires, but also one of my greatest fears, because I have been rejected and downgraded so much by men who still look at life through the lense of outward performance instead of performance flowing out of Truth and realness(if that is a word). Six years ago my mother and step-father almost divorced, and problems began to come up in my step-father's life. He was the person that I looked to to be what my father cannot, and it never came through. In a way it was good because for so long I thought he could do no wrong, but the deep wound from that I still feel to this day. Last fall God orchestrated through a situation where I felt alone and abandoned and left to face the onslaught of this heartless world alone to bring to the surface this gash. A part of me died back then, and I remember after that that I quit caring and started to increasingly turn to comfort and gratification and pleasure. I never slept with any girls or got into drugs or stealing or contraband trading, but my desires and dreams to live my life to it's fullest were shot right through. God has done so much over the past few years, alot dealing with the way my father has treated me and He has helped me to release him from my grip. I just feel right now once more that deep void of loneliness and abandonment that I felt back then. It was almost like in my heart that the other person died, even though they are still here. I so much wish that God would restore in my loved ones' lives the rifts that have taken place in them. It really stands out to me how those rifts drive us to follow our flesh into sin to try to meet those unmet needs. I'm not trying to excuse sin, because God is not mocked and there are consequences, but God is patient, merciful, and certainly understanding of all of our deep cuts. He wants to heal us and bring those places back to life.
I know that God is going to continue to Father me and He will never abandon me, even though in situations it does feel like it. I just have to be honest that for so long I have just wanted to be accepted for who I am through all of my faults and vices. Not to be flattered and excused for wrong living, but to know that I do not have to do something in order to be who God says that I am. Our 'doing' is supposed to flow out of our 'being'. Religion reverses that.
Also, I have a friend who is going to be going off to war very soon, and I have to say that although I have had some pet-peeves about the way he has previously acted towards another friend, I know that his true heart that God sees is good. I pray that God will keep him and bless him and make His Face shine upon him, and that he will grow into the mighty warrior that he was created to be.
I have another friend that is going to be going to England sometime in the not-so-distant future. I really feel like this is the change that she needs, and that if she stays where she is she will not be fulfilled. God has done so much for her and has so much in store. I have always had good friends that are girls, but this one is very dear to me and will always have a special place in my heart :). I don't want to get too mushy, but I can't help but say that. Oh, and to be fair to the previous friend I described, I have had pet-peeves before about her as well, hehe ;). I know that so much of the life that she has longed to live, free of any obligation and binding to be somebody that she's not, is going to come. At the end of next week my contact with her will be severely cut due to phone issues, and although I'm going to miss it and probably will have to deal with withdrawal and readustment, life is going to go on and God's going to bring other people in the coming seasons, so unlike 3 years ago(she knows what I'm talking about) I'm not at all upset about it.
Anyways, that is what I had on my heart to talk about this time. So much more I could expound upon, but so little time.