fight or flight response

It is a real push for me to sit through a whole movie. It's not that in my old age of twenty I fall asleep or need to move around to keep the blood flowing or any other slew of ridiculous reasons that you could come up with, it's simply because I don't want to see the conflict. I wince at awkward conversations over dinner with future in-laws, have to check something when someone is tearing up or go through my to-do list in my head while someone is facing their inner battle in soliloquy fashion. I still tell Sarah Jessica Parker to shut up every time I watch the Family Stone, even though it's been placed in my DVD player umpteenth times.

A few days ago, a dear friend of mine by the name of Courtney and I were talking casually about a favorite book of hers by a little known author by the name of....Donald Miller. Having heard of Blue Like Jazz by, oh, just about everyone I've ever met, I was curious and Courtney lent me a book that she said I needed to read by the name of Father Fiction.

Knowing that I had the apartment to myself for most of the day, I embarked on my first journey into the wonderland that is the writings of Donald Miller (don't judge me just because I didn't get on the miller train sooner). I knew what the book was about, but only part way through the book, I began to feel a kinetic energy like two magnets working in opposition of each other pulling me away from the words on the page. This was the flight response. This man who I was not acquainted with was spilling all the darkness of a fatherless life and all I honestly wanted to do is stick my head between my knees and tell him and everyone else that over the years has tried to pull every last bit of these issues out me, to get the hell away and to stop bothering me. I was once again faced with the fight or flight issue and my first reaction was to get out before something was brought out of me.

You see, I've never wanted to be one of those girls. Don't lie; you know exactly who I am talking about. The girls who have daddy issues. They're the ones who get the reputation for jumping into the arms of every man they speak to, crying in fits of self-pity and feeling they need a man in their life to complete, happy, whatever it is that will finally fix them. Whether I had them or not, I didn't want to be associated with girls who have daddy issues.

...But even though I try my hardest to put all my issues of a "fatherless" childhood in my deepest drawer hidden behind all the junk I let people see on occassion to prove that I actually am human and that can easily cover up the rest of what's internally going on, they are still there. I may not want to be associated with girls who act out of their reaction to abandoment, but really, I am just another one of them who, because she was not loved by her father, is constantly seeking the approval, adoration and although I hate to admit it, love of others.

While I feel the flight response kicking in, I know that hiding my feelings of abandonment, worthlessness and loneliness will never go away if I just place them in the back of the drawer. The ugly sweater your mom made you wear for school picture day may be hanging in the darkest part of your closet, but it's still there, and though you can't always see it, when you do, it makes it all the more cringe-worthy to deal with it, rather than if you had just sucked it up and told your mom it was ugly and given it to goodwill in the first place. While my issues at hand aren't as easy as a give-away box and a mom who simply doesn't understand why you don't like the combination of sequins and unicorns anymore, it has in common that nothing will ever change about it until something happens on my part. I have to be willing to work through it if I ever want to heal from it, which sucks. Who really wants to sort through her issues of emotional abandoment when she can just ignore it and hope it doesn't come up all that often? Right....

It may not be ideal, but the realization that I need to work through my fear of abandonment and the empty part of my heart where the love of a father belongs has is, in it's own redemptive way, beautiful. Not in the 'close my eyes, everything is okay and go about life whistling a happy tune' kind of way, but in the beauty that is being broken. There is something blessed about being broken. In Christ's brokenness came the greatest act of love this earth will ever know and who knows what may come out of my own wounded heart. It won't be a sin-saving sacrifice, that's for sure, but in my own healing will come my own beauty. You must be broken before you can be healed. It's not pretty and it's not fun, but until you are willing to work through the pain, it will always be there, just like that ugly unicorn sweater.

It's time for me to get that sweater out of my closet and deal with it.