BP 173

On a current trip to Sweden, I recently counseled five people at a parachurch retreat northwest of Stockholm. Some of the individuals I sat down with were indigenous Swedes and some were from the States. Interestingly, there appeared to be one or two common themes they all reported. Let’s take a brief look at the overlapping themes they all expressed.

The first woman I met with during our one-off session said, “Because of my mother’s excessive emotionality [and other family of origin dynamics], I learned to be under emotional. I developed an independence that turned into self-sufficiency. I did not let myself need people. I became avoidant in my attachment style. When I came to Sweden to serve in a parachurch ministry, I found myself in a country that was just like me—self-sufficient and emotionally detached. I am lonely on the inside and living on the outside in a lonely country.”

Another person I briefly counseled reported, “I felt like my parents had no curiosity about me. If I hurt them or didn’t respond to them the way they wanted me to, they pulled away and were emotionally distant. I grew up and developed one-sided relationships where I was present for other people’s needs, but I did not expect them to be there for my needs. I don’t know how to be vulnerable and ask for attention because I don’t believe anyone will be curious about me or want to know me. There is not space for me, only for the other person. I am alone inside.”

A third young woman named Esther mentioned as she wept that she grew up with a rigid, controlling father who expected her to learn things very quickly on her own. He would shame her if she needed anything from him like guidance or direction or if her emotions somehow threatened him. Today she interprets all hurt as harm and so shuts down her heart because it is too painful to be around people. The word she spoke to me most frequently during the hour we met was “hiding.” She said her kneejerk reaction to the pain she feels around others is to run away and go into hiding.

The young man I met with said that because of a recent romantic rejection (the third rejection in as many years), his plan moving forward might be to protect his heart by withdrawing from all women so as not to experience abandonment ever again. His tendency toward OCD leaves him vulnerable to rehearsing everything he said and did in the most recent relationship. As his mind obsesses about his behaviors—especially the mistakes he may have made–his emotions become more intense toward himself and the woman who rejected him. He feels abandoned by her and sees himself as unlovable. His emotional mind tells him to never be vulnerable again.

The fifth individual I spoke with has had a complicated relationship with her mother. Her mother has withdrawn emotionally from her disappointing husband over the years and entered into an unhealthy merger relationship with her daughter. The mother has directed her emotional need for intimacy toward her daughter instead of meeting that need in her marriage. Recently, the daughter has had a rash of panic attacks that have narrowed her life down to the point that she avoids people. She also has recently begun to obsess about her body, i.e., she fears she has cancer or a heart issue or some other undiagnosed serious illness. Her body preoccupation with all of its accompanying anxiety is robbing her of an ability to focus on and love other people.

As Designer Therapy for Life has repeatedly mentioned, humans were designed to be with God and others but after the Fall we were separated from God (“strangers, exiles, aliens, not a people, far from God” as Ephesians 2 describes). We do not naturally move toward God (and others) but, like Adam and Eve, we run from our heavenly Father and hide in shame, fear, and rebellion.

Most of the people I briefly counseled at the retreat described pain encountered in relationships such as rejection, abandonment, and not being seen or loved. As a result of this pain, they reacted by doing what we humans post-Fall do so naturally: they pulled away, they hid, they choose not to need others or be vulnerable to receive love but instead retreated into isolating self-sufficiency.

What are some truths we can take away from the experiences and choices of these five people who were courageous enough to bare souls that normally hide?

Fallen human nature, even when redeemed by Christ, persists in running away, hiding, and even barricading the door of the heart. Why?

First, we do not want anyone telling us what to do or to have any authority over us. We are the boss of ourselves, not anyone else. Not even God can tell us what to do.

Second, we have experienced hurt, rejection, and abandonment in the past and now have third degree burns over 95% of our souls. If a person even breathes wrong on us, our soul skin burns with pain, and we react with anger or we smile on the outside but withdraw deep inside in our souls hating others and hating ourselves.

Third, when we were small, the people around us may not have had the emotional supplies to love us as we needed, or maybe they were stoic, relating to us with their intellect but not with compassionate hearts. So, as adults we now feel unlovable and shrink away from others because we see ourselves as wraiths—barely noticed by others around us, meant to be ignored.

Or, finally, for some of us, our parents were fragile and emotionally needy from their own childhoods, so we became the parent of them instead of them being the parent of us. As adults, we know how to be strong and self-sufficient and how to take care of others. However, we don’t know what we need or how to ask for it if we do know. We might even feel guilty if we think of ourselves or feel ashamed when we label our needs as “neediness” or weakness. Accordingly, we remain alone inside our souls, starving for love but looking strong on the outside, a magnet for all those who need someone to take care of them.

What happens to humans who are so adept at hiding?

I have quoted these words from C.S. Lewis before because they are so relevant to people who have chosen to hide from God, others, and even their own hearts: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

Lewis is telling us that the protection of our hearts can be a gravely dangerous thing. We come into the world hard-wired to avoid vulnerability, to shun dependence on God, to divorce ourselves from our own hunger for love and for divine presence. It is so easy for us to hide our hearts and in the process divorce ourselves from relationships.

What are we to do, we fallen people who hide and do not seek?

Thankfully, we serve a God who pursues us, who is safe and approachable. Isaiah 40:10ff says,

10”Behold, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
¹¹ He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.”

Also, remember the story of the lost son in Luke 15. Concerning this astounding parable that portrays the love of God the Father, Vince Vitale writes in Jesus Among Secular Gods, “The prodigal son has given his father every reason not to love him . . . The prodigal was proud, ungrateful, unjust, corrupt—an evildoer. . . And yet at the mere sight of the prodigal son, when he is still far off in the distance, the father hikes up his long robe, exposes his legs, and takes off running . . . He kisses his son . . . and embraces him and welcomes him home with the best robe . . . a ring on his finger . . . and sandals for his feet.”

Yes, we have a loving Father who does not want his children to be separated from Him by their sin or their self-sufficient coping. So, move toward such a compassionate Father! Move toward others. Move toward your own heart with its shame and fear.

You were designed to be in relationship, to love, to be with God and others.

No doubt, you are tired of me making this point, but I’m going to repeat it anyway because it is so critical in a world where we lock up our hearts in tombs: always, always move toward others (if they are safe) instead of moving away from them by hiding or moving against them in anger or rebellion and burning the bridge of intimacy.

Move toward, child of the King. Move toward.

He says, “Come.”

“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” ~ Hebrews 4:16