On dealing with abandonment

“You have caused my friends to abandon me; you have made me repulsive to them. I am closed in and cannot escape.”  (Ps. 88:8)

Source: https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/479774166552058734/

Many of us will feel a sense of abandonment at some time during our lives. Words which are synonymous reveal the dreadfulness of this experience: betrayal, neglect, rejection, desertion, discarded. “Abandonment” is etymologically connected to “ban” (to prohibit or prevent). It seems that at every turn we are stopped or obstructed. All of a sudden, the lights are out. The rooms are dark, both literally and metaphorically. Abandonment can soon lead to the abject feeling of hopelessness. When we feel abandoned, disconnected, it is only natural to retreat. With retreat comes the inevitable isolation. We separate from people and things we love. We feel worthless. Left behind and cut off. Melancholia, as if quicksand, begins to draw us deeper into this place of inconsolable desolation. “I am unlovable”, we tell ourselves. This will only compound the agony of feeling utterly alone. Identity and personality are deconstructed, where it would seem to the one suffering that putting all of the ‘blocks’ back again, would be all, but impossible. And it is here, inside of this compressing horror, at its most brutal, and dangerous, that we have lost many people, including a large number of our young. This is what it can feel like, we are told. This “fear of emptiness” from which both the body and the mind plead for rescue and delivery.

“Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble: mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly” (Ps. 31:9)

Who will listen to the cries of the suffering soul? Who can understand the desperation of a weeping heart? Who will pick up the phone at 4.00AM in the morning? “O, brother, where art thou?”  the spirit cries out. “I am here. Wait another day. All will be well.” Is it your own voice or that of the Creator? For now, it doesn’t matter. Do not concern yourself with this right now. Discernment will arrive in its own time. All that matters, even if it might seem you are all alone in the world, all that matters, is that I am here with you. I surround you. Even in your darkness, I surround you. Get through this, the storm cannot last forever, and another layer of your true name will be shown to you. This desolateness is my point of entry. All of these dreads you have been voicing to yourself are not true. There is a reality to them, yes, a substantiality, but they are not the final truth of who you are. Like your tears, the pain is very real, and yet much of the narrative belongs to your imagination. Do not allow for your phantasms to take over. Look beyond the exaggerations. You are much bigger than the walls you have built around yourself.

“Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths.” (Rumi)

The most meaningful and enduring accomplishments have been born from within this darkness, when a bright light spills out of the endurance. Do not lose sight of this truth for others have been there before you. Christ was abandoned in Gethsemane by those closest to him and it is there he consents to save the world. King David penned his most propitious psalms when his sense of abandonment threatened to consume him whole. Saint John of the Cross wrote the greater part of the Spiritual Canticle locked away in a cell, abandoned and tormented by his brethren. It was in exile where the famed Persian poets, abandoned by their homeland and families, laid down a large deposit of their mystical splendour. Orphans which have been abandoned, some left on the streets of inhospitable cities, have grown to become benevolent souls of profound succour. The list is long because such suffering is not uncommon. Most of these conquerors have been anonymous. This too, you must take hold off and be strengthened, knowing that they were made of the very same stuff as you. 

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” (Kahlil Gibran)

In abandonment, if you can, love, even all the more. It is not impossible. It is there, in this self-surrender, in the places of your vulnerability, which is your truth, where the conquering is to be found. Little by little, one step at a time, hour by hour and day by day, draw back the curtains allow for the light to seep into your rooms. Into the wounds of your heart. Don’t give up yet, not now, when you are about to grow stronger. Persevere a little while longer in this trial. In this hour your cup is on the brink of overspilling with an incorruptible treasure. “Grace works best in the worst of conditions”, it has been said. Transformation, like Light, is also known by its baptisms of fire.

When you need a warm hug or a trusted ear, and there comes a time when we all do, reach out to someone you know, a soul which will not turn their back on you. There is always someone. And this too, which you are passing through now, my dearest A., like all things, it will pass.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jer. 29:11)