So Long Insecurity Page 6

  “What, Baby?”

  “I’m not telling you.”

  I’m not a very naive person about most things. I purposely stay plugged into world events, so I know that if he’s refusing to read me something it must be a prime exhibit of humanity’s total depravity. A few days ago, he pitched the whole paper on the floor and said, “I’m not reading it anymore. I’m sick of it. Nothing but bad news.” He didn’t mean it, though. We’re both news freaks. He was on the edge of the tub with the very next edition. But he was dead right about one thing: there’s no apparent end to bad news. Much of the world is racked with enormous debt and economic instability, threats of terrorism, wars, fallen heroes, rabid perversity, and violence for the pure pleasure of it.

  About the time we stop hearing about one natural disaster, another erupts with a death toll so high we go numb. Add to that a demoralizing list of acquaintances or loved ones diagnosed with life-threatening diseases, and you’ve got yourself enough fear to dig a hole of insecurity six feet deep. Hop on the Web with your own symptoms, and you’ll find enough criteria to diagnose yourself with three months to live, and about that time, your six-foot ditch starts looking like it might come in frighteningly handy.

  If we didn’t have a single earth-shattering reason to feel insecure, simply growing up would do the trick. As parents, we do our best to build our children up in those preschool years, and then we send them off to elementary school only to have them come home with something like, “The kids at school say I look like a turtle.” A what? “I’m never going back!” Tears gush and we start trying to figure out what kinds of professions require only a kindergarten education.

  Life is rough. It’s also beautiful, but if we can’t get some respite from its cruelty, we will never have the healthy vision to savor its tender beauty.

  Growing up, we are all surrounded by people with such generous portions of insecurity, they’ll gladly share them. In fact, one terrific way to develop a chronic case is to have somebody project their own onto you. I’m not casting stones. I’ve done it. My oldest daughter turned sixteen before most of her friends, and since they couldn’t wait to be freed from the tyranny of the parental car pool, the attainment of her license was a much- celebrated affair.

  To my daughter’s unbridled delight, Keith’s parents gave her the coolest gift ever for her birthday: a maroon convertible Mustang with a huge bow on it.

  Perhaps you can imagine how thrilled I was over the prospect of our brand-spanking-new driver having a cloth-top sports car. I think I recall muttering the words death trap under my coffee breath even before the cake and ice cream were served. After a few days of driving to school, Amanda quipped to me almost as a side note that she needed to work on her parking. She kept getting it in the spot crooked, and a couple of her friends made fun of her. Leave it to me, the worst driver in the free world, to put on my sunglasses and make a trip to the high school parking lot for the next couple of days in order to repark her car so they’d stop teasing her. What an idiot. I projected my own insecurities right on top of hers like a hard top on a convertible. I didn’t tell her for years, and she nearly flipped when she found out. Do you want to hear something pathetic? If I had it to do all over again, I would probably do the same thing. Why? Because growing up can be brutal. And if not for you, for your mother.

  But for some, it’s more brutal than others. Take, for instance, any two people who happened to have lived similar lives and suffered the same kinds of traumas. While they can probably find loads of ways they can relate to one another, if they are given enough time and enough depth, they’ll probably also discover how different they really are. We are each completely and complexly original, whether or not it happens to be convenient. It’s the way our Maker made us. Our DNA weaves in and out of every experience and emotion like a needle and a long blue thread. The writer of Proverbs puts it this way: “Each heart knows its own bitterness” (14:10). The more intense the pain, the more it feels like nobody fully understands. Try as I might, I can’t fully comprehend how a particular event affected your life, even if we both shared the same experience. Your personality and history shapes your response, just as my own unique background affects mine. We’d go only so far in one another’s shoes before the laces came loose.

  A host of troubles are common to humankind, but when it comes right down to it—and all things being equal—almost nothing is equal. For me, this is one profound reason that God, omniscient and omnipresent, has been the vital element in my healing. During particularly lonely or frustrating times, perhaps you, like me, have felt that nobody else gets it. But He gets it better than we do. So many times He has shown me where I was coming from instead of the other way around.

  That said, there really are a number of common contributors to chronic insecurity. Even bad fruit has a vine, and where there’s a vine, there’s a root. As we dig up a few of these roots, stay mindful to the fact that the impact of each can differ dramatically from person to person. I won’t pretend to have the expertise to present a complete and comprehensive list, but I do believe the origins we’ll discuss could offer us a couple of helpful “aha!” moments. Few of these roots will surprise you, but I believe that the reminder alone will stir up the sensation of insecurity so we can make the personal connection. Don’t fight it. Recognition is the first step toward letting God get to an issue and healing it. Get some things up there on the surface, and let God validate your challenges. Somewhere along the way, we’ve been made to believe that these things aren’t that big of a deal, but actually they are.

  Instability in the Home

  This is a no-brainer. Perhaps your parents fought like wildcats, and maybe one continually threatened to leave. Or maybe they got along reasonably well, but your home was rocked by layoffs and financial woes. The disintegration of a family can jerk the rug of security out from under a couple of generations. If you’re a mom who has suffered through a divorce, please don’t crawl under a rock of condemnation. Just realize the potential fallout and seek to counteract it with the power of a redeeming God and a community of support.

  An alcoholic parent or a mentally ill parent also stirs up an environment of chaos and uncertainty. Like many of your families, my family of origin has been touched by mental illness. Thankfully, it wasn’t a constant presence in ours, but it erupted often enough that flashbacks of certain moments of madness can still send shivers down my spine. I feel the terror of them again just like I felt at fourteen.

  A parent’s physical illness can also create significant fear and insecurity for a child—even if that parent would give anything on earth to be the best possible caretaker. If you happen to be that infirm parent, I pray you will not give way to despair over these words. I also pray that God will show you wonders unceasing. We who are in Christ are never hopeless, never without recourse or divine help, even when our bodies are weak. If we find ourselves facing the frightening prospect of serious illness, we must exercise the courage to cry out for help, seek the support that we and our children need, and learn to create open and honest dialogue. Inviting even the worst and most unfair circumstances out into the spotlight sets the stage for a miracle. In the meantime, never forget that God still reserves the right to favor the suffering.

  Many invitations to insecurity within a home are unintentional and largely unavoidable, no matter how a loving parent might be trying. But make no mistake. Some parents are not loving. Their children, so worthy of affection, may live their entire lives without ever discovering exactly why their parents couldn’t show it. In cases like this, let’s first offer parents the benefit of the doubt. It is possible to genuinely love without ever becoming genuinely loving. An unfortunate disconnect exists somewhere. But other times a parent is not only unloving, he or she—to quote my grandmother—is meaner than a snake.

  At the root of chronic insecurity is often the primal fear that no one will take care of us. Every single thing that underscores that fear is like fertilizer in the soil. And there’s nothi
ng that makes a home less stable than abuse. Any kind of abuse—emotional, mental, physical, verbal, or sexual—not only causes immediate effects, it also goes straight to the core of our belief system and parrots our worst nightmares: I’m on my own. No one will take care of me. And not only does it teach us that no one is there to take care of us, it also affirms that those who are supposed to care will instead harm us.

  Even if you have loving people in your life, if they cannot or will not stop your abuse (even if they are oblivious), your fear is still confirmed. We can’t underestimate the repercussions of that kind of perception, and the earlier it is affirmed, the louder it speaks.

  The residual ongoing sense of being unprotected can obliterate personal boundaries until our emotions are black and blue. We end up putting ourselves into one messed-up relationship after another trying to find someone who will take care of us. Someone who will not disappoint us. And it never works. For one thing, that kind of motivation draws us to the wrong kind of people. For another, it’s too much pressure to put on any human relationship. I speak to you as one who knows. Not surprisingly, the gender of an abuser also has a strong connection to the direction the insecurity grows. The human mind and emotions are far too complex for many hard, fast rules, but if a female was a sizable source of our insecurity early on, we will tend to struggle more with security around or with women. If it was a male, as in my case, we will tend to struggle more with security around or with men. The gender of the person who originally made us feel defenseless will often continue to make us feel either defenseless or inordinately defensive until we are restored.

  Because I suffered victimization, I also realize how painful reminders like this book can be. No one wants to reflect on times we were abused or misused, but as we take this journey together, look at it this way: those of us who share this background can rest assured that we didn’t conjure up our insecurities out of thin air.

  Recently I read a few lines to a song that touch the frayed nerve of anyone whose perpetrator of abuse or misuse was supposed to be a protector. These lyrics were written by a woman with a life and belief system very different from my own, but somewhere along the way our conclusions were the same.

  I don’t say much, I just talk a lot,

  I don’t know what love is,

  But I will tell you what it is not.4

  Actually, by the time you realize that what you’re experiencing is not love, some significant healing is already beginning to take place. It hasn’t reached into the deepest canyons of the soul, however, until you come to a place where you can echo across that great expanse, “Now, that’s love.” The ability to know the difference is, in itself, a glimmer of health in a war-torn soul.

  Before we start digging up the next root of insecurity, I want you to know something. I believe with all my heart that every adult still has a need to be loved like a child. I didn’t say every adult has a need to be treated like a child. We’ll leave that to the narcissists. I said we have a need to be loved like a child. That’s why losing both parents is often a profound life transition—no matter how old you are when it happens. Just wait and see. I get that orphaned feeling every time I kneel at my parents’ graves. But here’s the good news: you can indeed look for that kind of love from God, and He will always love you and take care of you like the perfect father does his child.

  Even when you are old, I will be the same. Even when your hair has turned gray, I will take care of you. I made you and will take care of you. I will carry you and save you.

  Isaiah 46:4, NCV

  If you’ve lived your life looking for someone to take care of you but always end up taking care of everyone else, your search is over. God has what you need, and you’ll never wear Him out.

  A Significant Loss

  Losses that contribute to chronic insecurity come in a variety of forms. It could be the loss of anything that you genuinely prize or derive stability and self-worth from. It might be the loss of a home, a peer group, a relationship, a best friend, a long-term babysitter, or the permanent loss of a loved one due to death. In this section, we will primarily focus our attention on losses that occurred earlier in life because of their impact on developing belief systems, though loss at any age can be traumatic and can stir up terrible insecurity even in a person who has hardly struggled with it before.

  A few days ago my husband, his parents, our oldest daughter, and I attended the Catholic graveside service of Keith’s elderly aunt. While he and his mom circulated through the crowd of relatives, my beloved father-in-law stood to the side with Amanda and me and talked. Almost out of the blue he said, “Duke is buried right under here.” He pointed with his cane to the artificial green turf the funeral home had spread around the burial site. “Probably close to where we are standing.” I nearly jumped like I’d been hit by lightning. I’m sure, as sensitive as Amanda is, she probably did too.

  Duke was my in-laws’ adored firstborn. When he was a lively and darling three-year-old cotton-top, he and my husband, Keith, who was two years old at the time, slipped unnoticed into the garage. In minutes they turned over a gas can, spilling gasoline under the water heater and creating an inferno. Duke lived only a few excruciating days. Keith survived but with emotional scars that have taken as much painful grafting as if his body had been cloaked with third-degree burns. After research for this book revealed the powerful connection between loss and insecurity, I realize that he is a marvel, scars and all. I have mourned the loss of Keith’s older brother many times even though I came on the Moore scene eighteen years later. I have never been more tender to it, however, than I have been recently. My grandson, Jackson, is now exactly the same age as Duke was when he died, and the thought of losing him is utterly unbearable. I can’t even pause here to think about it.

  “Pawpaw, is Nalda buried here, too?” Amanda asked. He obviously wanted to talk, so the question was appropriate coming from his oldest grandchild. “No, honey. She’s buried over there.” Are you ready for this? Nalda was Keith’s younger sister. She died of an aneurysm at twenty-three. Too much. Way too much. And since Duke’s grave was mercifully covered that day, the three of us made our trek to the markers in the adjacent area to pay our respects to their beloved daughter. Soon Keith saw us across the way and joined us.

  Moments later, while we were still standing at Nalda’s grave, I glanced over at the awning and tried unsuccessfully to spot my mother-in-law amid the few remaining relatives. Then I saw her. She’d gotten into the car. We could stand at her children’s graves all we wanted, but she’d wait in the car. And I didn’t blame her. Those two deaths profoundly affected every member of that large family—but did they all respond in the same way? Not on your life. “Each heart knows its own bitterness” (Proverbs 14:10).

  A primary loss in childhood is a surefire setup for insecurity. If you lost a parent to cancer when you were a child, girlfriend, your search for the root of your chronic insecurity is over. You earned it. No, you can’t have your loved one back in this lifetime, but you can indeed have your security back. That loss does not have to be permanent.

  Insecurity can result from a broken attachment of any kind, even one that seems relatively minor to others. If it translated as something huge to your heart, it is huge to God on your behalf. Before we move on, remember to always think broadly when you’re trying to analyze losses and their links to your insecurity. Even the loss of face or respect through some kind of public shame can have an immense impact. Wondering if everybody hates you takes no small toll on your soul.

  The loss of innocence is also a powder keg of insecurity. Although my husband was not touched inappropriately like I was, a few of his father’s employees had the audacity to show him pornography in his boyhood. Both of those examples, as different as they may seem, constitute a loss of innocence. Simply put, if you didn’t get to be a child when you were young, you suffered a loss of innocence. As the apostle Paul inferred, children are supposed to talk like children, think like children, and re
ason like children (1 Corinthians 13:11). When they are forced to grow up too quickly, they lose something that no one can give back.

  Rejection

  After years of working with women and hearing their stories, I’ve observed that few forces can catapult a female into a season of insecurity with the swiftness of rejection. We’ve danced a few steps on the topic already and will do so again before we close the book, but to overlook it as a thick, gnarled root of insecurity would be a mistake. Nothing shouts a more convincing lie about our personal value than rejection, and it can reverberate with deafening pitch from any direction.

  Anywhere there is relationship, there is potential for rejection. Mind you, we were created by God precisely for relationship, so disconnection is not the answer. Restoration is. First, however, we need to take a good look at our insecurities and see if they are tied to our perception of a rejection that sent us reeling.

  I used the word perception because it is entirely possible to perceive that we’ve been rejected when we haven’t. If our hearts are tender or unhealthy enough, we can turn a reasonable boundary into a full-fledged rejection. In other words, we might have wanted all the attention of someone who was only willing to give us a significant portion. We may, for instance, want to be treated as the favorite child of a parent of two or a stepparent of four. Or we may want to be the only friend of our only friend. Or we may want to be the absolute apex of our man’s attention, and when we don’t get what we crave in the relationship we’ve exalted, we feel rejected. We can confuse 80 percent reciprocation with 100 percent rejection.