The subject of not feeling loved comes up in women's groups a lot. There are hundreds of women's books on the subject. Generally, the idea is that women are insecure about their shortcomings and failures, living up to impossible standards in their minds and feeling worthless when they don't meet them. 

I have been there before, but I am not there now, and looking back, I think perhaps this is not particularly a female problem, as many believe.  I think this is a human problem, stemming out of a works-based understanding of the "gospel" (euangelion) that is not good news to anybody.

Perhaps I'll write more on that another time.

Today as a result of some conversations, I found myself explaining to somebody that my problem is not one of insecurity because of my shortcomings and failures.  In fact, I think pretty highly of myself most of the time, although I'm still working on coming to a place where I can admit that anywhere but an anonymous blog. One of these days... #gospelgoals #workinprogress #idolsoftheheart #sinofpride

(Are you allowed to use hashtags in a blog post? I guess it's just the lazy, shorthand way of saying things that would take many sentences to write fully, or that you don't feel comfortable committing to an entire sentence about.)

As I was saying, for me, it's not as much that I am insecure in God's love for me because of my specific shortcomings or failings. It's more that my picture of God is all wrong. "Moody" is really the best word for it. And selective in whom He deigns to lavish his love upon at this particular moment in time. Like: "I don't feel like loving you today, because I just don't feel like it, and I'm God, so I can do that. I'm going to go love this other person over here instead today; maybe you'll be the lucky one tomorrow." 

I've been told, however implicitly, that that's how love works. I have been the subject of that kind of love, and I have also been guilty of that kind of love.

My mom was always a big fan of telling us, "Life's not fair!" Usually, of course, it was in response to what you often hear from children: "But that's not fair!" Not an unusual phrase to hear in the parenting world.

But my mom didn't merely use this phrase as a parenting tactic. She believed it deeply within herself and struggled with bitterness and resentment over it, both against people and against God. 

My mom has been the subject of a good deal of suffering, from her childhood on up to her adulthood.  As a child, she had a physical characteristic that caused many people to treat her badly.  It was finally taken care of when she was 18 years old, but by then, I imagine the foundation of hurt and bitterness was already laid.  

Then, unfortunately, in her adulthood, she fell prey to the charms of a narcissist.  My sister and I were the result of their relationship (this is an act of God's faithfulness and His promise of bringing life out of death, although my mom and sister do not realize this yet).  She thankfully got out of that relationship after a relatively short period of time, but I imagine it must have been the final blow to her anger at the world, at people, at God.  

She was not often physically expressive about her anger, and she was not abusive to my sister and I, but I heard that undercurrent of anger in conversations she had with her sisters about life and in her lashings out at us when we were misbehaving.  I also heard the pain when she spoke of feeling insecure about being a single mom in our conservative church.  As I got older, I realized the scars she had were the reason she preferred the company of animals to people, why she revealed so little about the deeper parts of herself to anyone, and why she was drawn to other people as broken as herself.

(Interestingly, if I ever initiated friendship as a kid, it was also with people who were broken.  By God's grace, there were some people who knew Christ that befriended me, and I learned that wholeness did exist and was something I could attain to.)

But a lot of development happens before you realize the deeper whys and wherefores of the ways of the people who raise you, and some of my mom's anger and bitterness left a stamp on me and shaped the way I thought (and think) about the world.

Once upon a time, there was a sunny day in the midst of a series of rainy days.  I was in my late teens, or perhaps early college, and I was rejoicing.  I struggle with seasonal depression and had been praying for the sun to come back to lift my spirits.  I was practically dancing in our living room, and I told my mom: "I'm so happy! God answered my prayers and brought the sun back."

Mom's response was a somewhat irritated-sounding: "Well, what about all those farmers praying for rain?"

Such an offhand comment... One my mom probably doesn't even remember saying. But it was crushing for me.  I had already been struggling with doubts about my faith in God for some time, doubts I most certainly didn't go over with my mom, and the seeds of humanism and belief in chance as the driving force of life had been sown long before.  Mom's comment seemed to me like a legitimate, logical argument against the existence of a good, loving, kind, compassionate, merciful God.  

Mom's comment was not the final nail in the coffin for my faith, not by a long shot.  But it emblazoned itself in my mind and shaped the way I continued to wrestle with my doubts and questions.

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