Abandoned

1. Having been deserted or cast off
2. Unrestrained, uninhibited

 

Such a dramatic word, isn’t it?   A familiar word to some, while to others it remains foreign.  Reflection of what’s “supposed to be” in one’s life can unveil this word where you least expect it.

Frankly, it is not a word I use often.  It sounds wayyy tooo dramatic.  Although I have felt it and lived it, it remains distant in my vocabulary.  The meaning we often associate with this word is one in which we are left stranded.  While, ironically, the words other meaning insinuates that we like it that way.

WTF?

It is often said that we cannot have it “both ways” in life.  You know, kind of a “cake and eat it, too” scenario.  So, then, how the HE(double hockey sticks) can we feel abandoned and enjoy the solidarity all at the same time?

I hope that you were not expecting an answer.  I certainly do not have it.  This is a question to ponder, and the answer is yours.  I have the experiences in my rearview mirror and the reflections of self they leave behind.  Quite honestly, abandonment has worked out well for me.  Like the building pictured above, the abandonment lead to beautiful things that I would have never seen before.  Ultimately, it shaped the person I would have never become had it not happened.  Somehow, by the grace of God, I always knew I was never really left behind.  For, He was always with me… even when it was I who abandoned Him.

Chalk it up to youth, or reckless abandon (totally nailing the pun game today), or plain ‘ole self-professed invincibility… the sense of self that accompanies abandonment can be fierce.  There is a survival instinct that must be tamed in order to lean into Christ.   Therein lies the irony… we are never truly abandoned.

Look closely… at the photo, and your own rearview mirror.

There it is… (Spot the cross, peeps).  The building no longer stands, yet the memory of the chance cross lingers every time I drive past the vacancy.  There is only abandon as wild as someone’s vision waiting to reshape what it left behind.

When your walls become a shell of what was before, there then lies potential.  For, when we feel abandoned we are truly not.  We have potential, we have a clean slate, and we have the opportunity to grow again.

 

“Though my father and mother abandoned me, the Lord gathers me up.”

Psalm 27:10

 

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