We are looking for love in everything, everywhere, and everyday. Some people never feel it from their parents growing up so they can never give it. Psychologists have come to know a phenomenon called ‘Childhood Trauma’ or Adverse Childhood Experiences. There is a whole area of thought that the horrors we experience as children shape us psychologically. If there is abuse so severe that it leaves an burned scar in the mind, that child grows up unable to form healthy relationship, more prone to substance use disorder, and unable to be in loving relationships.
I had well intentioned parents growing up. They provided me a lot of material luxuries. I was rich enough to have three cars from 16 to 21 but not rich enough to know how to save money for retirement or a long future. We were middle class, black folks who looked like we had it all. In so, so many ways we didn’t.
Yet my whole life I found myself wondering about the mystery man I never met. Did he really leave because he wanted to? Did he see me at all as a baby? Did he fight for me? Why wasn’t I enough? In my twenties I told myself to suck it up. I had a stepfather fought in Desert Storm to defend our country. How dare I think of another father figure? My stepfather took me to Los Angelos for my 21st birthday, at one time paid for all my mental health medications, and was the most proud when I was a television reporter. Yet he could not be the man that left me.
My biological father died when I was in my early twenties. I was interning at a television station, and when I got the news I felt like someone punched me in the stomach. I remember walking outside to catch some fresh air. God, why did you have to take him before I showed him I turned out ok? Nothing. I just heard the wind blowing, saw blue skies, and an overgrown backyard that my stepfather was delaying to cut.
“I’d like to go to Ira’s funeral,” I tell my stepfather.
He looks down towards the floor and looks back at me. “Lauren, those people don’t even know you. You could go and they could reject you. Your father had a lot of children. They won’t even notice you.”
“I have brothers and sisters,” I said.
“Yes and they man not want to see the other child,” he said looking me square in the eyes.
“You’re probably right.”
“I’ll buy you a ticket and send you on the next flight tomorrow if you want to go. Just really think, would they want you there?”
He was right I thought. I’d be the scandalous child. The bastard no one knew about. I was too proud to let that happen so I never went. I never met my father’s parents or his other kids. EVER.
Through my twenties I imagined my real father looked like Prince. Before my Aunt Doris died she gave me a picture of my father Ira. I wedged in a broadcasting memoir by Barbara Walters. I can’t find it now. Maybe lost on the many travels I made when I was homeless. I want to see his face again.
In my thirties as I reflect on what it means to love, I wondered if this loss of my father played a toxic role in my life accepting bad men in my life, loving too fast and too hard. Wanting a man to love me. Like Demi Lovato says in her song, “Lucky for you I got all these Daddy issues.”
I wish I could tell you I stayed pure in the pursuit of a Father’s love but I didn’t. Recently, when Virginia was being pounded with rain I heard a song by John Legend called ‘Made to Love’. I can’t believe I never heard it until today considering that it has been on Youtube playlist for 2 years. Last night, I felt myself woken up to the song playing on my IPAD. The words were strong, the bass hard, the voices in the background haunting, the images confusing.
I was fixated on the rain all day. Thinking of my friends in Lynchburg, Virginia where the rain had risen to flood waters. I spent the day quietly praying and sighing relief when I saw pictures from friends on Facebook, and updates of people being marked as safe.
I thought to myself , God could a man love me like that? Love me so intensely we were made for each other? Could man see past the confusion, and mess of my past and love me anyway? Then it hit me:
“I was sent here for you. We were made to love. You were sent for me too. We were made to love. We were made to love.”
I never seen anything you are much more than human being, an extraordinary machine. I never loved someone like this…. I was sent here for you. We were made to love. You sent for me too. “
I was sent here for you. We were made to love. You were sent for me too. The words are so repetitive I missed
“Had I ever known when you laid your when you laid your eyes on me the perfect work of art, i knew right rfrom the start. I was never sure of a God before but I know he must exist He created this.
“Oh had they ever known when you laid your eyes on me you’re perfect work of art. I lined right from the start. I was never sure of a God before but I know he must exist. He created this.”
God, it’s you. You love me,” I said. “You love me.” I said crying. It was a like an Are you my mother kind of moment. I knew then I was His child. Christ was sent to love me, I was made to love him. We were made to love. Even in my brokenness, I am made perfect in Christ’s love. He loved me so much he came to earth for me.
One earthly father died. One failed me. But my good, good father would never fail. All the men I chased for that feeling, all the pleading I did for them not to leave, the crying I did when they actually did leave—- was the shedding I needed to receive His love.
And, if I made to love I must love others. Father, I am ready. LOVE YOU, LOVE MORE Lauren Hope , A Good Girl Rebuilt
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