“Ah-ha!” I nearly blurted out loud as my “ah-ha” moment woke me from a sour night of tortured sleep. It was the second time in a year that I had been met with the inappropriate demands of a man and this time, I was angry.

No one prepares you for abandonment. Having been raised by wolves (my 3 teenage brothers), I didn’t understand my home life was broken because of abandonment and neglect. Having an absentee father led my very broken heart to attach itself to any person and thing. As the youngest of six, my heart learned to seek approval of people and attention from any person or food that came and went. This habit grew into one of disordered eating and promiscuity of the mind. Or as I transparently refer to it, “whoring of the heart” (more on that later…).

I met Jesus when I was three and I know that he is sovereign because it was my childhood in which I needed him most. I know the Lord in his sovereignty kept me from making wrong choices in my youth. Childhood trauma led me down the path of self loathing and ache which saved me from going down the paths that so easily entangle people with my similar story. I learned to cope by medicating with food as well as self soothing with my imagination and fantasy. The brokenness of my traumatic childhood did not display itself in sexual promiscuity but it certainly showed up in my attachment to people, especially in my fantasies. See my daydreams were not the thing of sexual escapades, they were the fantasies of being wanted and accepted. I longed for someone to choose me, want me, stay with me. Food became the panacea of my soul and giving my heart away became the greatest want of my life.

As I grew in weight, I grew in invisibility which let me hide broken loneliness and broken understanding of what being loved actually meant. Trauma steals from us the ability to understand and manage boundaries, feelings and relationships. I was so used to rejection that as I got older, I didn’t know how to recognize when a man was sexually harassing me.

Read that again.

I had met a man who tricked me into giving him my phone number, and proceeded to harass me for a whole year. I indicated that I was not interested. I attempted to set boundaries yet he bothered me for an entire year because my broken heart didn’t understand how to protect itself. Setting boundaries and learning one’s own self worth is usually the things a child learns yet the circumstances of my upbringing didn’t equip me with tools necessary for personal respect.

As a counselor, meeting with women who had similar upbringings like my own, I learned to point my counselees to the word of God, reminding them that the Lord doesn’t see as man sees, and that the terrible brokenness they had lived through had great purpose (Genesis 50:20). Yet, I never counseled my own heart. I never asked myself how I could put up with sexual harassment and not even report it to anyone. Not my employer or even the authorities. I didn’t recognize my own worth. I had been so used to whoring my heart out in my mind and picturing myself being loved or wanted that when a counterfeit want was presented, I didn’t recognize the evil in it.

So there I was, 5am, having been woken up by my own mind having an epic “ah-ha” moment. One that led me to audibly say to myself, “I have abandonment issues!” It was indeed a breakthrough in the case of putting the puzzle pieces of my childhood memories together and learning to surrender my brokenness to Jesus. This time, it came on the heels of another potential suitor who revealed his hand a lot quicker than the year long stalker did. This man asked me out on a date and as we worked out the details he quickly moved the conversation to a place I was uncomfortable with and because of the God given growth and purposeful dealings with my heart that I had surrendered to in my daily walk with King Jesus, I was brave enough to stand my ground and know my worth and cut that relationship off immediately. I was unwilling to be treated poorly again. So I told him to take a hike and found myself unable to sleep. I couldn’t understand why I would allow a man to disrespect me like he did and worse, how I could let a man disrespect me for a year! And the ah-ha moment was the first time I realized the effects of growing up without a father. I. HAVE. ABANDONMENT. ISSUES. It was the first time I said it, first time I thought it, and now I have a responsibility to handle it. Woah. BREAK. THROUGH. But now, how do o handle that? How do I cope with this? My complicated story with my now departed father is complex yet holds beautiful details of Gods redemption. But how does one deal with the reality of being abandoned? For now, I turn to Jesus, trusting that He is the best Father and that he has led me to this moment, to usher in healing I’m finally ready for.

More on that later…