An orphan indeed

I thought I had one remaining member of my family of origin who wasn't completely hopeless as a human being, either giving up and entombing their heart away from the painfulness of messy relationships or becoming a social parasite sucking the life and being out of unwitting friends and family, but I don't.  I finally figured out my last remaining sibling is a narcissist, I've ignored the symptoms, hoping maybe he could change, had escaped my family's legacy, but alas for his family, it just isn't so.  As a teen I'd ponder who might come to my funeral and actually be sad, let's just say my dance card was empty.  I consider that scenario anew, a whole lifetime later, and while there are actually people on the list now, not a single one is a biological relative.  It's something my heart has known forever but which my mind is still trying to wrap itself around: I'm truly an orphan, biologically speaking anyway.

There's a passage in scripture where Jesus says if you don't 'hate' your father and mother, and follow Him, you can in nowise be His.  The hate actually means 'to love less,' He isn't advocating hatred by any means, but that you must love Him more than your parents or anyone else.  Some people struggle with that, I never have.  What's it like to be loved, accepted, wanted by your parents?  How can I comprehend the love of God when I can't understand mortal affection and kindness?  I know what it is to love but not how to be loved.  There's another passage that I also don't understand like most normal human beings ought to, the part about love others as you love yourself, that no man hates his own flesh...I was never taught to love myself, I learned that I was the enemy, that all the problems in the world had their origin in me, that I didn't deserve even the least bit of kindness.  How very strange how constant childhood abuse warps what should be natural emotions and ideas about normal relationships!  I must learn the opposite of what scripture teaches everyone else: that I too am a valuable and worthwhile person, deserving of as much consideration as everyone else, that yes, even I can be loved and am worth loving.

He has a special place in His heart for the orphan and the widow, those bereft of everything and overlooked by society and everyone else.  It's just hard realizing that I fall into that category when physical death isn't the tool of bereavement, though I suppose it is a sort of spiritual death, this entombment of one's heart and soul whilst one still draws breath, this willing entrance into Hell while life still lingers.  No matter how wretched my own lot, theirs is worse and willingly borne.  How dreadful a life lived apart from all love and hope and joy, and worse, an eternity away from all Love and Hope and Joy, at least I have that Solace, and you can too, but first you need to realize you need it.  That's the greatest tragedy of all, they don't need anyone or anything else, they are sufficient unto themselves and they don't even realize they are miserable.

The sound of silence

I'm reading through Job right now, it sounds depressing but it isn't, it honestly wrestles with the question 'where is God in the middle of our strife and sorrow?'  I'm also having a bit of a relapse emotionally from childhood trauma triggered by a very dear friend's current struggles with the same, though I think I lived through that to help her live through this.  'Grumpy Cat' dying is news, but the aches and groans of uncountable breaking hearts is just life as usual, unspoken in its agony, but so common we think it's just how life is.  We don't want to deal with it so we'll go scan through grumpy cat memes or videos and anesthetize the agonized parts of our souls until they shrivel into nothingness.  In our world of ultra connectedness we've never been so alone.  But then the comforters that came to help Job out weren't much better than the inane posters on any given message board, mostly extolling themselves and running him down in the process of 'helping.'  They sat in silence together seven days but then they opened their mouths and ruined it.  We can't fix people, that's not our job, but we can give companionship and comfort to those who desperately need it, if we could just put down our phones long enough to notice.