Abandoned, Yet Adopted

“Abandonment is an act carried out by someone who leaves someone alone and feeling helpless. Often, the person doing the abandonment is running away from their responsibilities as a spouse or a parent.” The Agony of Abandonment https://cptsdfoundation.org/2022/08/29/the-agony-of-abandonment/  

I do some genealogy work on Ancestry and I found that my husband’s great-grandmother, Minnie, was born in Norway out of wedlock in 1871. Her biological father abandoned her and her mother and immigrated to the United States. When Minnie was five years old her mother married and Minnie was officially adopted and given the name of her new father. The new family also left Norway and came to Michigan, where Minnie married and became the mother of fourteen children. 

Abandonment leaves psychological scars, as does shame. I imagine there was quite a bit of shame with unwed births back in 1871 in a small town in Norway. Being adopted and given a name and then moving from that small town where everyone knew her shame to a new country where no one knew her past probably helped. Apparently, the secret was kept. My husband had no idea of this part of his family’s history. But it made me wonder about Minnie. Did she carry the burden of hidden pain and shame her whole life, or did she find healing? 

“Nothing can shake the soul of a person more than abandonment. No matter what time of our lives it happens, it is excruciating and life-altering.” — ibid. 

But there are other ways to experience abandonment besides being physically deserted that are just as destructive. 

According to WebMD, emotional abandonment occurs when parents: 

• Do not let their children express themselves emotionally 
• Ridicule their children 
• Put too much pressure on their children to be “perfect” 
• Treat their children like their peers ¹

Nicholle Maurer of Seattle Christian Counseling offers a comprehensive list of children’s emotional needs that are not met when emotional abandonment occurs. 

“All of us are born with basic needs since we are created in God’s image. God has designed families to meet these needs for us. However, many children did not experience the fulfillment of these needs, which can lead to problems in adulthood. These are the needs all of us have, starting in childhood:” 

• To be loved 
• To have companions 
• To be nurtured 
• To be valued 
• To be listened to 
• To be understood 
• To be appreciated 
• To be accepted 
• To receive affection² 

I decided to look at these basic emotional needs of a child in light of scripture and I found that our loving Father fulfills them all. Whether we have suffered from physical or emotional abandonment, there is one who is always with us, one who will never abandon us – physically or emotionally – one who fulfills all of our needs. 

To be loved 

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 1 John 3:1 

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4 

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16 

The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” Jeremiah 31:3 

To have companions 

I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid … Luke 12:4 

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because everything I have learned from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you. John 15:12-16 

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God … Ephesians 2:19 (ESV) 

To be nurtured 

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7 

For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. Philippians 2:13 (NLT) 

Father to the fatherless, defender of widows— this is God, whose dwelling is holy. Psalm 68:5 (NLT) 

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. Psalm 91:4 

The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. Psalm 103:13 (NLT) 

To be valued 

Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Matthew 6:26 (NLT) 

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9 

To be listened to 

Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice. He redeems my soul in safety from the battle that I wage, for many are arrayed against me. Psalm 55:17-18 (ESV) 

He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them. Psalm 145:19 

I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears … This poor man called, and the Lord heard Him; He saved him out of all his troubles. Psalm 34:4, 6 

To be understood 

This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. Hebrews 4:15 (NLT) 

For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust. Psalm 103:14 (NLT) 

To be appreciated 

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. Zephaniah 3:17 (ESV) 

He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me. Psalm 18:19 (ESV) 

But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love. Psalm 147:11 (ESV) 

For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation. Psalm 149:4 (ESV) 

To be accepted 

Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” Galatians 4:6 

God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. Ephesians 1:5 (NLT) 

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— John 1:12 

And, “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:18 

To receive affection 

Jesus looked at him and loved him. Mark 10:21 

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Jeremiah 31:3 (ESV) 

Even if my father and mother abandon me, the LORD will hold me close. Psalm 27:10 (NLT) 

The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. Deuteronomy 33:27 

Minnie’s obituary notes that she was “a devout member of Bethany Methodist Episcopal Church.” I hope that she found healing and comfort in the arms of her loving Father God. If you carry the scars of abandonment, let God take you into his loving arms. Jesus made the way by what he did on the cross out of love for you.  

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5 (ESV) 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. Ephesians 1:4-6 (NKJV) 

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10 (ESV) 

For the Lord will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage … Psalm 94:14 (ESV) 

The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. Psalm 23:1 (NLT) 

¹WebMD https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/abandonment-issues-symptoms-signs  

²Nicholle Maurer, Emotional Abandonment, How to Recover https://seattlechristiancounseling.com/articles/emotional-abandonment-how-to-recover  

Image is a photograph of Helmine “Minnie” Andersen, my husband’s great-grandmother.

I Love You Lord

For the director of music. Of David the servant of the LORD. He sang to the LORD the words of this song when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said: I love you, LORD, my strength. Psalm 18:1 

Here David declares his love for God after the Lord delivered him from his enemy. Did you know that this is the only time in the Old Testament that someone says to God, “I love you”? The Old Testament saints are commanded many times to love the Lord with all their hearts, and they praise and worship and exalt Him a lot, but this is the only time someone is recorded saying “I love you.” I found that sad.  

But the word translated love that David uses here in Psalm 18 is a different word than the commandment (Deut. 6:5). The word in Deuteronomy is ‘ahav from aheb, which means to have affection for, to like, love the beloved or a lover, love a friend. But the word David uses is ‘erachamka from racham, to have compassion on, to love, to have or show mercy on, have pity. The Pulpit Commentary notes that ‘erachamka “expresses the very tenderest affection, and is elsewhere never used to denote the love of man towards God, but only that of God towards man.” 

Did you ever think of having compassion or pity for God? Sometimes I have felt sorry for Him, for all that He has gone through with us. For all the rejection and hatred and rebellion and mangling of souls, brutal oppression of each other and destruction of His perfect world. But I know my compassion does not, cannot, come close to the compassion God has for me. When God has compassion on us it is intense and active love. Chaim Bentorah says this about racham: 

“The problem is that we have no good English word for racham. We use the word love, mercy, compassion but all fall short of the meaning of racham. The correct use of racham is the womb.  When expressing an emotion, it is the love that a mother feels for her baby while in the womb or just emerges from the womb … It is love that is natural, unmolested, unchallenged and almost perfect.  This is racham.  A few years later when that child rebels, causes problems, wounds and breaks the mother’s heart, that love becomes ‘ahav which is an unconditional love, but it is not that perfect love that was unchallenged. As a human creature we cannot achieve such a high standard of love except at the birth of a child and even then you would have to be racham in a simple Qal form.  It still falls short of racham in a Piel intensive [active] form. As much as you love God, with all your heart, soul and might you may reach the level of David to say ‘Erachamka na Adonai. But it still falls short of God’s racham for us.” — Chaim Bentorah¹ 

Interestingly, there is also only one place in the New Testament where someone says “I love you” to our Lord. In the famous exchange on the beach (John 21:15-17), the risen Christ asks Peter three times “do you love me?” Peter affirms his love for Jesus three times. And in this case, as with David, Peter uses a surprising word. 

Jesus asks Peter three times, “do you love me?” He uses the word agapao the first two times, but phileo the last time. All three times Peter answers, “Yes, Lord, I phileo you.” The difference between the two words is very similar to the difference between ahav and racham. 

“[Phileo is f]rom philos; to be a friend to (fond of (an individual or an object)), i.e. Have affection for (denoting personal attachment, as a matter of sentiment or feeling; while agapao is wider, embracing especially the judgment and the deliberate assent of the will as a matter of principle, duty and propriety: the two thus stand related … the former being chiefly of the heart and the latter of the head.” — Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible 

Kenneth Wuest² calls agapao “the noblest word in the Greek language.” I always got the impression that Peter was shirking the highest love, that he was admitting to Jesus that he couldn’t achieve the purest and noblest love, that the best he could do was phileo love. And that Jesus finally gave in to Peter’s good-enough phileo-love in a “Ok, we’ll work on it” kind of relenting. But I think what Peter was really saying was this: Yes, I know and will obey the commandment to love You. But my love for you goes deeper, I love You as a dear friend, I delight in You, You are my only joy, I cherish You above all else.”  

“It [agapao] is an unselfish ‘love,’ ready to serve. The use of phileo in Peter’s answers and the Lord’s third question, conveys the thought of cherishing the Object above all else, of manifesting an affection characterized by constancy, from the motive of the highest veneration.” — W.E. Vine 

It seems to me that this kind of love is, in a way, above agapao love as it goes from head knowledge and assent to the heart. We cannot think that phileo love is less than agapao. Paul startles when he writes to the Corinthians, “If anyone does not love (phileo) the Lord, let him be accursed. Maranatha.“ (1 Corinthians 16:22) 

I think, yes, that our joy and delight and love for Our Lord will always fall short of His for us, as His love is pure and perfectly unselfish. Unlike us, He does not have to wrestle down the soul, the “me”, the ego every day to achieve this kind of love. It is His glory. It is His essence. It is Himself. But Jesus confirmed that it is possible for us, in Him, to phileo-love when He asked Peter the third time (I’m sure smiling with His own phileo-love sparkling in His eyes) if Peter loved Him. 

The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love (phileo) me?” John 21:17  

It seems to me that both of these kinds of love come from the grace of God. But ahav and agapao seems to be connected to faith and decision and obedience to the word and the will of God. Racham and phileo grow out of relationship. They come from walking with Him in the dark places, from experiencing His deliverance when we are overwhelmed, from failing and falling and being lifted back up into His embrace. We can know that though we, like the children who break the mother’s heart, have broken His heart over and over, yet He still racham-loves us, He still phileo-delights and joys in us. And our hearts respond as Peter’s. 

“Yes, Lord, you know that I love (phileo) you.” John 21:16 

… the Father himself loves (phileo) you because you have loved (phileo) me and have believed that I came from God. John 16:27 

¹https://www.chaimbentorah.com/2019/09/hebrew-word-study-i-indeed-love-you-lord/ 

²Golden Nuggets from the Greek New Testament by Kenneth Wuest 

Image, detail from Quiet Evening on the Georgian Bay by TranceMist https://flic.kr/p/ajQSCL  

He Has Called Us Friends

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you … John 15:15-16 

He has called us friends, phílos in the Greek – “a friend; someone dearly loved (prized) in a personal, intimate way; a trusted confidant, held dear in a close bond of personal affection.”ⁱ 

Isn’t that amazing? You and I can hear God say this to us: I have called you friend, dearly loved and prized in a personal, intimate way, a trusted confidant, held dear in a close bond of personal affection. 

And can this mighty King 

Of glory condescend? 

And will he write his name, 

“My Father and my Friend?” 

I love his name, 

I love his word; 

Join all my powers 

And praise the Lord. 

— Isaac Watts, Psalm 169  

Condescend: To stoop or descend; to yield; to submit; implying a relinquishment of rank, or dignity of character, and sometimes a sinking into debasement. — Webster’s Dictionary 1828 

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:5-8 (ESV) 

“The sovereign King does “condescend.” He does call Himself our Father and Friend. This is the essence of the gospel: the mighty God seeks a relationship with the people He created.” The One Year Book of Hymns, February 23ⁱⁱ 

You did not choose me, but I chose you … 

“The Christian faith is not an ethereal, fluffy philosophy. It is the concretized, mystical union between Jesus Christ and his people. The meaning of our chosenness is waking up to the face of his choosing us and responding by reorienting our entire lives around seeking him and his Kingdom.” — J.D. Walt 

The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He makes known to them His covenant. Psalm 25:14 (ESV) 

^{i HELPS Word-studies for Strong’s #5384, Discovery Bible, 2021}

^{ii One Year Book of Hymns, compiled and edited by Robert K. Brown and Mark R. Norton, devotions written by William J. Petersen and Randy Petersen}

Image copyright by Jack Bair