On loving till it hates...

Listening to Tim Keller's sermon on marriage (I think it's called "Marriage: Part 3" or something), he talked about how when you put too much value into something, it will end up crushing you and ultimately falling apart. And even though this is Tim Keller's usual idolatry line of thinking, this time it was slightly different. He talked about parents who physically (or verbally, I guess too) abuse their kids. He said (paraphrased), "It's not that they hate their kids. It's that they love them too much." And he went on to describe how that works, and it made me wonder things.

My dad was a single dad with three kids- two boys, ages seven and three, and me, two. And over the years, I've come to empathize with his situation more and more, the more I realize how difficult it must have been to feed us, clothe us, look out for us, teach us, nurture us, and discipline us all completely and entirely alone. We lived in the country, away from everybody, away from all family. Apparently, they'd tried to get him to move to the city earlier, but he wouldn't. And he'd raise us likewise, without the ability (or with far too much pride) to ask for help.

I can't imagine being a single parent with three kids, let alone having two of them still in the toddler stage of life. And add to that a full time job in the city with an hour commute each way on a good day. I can't imagine.

So I empathize. I would lose it too. In an effort to get some sort of sense of control over my life, I would exert extreme control over my kids- the one aspect of life I can control. Kinda.

In the end, our childhood was like bootcamp, only the rules were unpredictable. And with the remnants of unlovableness (unlovability?) from my mom leaving us, this new set of reasons we were unlovable took shape and scarred all three of us for life. It doesn't matter how much I try to rationalize it away through empathy, the remnants are still there.

But then Tim Keller starts talking in a roundabout way about the effects that idolatry has on a parent who worships his kids and suddenly, my remnants got lighter on my shoulders.

It's not that he didn't love me. It's not that he didn't care. What if he loved me too much? What if all his value and self-worth were wrapped in us?

There came a time a few years ago when I cut him out of my life completely. Meanwhile, my brothers had done the same, but in very different ways. Suddenly, he didn't have us anymore, and I think that made him reevaluate things a little. It made him let go a little. And when I emerged from my isolation, it angered me how it felt like I was the only one at the dinner table who had remnants. It bothered me that nobody else seemed to care that the family dynamic had suddenly changed and everybody acted as though it'd always been this way, i.e. peaceful.

But if it was idolatry and the idolatry shifted to something else, then it is highly likely that over the span of time it took for a flash of insight, the entire dynamic could change. Suddenly, his value wouldn't be in us anymore. Suddenly, we weren't such massive failures regardless of what we did or did not accomplish. Suddenly, we could just be ourselves and that was enough.

Granted, he still goes through episodes where he is fiercely controlling, but all three of us seem to just back off when those situations arise, rather than cater to his need for control, whatever the root cause.

For a girl who has spent her entire life unlovable, Tim Keller's suggestion is highly controversial. It breaks the patterns I've fallen into almost at their source. I say "almost" because I know that even if my dad had been able to cope more solidly, I still would have remnants of being unlovable because my mom left before an age where I was able to reason or understand what was going on at a level beyond just, "She left because I wasn't lovable enough."

And just to neatly tie up within Christianity, this idea of the complete difference between the actual reasons somebody does something and the reasons we perceive from the point of view of the recipient of the actions is interesting because while the vast majority of the Bible (from my perspective anyway) is very vague and easily misinterpreted, Jesus' death isn't. He made it so clear what he was dying for. He made the reasons for most of his actions as depicted in the Bible so explicit. And I don't think there is any other time in the history of me where intentions, motivations and reasons for actions are so clearly understood. And I think that's why even if I'm unlovable, God is safe. God loves me and I know that because there is never a dichotomy in His love for me. There is never anything for me to interpret in His love for me. Sure, there are other things to interpret, like why things happen, why there's suffering, why the Bible is so ambiguous about so much... But there is just no question about His love for me.

And the thing about that concept is no matter how we receive it, no matter how difficult it is for us to grasp that inconceivable unconditional love, deep down I think we know we have all the time in the world to work towards it, to work towards figuring out how to accept it, how to deal with it.

What this Tim Keller sermon showed me is no matter how much somebody loves you, there will always be a barrier, a filter through which you receive that love. And whether the mis-reception or misunderstanding of that love is understandable as in the case of a tyrannical parent's over-love being misinterpreted for hate, or it's incomprehensible as in the case of a loving, forgiving, merciful creator God of the universe, the common denominator is me.

My shrink back in the day once said, "You have to stop expecting people to love you the way you want to be loved and accept the love they are able to give." That's not to say that in situations of abuse, one should feel adored or anything, just that maybe, even in the best of circumstances, we seek so fervently to be unlovable that no method of loving will ever break through those filters and barriers.

And then there's God, who loves us perfectly and how many of us spend our lives trying to prove Him wrong?

So here we are, surrounded by love, doing whatever we can, gathering endless bits of evidence, both consciously and not, to convince ourselves otherwise.

So what if it's not that they don't love us? What if it's that they love us too much? And if you look at the people in your life and scoff at that idea, maybe it's time to figure out the root of that cynicism.

Because if they do love us too much, wouldn't we react differently? And wouldn't we love them more? Wouldn't we try to bring them to the middle ground where loving us is safe and good and not a means of indication nor reflection of of their value?

And in the process, if God's love is perfect and without this brokenness that requires so much interpretation, wouldn't we start to view God differently?