Unwanted - This Christian Drama Queen Was So Needy!

When little girls who've felt unloved and unwanted grow up they tend to become women who feel unloved and unwanted. And this Discarded Daughter would have done whatever it took to keep what love I could find—in relationships with boyfriends, husbands, whomever.

For me, the fear of losing the love of a spouse manifested as distrust and paranoia. I was just kind of expecting the worst all the time. The idea of losing the love of our kids—which I didn't think I deserved anyway— encouraged me to make really poor parenting decisions, enabling them to make bad decisions and choices themselves. In our case, this laid the groundwork for a years of pain and suffering, heartache and broken relationships with your children.

(Sidebar: The definition of the word enabling from Family First Intervention is the act of helping someone in such a way that rather than solving a problem, the problem's actually being perpetuated.)

The following is an excerpt from the DISCARDED Bible Study lesson on believing I was unwanted.

My grandmother always kept the house too warm. And this is a vivid memory with or without the heat…but for some reason, as I recall it, my face gets warm, red and just flushed with emotion. But here goes…

When I was maybe four years old, my mother became engaged to a man named, Walter. He was a naval officer, good looking, and to my four-year-old imagination, he was like a giant. Looking back, I suppose he seemed like a decent sort. We discovered a few months later that he had unexposed baggage of his own to deal with. (Material for my next literary journey! But anyhoo…)

I’m not entirely certain, but it must have been the evening he and my mother announced their engagement. I remember vividly sitting on his lap at this family gathering. My grandparents, my baby brother, my mother, and maybe a few other relatives were surrounding us in my grandmother’s living room. I can still remember those shiny wax-polished wooden side and coffee tables with a spattering of heavy glass coasters here and there. A few had cans of beer on them, but several were topped with soda cans and glasses of iced tea. This was also before we knew the dangers of second-hand smoke, and my grandfather and aunts were all smokers. So, you can imagine the cloud of smoke that rested halfway between the ceiling and floor. It was always fascinating to me how the smoke would literally make an imaginary borderline, blocking the cloud from descending any further.

My eyes must have glistened with happy tears, but I wasn’t about to let them fall. My thoughts were bustling around in my brain, like the crispy clicking of leaves, gathered in front of Grandma’s garage, swirling in the autumn wind. The anxiety of my anxious thoughts making me feel like the thermostat was set to 90 degrees. I mean, surely everyone in the room could see the steam rising, right? But the grandest thought? Maybe, just MAYbe…Walter would be my daddy? Maybe, if I asked him the right way, he’d even let me CALL him, “Daddy.”

But how do I ask him that? How do I say, “Please, PLEASE…let me call you DADDY!” I specifically remember having my hands clinched like little golden potatoes in front of my face, covering my mouth, concealing a tiny-toothed grin. But I knew this was the time to ask. Everyone in the room was visiting and chatting, scarcely paying any attention to me. So…I leaned into him and said, as quietly as I could possibly get by with doing, …

“Walter? Can I call you Daddy?”

He turned his head to face me and said, “What?” As if I’d been a little too quiet. And, of course, NOW the room was almost silent. I was all of a sudden painfully aware that all the world really is a stage, and I was all aglow under the spotlight. But no matter…this was after all, my big moment! So, I leaned in a bit closer and spoke just a bit louder…

“Walter? Can I call you Daddy?”

He jerked his head slightly, away from my face, looked at me with this massive smile, and began saying with an exuberant chortle, “WELL, I SUPPOSE YOU SURE CAN!” As he pulled me closer into a bit of a hug, and I wrapped my skinny little arms around his massive Naval neck, I felt so happy! Of course, everyone in the room was “Awww-ing” and laughing at the sweetness of the question, as well as Walter’s hearty response.

But I was over the moon. For the first time I could remember…ever…I had someone to call, “Daddy!”

Do you believe you are fatherless? Or do you constantly feel unwanted because your earthly father is not, nor has he ever been, there for you? Do you think no one hears your pains, your negative self-talk, your deepest feelings, and desires? That nobody WANTS to hear it? Have you told yourself that you are invisible? Or do you wish you were? Have you convinced yourself that there must me SOMETHING wrong with YOU, because “Daddy left?” Have you told yourself that it’s useless…there’s no hope for YOU?

God knows you. According to Ezekiel 11:5 the Lord sees what's going "through your mind." He knows your thoughts and has seen you through and through since before you were born. And Psalms 139:17 tells us His thoughts are great toward us and "great is the sum" of those thoughts.

He thinks about you! He formed you…wonderfully.
Sister! You ARE wanted!