Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: UNBORN (07/27/23)
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TITLE: Self-Loathing | Previous Challenge Entry
By Linda Lawrence
08/01/23 -
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We end up here too many times. Our time together will be going well—a country drive, baking a cake at my house, perhaps reclining in front of a fire, listening to music—and suddenly Paula’s happiness disappears and she’s drowning in bitter anger over having been born. Railing against her parents.
Sometimes I hug her and whisper, “But Paula, it was God who made you—and loves you.” To my relief, she doesn’t reject His right to do what He will, but she hates what He did. My hug is never rejected but it gives her little comfort. God seems far away to her, and the rejection and condescension she lives with daily is ever present.
She’s not exaggerating when she describes the misery of her life. She is looked upon with pity, with frustration, with discomfort, even by we who love her with the love of the Lord.
The day she limped up to me at church and announced, “I’m Paula,” I struggled to know what to think. Her stringy hair, whiskery chin, heavy men’s shoes, and strong odor took me aback. Coupled with the fact she was wearing two dresses, one on top of the other, I assumed she was an unstable homeless woman. Turns out that wasn’t far from the truth.
In time, as we became friends, I learned she was born clubfoot which explained why she wears huge uncomfortable-looking shoes. She was mocked as a child in special ed classes, and was physically and verbally abused by her mother. That was decades ago but the memories have not faded. She longs to be like “everyone else” and loathes being classified with the disabled or mentally ill.
Most of all, she longs to be loved by a man. Cautiously, afraid of being misunderstood, she pours her heart out to our pastor. His compassion and priestly prayer are appreciated, but the fact of his being married and having seven children only magnifies her aloneness. “Why? Why? Tell me why?” is her cry. “Why do you get to have a family and I don’t? When I was born, why did my parents make garbage?”
Having harmed herself in her self-loathing, she was in a mental hospital when her first child was born and immediately taken from her—given away for adoption without her permission. Her second child was also taken from her at birth and she has never recovered from that. She’s continually attempting to fill the gaping hole, left by the removal of her children, by hoarding—collecting anything that is free, buying dolls, dolls, dolls. Collecting stray cats results in her being evicted and homeless once again.
The children of her womb are now in their thirties, lost to Paula. She pulls her hair, moans, and rocks herself in pain—or rants about the unfairness of having never spent a birthday or Christmas with them. She speaks of this often, not knowing where they are—and realizing, sadly, they do not want to know her.
Oh, the pain of not knowing. “Why? Somebody tell me why I can’t be like other women—why I can’t have babies and a husband! This world just doesn’t make any sense!”
I have no answers for her but I think about these words of scripture: *Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. We only know in part. God says that even before He formed us in the womb, He knew us. Paula’s hunger to be known by a man is understandable. She was created to be known and loved. She believes the story of God showing His love through Jesus dying for us, but she wants to feel the arms of a man—not my hugs or my whispers of Jesus’ love for her. They are not enough. But I can do no more.
God alone knows what will fulfill Paula’s longings—what will make her life worth living. Even if I knew, I would still be helpless to give it to her. It is God who made her and it is God who knows why. I continually pray that He will hold her and let her feel His love for her—a child of God who wishes she’d never been born.
*I Corinthians 13:12
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Every sentence carries the weight of Paula's heartache.
May she be a wonderfully formed woman in Heaven, loved by Jesus whose love for her will then be utterly fulfilling and tangible. May she have her children by her side for all eternity.