The Deepest Healing of Abandonment

I have done so much inner healing of emotional pain in my life, I never thought I could go deeper.  But with Jesus, it does happen!  He wants us to be free from the burdens we’ve carried.  The healing I experienced in this area of abandonment helped me realize on yet another level of the meaning in scripture, “He came to set the captives free.”

Here is some context on how this unfolded.  I returned to live with my mother in the summer of 2024.  She was nearing 86 and though still fairly independent, she was in need of extra help.  Besides, I got a clear message in my spirit one morning that it was time for me to leave my life in Redding, California and go back to help.  That had been nowhere on my list of options, so I knew it was a message I needed to obey.  

I had never been fond of being in my hometown of SW Michigan for long.  It symbolized going backwards in my life with nothing much of importance to pursue. There had always been a heaviness that I hadn’t known how to shake off.  This go round, however, I knew something had to be dealt with.  

Upon my return, I proceeded to help my mother with various chores at her home that she had become less able to manage without hired help.  And I tried to find additional work for income.  So many doors were not opening and I felt trapped.  At times when I felt like my patience was at its end, a vision of Jesus would appear with a beautiful loving smile to help recharge me.  I remember one situation where my mother came outside to direct me on some yard work.  It was so trivial and unnecessary.  My old self would have reacted saying, “Come on Mom! Stop being so controlling.  This isn’t important.  Don’t you think I know what I’m doing!”  But I felt grace and love touch me, so that I could say, “Ok Mom, sure I can do that.”

In between doing various things to help and getting some part time menial jobs here and there, I would have chunks of time where nothing would happen.  I wouldn’t talk to people or go anywhere.  It was utterly grueling.  I had nothing to grab onto to make my days meaningful in the external world. After a few weeks of being at a loss, I felt something shift for going deeper into whatever this was.  I knew I had the presence of Jesus with me, but it was a presence that was somewhat on the periphery as these feelings needed to surface more.  It was a culmination of emptiness, heaviness, lack of purpose, failure, no inspiration, loss, nonexistence.  It was overwhelming as I felt these feelings amplify and take over.  

I lay on my bed, losing myself in this madness while also being a witness to this excruciating pain.  I heard words of, “There’s no more direction, no more goals of mine.  Nobody cares. This is the last place on Earth I ever wanted to be. An ultimate failure.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.”

At some point of these intensified minutes of emotional pain, I was transported to another time and place.  I was at the feet of Jesus on the Cross.  The sky was dark. Full of clouds. No one was there with us and there was utter silence and stillness amidst a brewing storm.  “Father, father , why have you forsaken me?”  I heard him say.

I knew His cry and He knew mine.  The cry of so many of us lost in this world and not at home.

I had a few minutes with Him in these intense moments of death and resurrection.  I laid this burden of abandonment at His feet and felt it blast up in a thick beam of light to the heavens. Oh my, God!  I understood then more fully about how Jesus takes our pain.  I understood more fully how important it was for Him to suffer through the shame, condemnation, betrayal, anger, lashings, piercings, unimaginable pain and torture.  Everything humanity has faced, He went through and He can transmute it for us.  By giving our struggles to Him, He lightens the burden that this world of darkness imposes on us.  And those few minutes on the cross where the Father had to appear absent from Him, were a necessary part of our salvation from being abandoned in this world.  Jesus reunites us back to our Father.  What a precious, priceless and miraculous gift. No amount of pain we have suffered is too much for Him.  He truly came to set the captives free.