Putting a
Finger On My Ambiguous Anxieties
I'm sitting in
a restaurant this morning trying to enjoy the beauty of the spring
morning and breakfast but my long-time friend, Ambiguous Anxiety, has
joined me once again. I see him everywhere I go everyday.
There is
something wrong with me and there always has been.
I know it
began at home during my early childhood years. Daddy was a mean and
angry man. Why, I don't know. I do know that he beat (literally) all
the confidence and self-esteem out of my little soul.
It was usually
over deeds (or perceived deeds) that were so trite as to warrant no
more than a word of correction following an inquiry into what really
happened and the seriousness of the deed. But Daddy seemed to derive
some sort of sick twisted pleasure out of beating me and my older
brother.
Mother never
beat us and seldom spanked us but she stood by or sat by while Daddy
did. As adults my brother once arranged a meeting with Mom in order
to ask her why she allowed the years-long abuse and why she never
left the “sob.” She made herself the victim and ignored my
brothers charges.
Mother
committed adultery a few times during our early years according to
Daddy but he took her back and we boys never knew anything about
those adulterous affairs. We didn't know about that until she
committed adultery in the company of my first wife in 1970 and left
Daddy for another man. We learned about this (not my first wife's
involvement in adultery with Mother) when the sheriff came to tell
Daddy that they were going to arrest Mom for occupying a room for
immoral purposes, which they did. And Daddy took her back. Shortly
after that my first wife left me over the phone.
It has only
been in the last decade or so that surgeons learned how to sew up
patients in such a way that no scars, virtually no scars, could be
easily seen. No one has learned to do that with soul-scars, at least
not like physical scars.
Soul-scars are
the reason for my ambiguous anxieties. Putting a name on an
affliction often helps to heal it. If one can identify what's wrong
there's hope that one can remedy what's wrong. It's kind of like
learning one has sinned against God and that is what's wrong between
that one and God. Having identified our sin-problem by the grace of
God we can then turn to Him and say, “What must I do to be
forgiven?”
God has
graciously taken care of my sin-problem and separation from Him by
sending His Son to do all for me that He demands.
As far as the
soul-scars go, I'm working on it. It ain't easy.
