I don’t remember if I’ve ever talked about this before. That isn’t so much a surprise. I’m having trouble remembering what was said to me five minute previous lately, so if I’ve said this before, please forgive my redundancy. It’s come up again recently, and I feel the need to share it now.
In a way, it started with Disney’s Hercules animated movie.
I still remember the first time I saw this movie. My wife and I were both still in college at Prairie Bible College, and we were over at a house rented by a group of friends and classmates. We were still dating at the time, and weren’t yet married. I hadn’t seen the movie in theaters, which, for me, was unusual in and of itself as I grew up going to the theaters regularly to see new releases, and Disney animated films were frequently high on the list along with science fiction and action films. But, we were over there to watch a movie and the choice of the night was, I believe, a VHS of Hercules.
So, we’re over there watching this movie, and as it goes further into it, I become emotional and my eyes start tearing up to the point where I have to leave the room to recover myself in private. Mind you, it’s not the first Disney movie I’ve teared up at (yes, I’m one of those guys), but it is the first time I’ve had an emotional reaction so strong.
So, what were the scenes which provoked such a powerful response in me?
The first was when Hercules sings “Go the Distance.” The second, where I couldn’t control it any further and had to leave the room, was when Hercules is welcomed onto Olympus with cheering crowds. I was sobbing in the bathroom trying to rein it in and failing miserably.
That was over twenty two, almost twenty three years ago, and I’ve had that much time to try and understand my reaction to that and to other similar things, like why Annie Lennox’s “Into the West” affects me so much. I realized then, and have reflected on it since, that I reacted so emotionally to this because it was the deepest, most profound desire of my heart, more than anything else possible.
It was the desire to go home, to a people and a place where I belonged, where I would be welcomed and loved with open arms. Perhaps even a place where I would feel safe.
Especially up to that point when I was twenty two years old, I had never felt that from anyone.
Now, whether or not they tried is another matter entirely as my brain could not process what other people were feeling towards me. Not in real time anyway. It would take weeks if not months or years for my brain to work through that kind of information, and, of course, by that point in time it would be too late. So, this is not to put blame on anyone, or shame anyone in my life, this is just to explain where I have been at emotionally.
This has come up again internally for me in the past few days, even as recently as this morning as I was watching another video of something entirely different on Youtube. It was an interview with a man who is now a pastor who had a Near Death Experience thirty five years ago where being an avowed atheist at the time he had a hellish experience of dark creatures trying to tear him apart. In the middle of this experience he heard a voice telling him to pray to Jesus, a figure in which he had not believed in any capacity since he was a child. Reaching down into this part of his disembodied psyche he crudely and awkwardly cried out to Jesus, and the response was immediate as the dark creature fled cursing and swearing at him, and Jesus showed up in full, luminous glory and rescued him from the torment. It was his description of what happened then that really opened this up again for me. He said that Jesus scooped him up in his arms like a child and held him, rubbing his back in a soothing manner. He said he felt not only that He loved him, but that He really liked him as well.
And I realized once again that, more than anything, that is my deepest desire. To feel unconditionally loved and liked. It’s one thing to know someone loves you, it’s an entirely different thing to feel it. Folks with my condition (ASD, Asperger’s) can’t mirror what someone else is feeling and so have to go on what they say and whether their actions appear positive or negative towards them. Eventually, enough people take advantage of this, and you learn the hard way not to trust anything anyone says even as you try to be as honest as you can be even when it costs you.
And then, as I’ve had time over the years between the movie and this video, I’ve had time to also realize that, the truth is, I’m afraid to trust someone like that. I’m afraid to trust that someone loves me and will never turn away from me, even if I know it as an absolute certainty. I’ve always got my “shields up” in some way to keep myself from being emotionally hurt any more than I have been.
This has never precluded me from loving and caring about other people. That was a choice I made a long time ago. I still remember actually making that choice. I was in High School and it was the lunch period. I decided, in whatever capacity I had, that I was going to care about people regardless of how they made me feel or regardless of whether they cared about me. At that point in time, from my perspective, I didn’t feel like anyone did, but I didn’t want to be that person and I wanted to follow Christ and what He taught. I can’t say I knew what that meant at that point in time, or that I did it perfectly or even mediocrely from then on, but it was a choice I made then and there.
But this fear to trust in someone else’s unconditional love for me has cost me, and continues to cost me. The older I get, the more I contemplate the call homewards and what that means. It’s like spending hours building up your character on an MMORPG only to have your account disconnected and you have to rejoin reality. All the progress you’ve made in the game is suddenly and permanently gone.
The irony of it all is, I do know what that pastor with the NDE was talking about. I have, at certain seemingly random moments, experienced that unconditional, infinite love of God for myself as well as His love for others through me. It is indescribably overpowering and relentless. There have been several times in my life when He has broken through the defects in my brain to reveal that to me. I didn’t need to have an NDE to experience it. I know what awaits me. I know all of it, and yet there is still this fear within me. This irrational “what if” based on those years of being “indoctrinated” not to trust that someone who professes to care about me isn’t going to turn on me in some way.
And here’s the truth of all of it, God knows I struggle with this. He loves me, and even likes me anyway. He knows I reach out to Him in spite of my struggles, and He cheers me when I do. He knows the deepest desires of my heart, and they’re His desires for me too. Every time I fight past this is a victory, and every time I break down because of it, He’s right there just like He always is.
I know that welcome is waiting for me, and every day brings me closer to going home where I belong.
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