Healing Negative EmotionsSample

Feeling Abandoned

I have been abandoned before. My father left my mother when I was just a baby. Even though my mother loved me, I spent a great part of my life with a painful question: Why didn’t my father love me enough to stay?

So I can relate to Psalm 88 in which Heman the Ezrahite wrote about feeling as if he was abandoned. He felt despondent, as if there was no hope in his situation. He felt far from friends and family to care for him.

As you read the Psalm, you can feel his raw pain through the words he has chosen to use to describe his feelings. His word choice largely included those associated with death: grave, pit, slain, depths.

Psalm 88:8-9 summarizes the height of his despair: “You have put away my acquaintances far from me; you have made me an abomination to them; I am shut up, and I cannot get out; My eye wastes away because of affliction.”

In this Psalm, the writer expresses his belief that God was responsible for his troubles. He felt as if God was nowhere to be found in his troubles and that God was angry with him.

Now the writer’s words were true in that they truly expressed how he felt at the time. But were the thoughts behind those feelings true according to God’s word? No, they were not.

Even though the writer felt like God had abandoned him, God's own word in Deuteronomy 31:6 says that He will never leave us nor forsake us. So even though the writer couldn't "feel" God with him, yet God was there because He promised He would be.

So if you are feeling abandoned, you can acknowledge that you feel that way, but give yourself a reality check. God's word promises His eternal presence. Feelings change all the time which is why they can't be trusted, especially if they are based upon lying thoughts.

You are not alone. You are not abandoned. Some people may leave you but God never will. Comfort yourself by reminding yourself of the truth. God is with you, even during times of affliction. If God is for you then who or what can be against you?