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Norma L. Brumbaugh

Inspirational Writer, Author, and Speaker

PO Box 6432, Chico, CA 95927
nlbrumbaugh@gmail.com

Keep a smile in your heart.

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How to Deal with Being Left Behind

You Are My Hiding Place

Have you ever been left behind? Intentionally or otherwise? A couple of months ago everyone at my house except my youngest daughter left early before dawn to drive eighty miles to the airport or to drive to southern California. Some of the family were flying across the States to their homes, and the other family members were traveling five hundred miles for my mother’s interment. That morning we didn’t say goodbye to my daughter before we left because she was asleep and we didn’t want to awaken her. Later she told me that it was sad waking up to an empty house. Being left behind without anyone saying goodbye made it feel worse.

I remember the feeling in college. Those last to leave on break would feel this emptiness. I remember wandering around the dorm wishing for someone to talk to. Left behind. Some left-behinds are far worse, like abandonments. My oldest daughter had a roommate in college who was left behind as a toddler outside an orphanage. She didn’t know her real birthdate, her real age, or real name.  That is hard psychologically. We don’t want to be left behind. My scariest moment was being left off a bus at a gas station in the middle of the night out in the middle of nowhere. I had missed my connection at an earlier stop. Thankfully the station had a pay phone and help eventually arrived. No cell phones in those days.

Can you see where this takes a person? Many people will go to great lengths to know they are wanted because they felt left behind, less important, or of no consequence. It’s punishing when others advance but you’re left behind. It can be a deal breaker, your confidence plummets, and you’re left bewildered. When your mate has left you behind, it does a number on you. Recovery can take years. I know about this.

Where You Find Relief

But there is one place where none of us are ever left behind. That is when we are in Jesus’ Kingdom fold. “I will never leave you or forsake you,” Jesus says. He promises His fidelity, love, and care. When your faith and trust is in God, you are part of His family. We are called God’s children, and we are to come as children. God is always your loving heavenly Father. The Holy Spirit is your Comforter and Guide. You can approach Father, Son, and Spirit any time of any day. You and I walk in their presence though we cannot see them. “Draw nigh unto God and He will draw nigh unto you” no matter the situation.

Do you feel orphaned right now? Are you lonely? Tell Him. God understands. He welcomes you into His warm embrace. He is where you can go that is safe. God is your hiding place. Your part is to seek refuge in God. Trust Him to take care of you. Cast all your cares upon Him for He cares for you.

“You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.” Psalm 37:2 KJV

I’ve been left behind on numerous occasions, someone else got the job, the promotion, the better circumstance.  The sting or fear in our sensitivities is defeating, crushing, and unsettling. Whatever it is for you, your best response should be to talk to God about it. Here are some suggestions:  Give it to God. Read. Listen to music or a podcast. Write in your journal. Read scripture. Visit with friends. Watch a favorite, uplifting movie. It helps to do something else to get your mind off it instead of over-thinking the ‘what if’s.’ Sort it through, what is true and what is not true. Then go from there.

This is not the end of the world. Look for constructive angles. Let the pain bring you to Father God and graciously allow Him to minister to you. You are precious to God. He has your back though it may be extremely difficult and you don’t understand. God says He covers you with His feathers. That’s a picture of protection, like a hen with her chicks nestled safe and secure under her wings. This is not ‘The end.’ It is a beginning.

Count your blessings and be thankful.

What You Will Learn in the Process

  • You will learn you are resilient.
  • You will learn to trust God for the journey.
  • You will learn that your worth and value is in who you are and who you are to God.

One of My Favorite Songs of Comfort and Hope

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You Can have a Relationship with God

My sincere friend — a single woman, a devoted follower of God, a woman of God, a seeker of truth, a sacrificial person who has lived her whole life for God, in other countries … teaching children, and in several schools in the States — and I were having a heart-to-heart talk a couple of weeks ago. By the way, I admire her walk with God, she has trusted him when others might have quit. I mentioned to her the relationship we have with God. She then said a brief statement that stopped me in my tracks. “I’d never heard it called a relationship until recently.” THAT surprised me.

But I shouldn’t have been surprised. I don’t remember it being referred to in that way either. I was never taught it, but it has become a dear friend to me. My relationship with God is like a friendship, a long and enduring steadiness that strengthens, helps, and enlivens me where it counts.

After my friend’s comment, I thought back to my understanding of the term ‘relationship’ and why I believe it is a correct term to describe my connection with God. I did not see my walk with God as a relationship until it became a real relationship. This knowledge changed my viewpoint in many respects. I also saw a problem I’d never seen before and the solution to that same problem. I had a tiny epiphany.

I realized we’d been missing a big chunk of what it means to be truly Christian, and that, in itself, as a result, has led to disillusionment with the faith by some and a turning away from the faith, creating distance in those who had once professed faith in Christ but now had left the fold, not believing in its relevancy for them. Lack of depth in spiritual relationship, or in the knowledge that relationship can be had, most likely had not been cultivated in their life. Nor had an awareness of the richness that can be known in spiritual relationship infiltrated the church in living color, except for the notables who lived it, like Andrew Murray, for example. Their spiritual life was probably frustrated by a lack of intimate connection with the Trinity.

I realized that some people, believers (?), turn away from God simply because they’ve never developed a close intimacy with Him in a way that deeply impacts the heart. When God is not real, when lives are lived in two categories, secular and spiritual–with separation between the two, they have not connected with God in the interior life in a way the speaks life to the soul. Their walk with God is not one of deep heart-belief. There is a noticeable gap somewhere between believing, knowing, worshiping, and heart-living. They need to awaken, or re-awaken, to a life hid in Christ with a renewal that goes to the core. When God becomes real to you, and in you, it changes everything. This is where real living becomes sweeter than honey.

For me, it was during that process of seeking God to know Him, a pursuit that involved minutes, hours, days, and years. This was the impetus that propelled me forward, and when I began to have a greater heart for God and a more in-depth understanding of who He is and His interest in me. As His life flowed in and through me, and as my intense longing to know God became fruitful, my way of thinking and my inner self absorbed living truth that spoke volumes in the quiet places. A person that pursues God will find. God promises us that we will, and it is true.

Spiritual relationship with God starts at salvation when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. That is just a starting point. From there on, your life grows in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and begins to reflect His life in you. The relationship becomes deeper as you submit to Him and follow God and the truths found in His Word. You are being shaped and molded into the form the Master Sculptor would have you to be. But at times, the relationship becomes strained when you choose to follow the ways of the flesh instead of the ways of the Spirit, or when your spiritual life has become dull, placid, rigid, or smacks of religious routine. Then you have to get back on track to renew in the areas where you’ve become distant and to make intentional choices that will revive an intimacy of tender relationship with God.

Seek God until you find Him. You’ll be glad you did.