As adults, we retain a certain amount of influence over our daily lives. Through our engagement with people and places, we generate momentum and shift the world around us. Yet, for all that we may impact outside of us both personally and professionally, we can’t change any abandonment in our childhoods.

Many times, the past of our childhood makes us feel secretly stuck, perhaps fixated on what did or didn’t happen that was beyond our control. Instead of receiving both physical and emotional needs, we experienced abandonment in a period when we were vulnerable and unable to provide for ourselves.

With some who have experienced abandonment, feelings of needing to prove one’s worth, whether by competition or overperformance, can surface in personal and professional relationships. While some might consider it noble, these performance and perfectionist behaviors are frequently driven by fear that we will be left behind again, referencing the trauma of abandonment that we endured in childhood.

This fosters strife in relationships where cooperation and collaboration would serve us better. Instead, we resort to competition and comparison. The emotional walls we construct to insulate ourselves from vulnerability and rejection don’t protect us from the past that often haunts us. Instead, they erect a barrier, holding at bay the people with whom we would like to connect and enjoy meaningful relationships.

Childhood abandonment and neglect may have trained us to resort to ways to get our needs met and hoard our resources. Their influence has persuaded us that we cannot experience rich, life-giving exchanges. As a result, we have learned to rely on ourselves, believing that others will perceive us as weak and therefore seek to leverage unfair advantage.

While those maladaptive coping skills may have helped us to survive in certain seasons, we don’t have to operate our lives in fear. This is evidence of a lack mindset, believing that we will be misused or left without the provision we need in life.

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! – Isaiah 49:15, NIV

Although abandonment’s core symptoms may vary with the individual, we don’t have to remain enslaved to a painful past. God wants to encounter us here, as Father, and minister to areas where we have formed beliefs and behaviors to be our own god. Even if we have come into a relationship with Jesus, we don’t realize that we require healing in the way we live and engage with others.

Ideally, we would have had the presence of supportive parents who were present enough to nurture and attend to our needs. We aren’t alone in that, as almost six out of ten children, have shared our experience with abandonment and neglect and likely exhibit some of the same dysfunctional patterns in their adult relationships.

We don’t negate parts of our life experience, as it has shaped us into who we are. However, we can disengage from the lack mindset that drives some of these behaviors. It doesn’t come automatically, but rather with intention as we develop greater awareness of the Lord’s care.

Growing in grace and faith, we learn to surrender to the One who protects and defends us. While the Lord has given us authority, it comes by love and trust, versus control, competition, or coercion. We don’t have to try to steer our course and codependently control every outcome.

Childhood and youth are the places where we gather a sense of what life is like and the basics for navigating it. When we are out of those environments we realize that the reality that we grew up in was only the place where we began. It is not where God intends to take us. We can unlearn old habits and embrace healthier mindsets where the Spirit of the Lord supplies our total and complete need in Christ (Philippians 4:19).

The Lord delights in being what we need. Where we have gaps in our experience, He meets us to not only fill the space but exceed our hopes with His abundance, both naturally and spiritually.

For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in. – Psalm 27:10, ESV

Next Steps for Healing from Abandonment

There are a million different outcomes that could have emerged, had you experienced an alternative to the childhood you had. You could easily remain preoccupied and resentful about what could have been. However, none of those facts change the promise that God has a purpose for you beyond the bitter taste of the past.

Open yourself to receive the benefit of the resources available on this site, and schedule time with a counselor for additional support. There is a new beginning for you. The next step will encourage and empower you to recognize that you are not abandoned, but rather abiding in and with the Father and God who never leaves.