Fulfilling the Longing for Belonging

Most of us keep a big part of our lives hidden, secret. We don't want others to know what's really going on in our thoughts or even in our deeds.

Sharon Hirsch says that's a strategy that will fail. Nothing will harm your marriage and your parenting more than living a secret life. I mean, my children will never write a book saying my mom was perfect, but I pray daily that they will write a book that says my mom needed Jesus. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Anne Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. How can we have the confidence and the courage to live authentic, transparent, honest lives? We're going to talk more about that today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. We're talking about how messed up all of us are. I was going to say, we're going deep today.

Well, we are this week. We're exploring this reality that all of us are flawed. And have unprocessed wounds. Yeah.

And damage and trauma. And I'm not trying to get into a whole bunch of psychological jargon here, but it's the reality of our lives that all of us have dysfunctions. I remember my mom years ago, she was watching afternoon talk shows.

She was in her 80s at the time. And she goes, what's all this talk about dysfunctional families? She said, isn't every family a dysfunctional family?

And I said, I think you know more than you're letting on to there, mom. So you would say you have dysfunction. Like people can look at you, Dennis Rainey, and think, oh, those guys are perfect. They can't relate to my mess. All of us have dysfunction. And it is not easy to talk about.

It's easy to try and cover it. Who wants to talk about it? I'd like to talk about your dysfunction. Never turn it and talk about mine because we want to sort of cover it up and it comes out of this whole root of selfishness, right?

It does. We're talking with our friend Sharon Hirsch about this this week. Sharon, welcome back.

Thank you. Sharon is an author. She's a speaker. She's a counselor. She is a longtime friend. She's been a guest on Family Life Today a number of times. She's just written a book called Belonging.

And we've been talking this week about how all of us long to belong and how some of that fuels the dysfunction in us. I'm wondering, you were a straight A student. Well, except for that one B. Well, you got a B in what?

In math? Was that what it was? It was in science. And that B in science was like you felt like you were wearing a scarlet letter. I still remember it.

You really do. Wow. Was it that kind of drive to be the model person? What belonging were you looking for in the 10th grade when you decided to try marijuana with that boy who? So you went from the B to the marijuana.

Well, I want everybody to get the idea. This is a straight A good girl kind of person who was he your boyfriend or you wanted him to be your boyfriend? I think so. I was babysitting, which the story is so hilarious when we think about it, because you're the marijuana smoking babysitter. Is that who you are? And I smoked it in the house because it was the first time I'd ever smoked. I didn't realize that it had such a distinct smell. And, you know, the people who I babysit for called my parents and said. So was it this boyfriend who said, you want to try this?

Sure. And it was even at that stage in my life, this, as you said, longing to belong. And I have looked for it in all the wrong places throughout my life, even as a 16 year old. And unfortunately, it did not result in belonging.

It resulted in my parents being so mad at me and being grounded for I don't remember how long. But it sounds like also when you tried to belong in achieving, you didn't, you still didn't feel a sense of belonging. And so this is what I know at age 61. There is not enough of anything out there to make me feel like I belong. And whether I've done it secretly or overtly in performance realities, I have learned it's like chasing the wind. And that's what, of course, the Book of Ecclesiastes tells us, that when we are thinking that we can find something out there outside of us, outside of God, through our performance, through addiction, through buying things on Amazon, to proving or protecting ourselves into looking good enough.

We will end up sitting in that dust feeling like there's not enough I can do. Years later, as a parent, you had to be on the other side of the story with your kids experimenting with stuff in high school. Did you ground them for life like your parents did with you or did you handle it differently? Oh, you know, I really did think, Bob, that my kids, who certainly saw my failures and flaws in relationships, in parenting, in my struggle with addiction, I thought, well, they won't go there. And did you talk about it openly with them?

Yes. And thinking that would help? I think my kids would say today, I have a 32 and a 33-year-old. My son would say, I looked at your life and decided that if I was going to do anything, at least I'd be honest. Notice he didn't say I wouldn't do what you did.

That's right. But I do respect his decision that he would be honest because he saw how false I was. And my daughter would say, she looked at my life and said, okay, that's the way to go. Don't tell anyone. Wow. Don't be honest.

Which from the Garden of Eden, if you think about it, I mean, do you ever wonder what would have happened if when God met Adam and Eve in the morning and they ate that fruit that they thought would give them a sense of belonging in their life? If they would have shown up and said, we blew it. It didn't work. We're sorry. Forgive us.

Yes. But what did they do? They hid. They hid. And I believe that hiding from God and one another is the greatest flaw and causes us the most pain.

So why do we do it? I mean, you knew this, I'm guessing at 30 or 40 years old. It didn't take you 61 years.

No. It hasn't taken me. I won't say how old I am, but it hasn't taken me 60 plus years.

We know this. At some points in our 20s or 30s, I've stood on stage and preached this. And yet there's still this this belonging longing that I can search in all the wrong places. You did.

You did. We all have in some sense. Why do we keep going down roads we know are not going to lead us where we want to go? I think there are two paths to answer that question. The first is that most of us do not live a life of wanting to just love God and other people and ourselves. As Jesus said, if you want to sum up the gospel, if you want to sum up my teachings, it begins with love God with all your heart, mind and soul, and then love your neighbor as you love yourself. Most of us live an ethic that we don't want to get caught. And it's at the heart of it's because we love ourselves so much. Or we are so afraid that if someone really knew us, they would at best walk away from us. Or we hate ourselves.

Hate us. And I'm thinking about people who are listening who are going, well, like a friend said to me, this was six, seven years ago, we were talking about his life and his life was in crisis. He'd made a lot of bad decisions. We were kind of probing at some of this and he looked at me and he said, there's stuff in my life you and nobody will ever know anything about. And I let it go at the time, but what that said to me is there's such a deep sense of shame and he thinks the only way I can cope with this shame is by making sure I manage it and nobody ever knows. That's not a winning strategy for the shame that you're trying to manage is just to say I will bury this alone and not let anybody know and then I'll make it. It'll eat you alive from the inside, won't it?

It will. And yet, Bob, most of us believe that. Yeah. That if you really knew me, Sharon Hirsch, and I think this book, Belonging, has been a great risk for me because I have told stories that I've never told publicly and that have carried me to this place that I don't want to live in anymore.

It's not a place of freedom. I love what Henry Nouwen said. He said that the hardness of God, which is something we kind of feel when we tell the truth about our lives, the hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men because his compulsion is our liberation.

That's good. And I know I have been compelled to tell the truth about my life because I want to be free. So the person who's listening to you say that and saying, like my friend, there is stuff about my life that nobody will ever know. I'm not telling my husband, I'm not telling my kids.

If this came out, I would be destroyed. I could not go out the next day into the sunlight for fear everyone would be looking at me and going, oh, you're that person. It would so become a part of my identity that I couldn't be in public anymore.

What do you say to that person? Well, the last time I did treatment and I've done it a few times for my alcoholism was in 2009 and I woke up in the hospital with the elders and my pastor surrounding my bed. If you want to experience, was that your lowest point?

No, it was not my lowest point, but it was a come to Jesus moment. And they escorted me when I was released from the hospital to treatment. And I thought my life was over. I thought my ministry was over.

No one would believe me. And then over the 30 days there, first of all, they had to put a limit on my visitors because everyone from my church came to visit me. Were they coming to help?

Yes, they were. Were they kind? I think that's a lie. The enemy tells us that if people knew about you, they would hate you when really what I have discovered is as people know the truth about my life, they want me more, which is so surprising to me. And my dear pastor came to visit me and I said to him, you know, I just don't know why I am this way, why I am the vulnerable, afraid, relapsing sinner. And he said, Sharon, that's what we love about you.

And I did not believe him. But since that time, I have come to believe not only is that what people want in relationship. Now, we don't just stay in the muck because that's not hopeful to anyone, but it is saying, you know what, I need help. I need people in my life. The pastor of my church has a key to my house.

I need people that can come in at any moment and wherever they find me, believe that they want to be there to help me, to support me. I know this program is about marriage and family and I want to say that nothing will harm your marriage and your parenting more than living a secret life. And it is as we are open about our struggles appropriately at times in our children's life. And I mean, my children will never write a book saying my mom was perfect.

But I pray daily that they will write a book that says my mom needed Jesus. Well, it's interesting as you tell your story. And again, when I read your book, I'm like, not too many books. I read about a DUI by the author in Chapter one. You talk about honesty.

It reminded me and I wonder if you resemble the same thing. A man I knew as an acquaintance, worked in the organization that I worked with, with the Detroit Lions as their chaplain, had a secret drinking problem and he was very high up in the organization. He had controlled it for years.

I read one day in the paper. He got pulled over the night before, DUI, drunk, spent the night in jail, front page of the Detroit newspaper. And he's a guy that never came to my Bible study or my chapel service for the team, but we knew each other. So I got his number from, I didn't even have his phone number, but I got it and just texted him and said, read what happened last night. If you ever need to talk, you know what I do. I'd love to be available. Five minutes later, I get a text.

How about right now at Starbucks? Boom, boom, boom. I meet him, gives his life to Christ that morning. And now in part of his story is worst, best night of my life, worst night because I spent the night in jail.

My wife and kids are at home reading and hearing about this. It's a public deal. Best moment because what you said, now my secret is no longer a secret. People know the truth and I don't have to hide anymore. And he's totally turned his whole life around, you know, and there were consequences obviously, but it was finally he was able to realize I belong in a community of people who are not going to wear masks anymore.

Right. And because you reached out to him in his worst moment and weren't concerned about his stats on the field, but about his real life. As a therapist, I work with many families and I know parents are longing for their children to tell the truth about their social media use and what they see on social media and the temptations they face around every corner at school and what they're believing about faith. And yet if we are living a story of do better, try harder, prove that you belong. I mean, what you are saying to this guy is you belong and you don't have to prove anything, which probably was the most refreshing news to a professional athlete that he could get.

So Sharon, what does that look like? As parents are listening, they're thinking, well, how do I communicate that? And yet I don't want my kids to be on these social media sites or I don't want my kids to do these certain things. How do we talk to them in a way that they will be honest and yet we are trying to be their parents too.

I wish I had the answer to that. And yet what I will say is that kids absorb what's going on at home. And so if the energy of your home, which it was for way too many years in my life, is performance, they will either jump on board and perform their way into loneliness, disconnection, and distance from God.

Or they will say, forget it. I can't make it. I can't perform.

I can't keep the standard. And so I'm going to do everything to react against my parents. And all I can say is that I have learned the hard way that being honest about my inability to sometimes cope with life, to know the answers. And to not be, as Bob talked about earlier, that older brother out in the field saying, I've done everything right.

And so why am I not getting what I deserve? But to be honest about my life, to show up, and I especially say this to parents of adult children, which I hate to give you the bad news, but that is the hardest season of parenting. To show up, to be seen, and to not have an agenda opens the door to the gospel, which is what we want to offer as parents. And this is like, this is some heavy stuff of allowing people to really see us.

And there are people who are listening to this and they're going, I don't know what universe you people are living in. I know. But I tried to get honest. I mean, I took a step, kind of a half step and said, I'm going to be open about this.

Yeah, let's say porn. I shared this porn problem or what if you had an affair and it's a secret and now I'm going to dump this and it'll be worse for my spouse? Or I tried, I shared a little bit and everybody moved away from me. They didn't move toward me and they all started talking about me and pretty soon I was out of the church. So, so people are going, Sharon, I, I hear you and I'd like to be honest and live in that world, but it's not my world.

What do I do? Well, I think that is a reality, whether it's with our children who are experts at using whatever we say against us. But unfortunately, sometimes the church is too. And so all I can say to you is I cannot guarantee that your children will bow down on their knees and say, Oh, thank you mom for telling me that now I'm never going to go that direction because that has not been the experience in my life.

My kids have had to find their own way and I am grateful and humbled that I'm the one they call when they're in a mess because they know I've been in a mess. And with regard to the church or people at large who sometimes do point fingers and judge, and that is painful. I'm not denying that.

It does happen. But what I have learned, and this sounds ironic to say, is that what Jesus said is true. That the truth will set you free.

So, the question is, do I want to be in the inner circle, which quite honestly I have wanted a great deal of my life, or do I want to be free? Nothing to prove, nothing to protect, knowing that Jesus loves me not for what I do, but because of who he is and that the more that I fail and confess my flaws, and as my kids say, admit that I am totally uncool, the more I draw close to him. Now, I realize that's kind of an esoteric reality that we want to feel close to the people in our church, and we want everyone to like us, and we want our kids to respect us, and we want our spouses to think that we are the best thing on earth.

And yet, that is fleeting. There is one reality that I have learned at this stage in my life that is solid, and that is who I am in Christ. And when I live out of that, I belong.

I can be with anyone, even my kids who are not necessarily walking with God. We can talk about things because I am rooted in something that is not me. It's interesting when you say that because that means your belonging is not dependent on something out here.

It's actually dependent on something vertical and understood inside. It's an identity in Christ. That's the secret we don't get because we try to find our belonging here, certain groups, certain acceptance from the right people at the right time, and it never seems to satisfy. It's like, well, I got it, or I didn't get it, and it isn't external. It's actually spiritually and internal. Is that what you're saying? It's identity in Christ.

I'm a son or daughter of the king. It is. And I think we all love the truth. It's why we're drawn to the gospel, that God loves us no matter what state we are in. But the hardest part of the gospel to live out is that we love, and I hate this next little word, as He has loved us.

And I can say I'm just a beginner there. I am really learning to interiorize that He loves me on my worst day and my best day. He loves me when I lie and when I tell the truth. He loves me when I am caught in addiction and when I am living in freedom. He loves me when my kids sit in the front row of the church, and He loves me when they tell me they don't believe in God. And He wants me to love as He has loved me.

You've inspired me to be the person that your son or daughter calls or somebody gets pulled over a DUI and your church calls. I want them to think, I want to call Dave. Because you love well. Because they sense in me He's honest and He's authentic, and I know He's got weaknesses just like I do. He hasn't hidden those. And yet there's also a power and a forgiveness that I've seen in His life that's supernatural.

They're both there. So I know that if I call Him, I'll be accepted and loved, but I'll also be pulled to the gospel. You know what I'm saying? I want Ann to call me. I want my sons to call me. Are they thinking of me?

I don't think so. So it inspires me to say, I want to be that man. And I want our listeners to say, I want to be that man.

I want to be that woman. And don't you think that is the goal in marriage? I mean, my marriage fell apart 20 years ago, but I think that is where marriage is often wasted in these days.

Don't you want to be the spouse that your husband or wife could call you no matter what? Not because they're going to love everything you did, but because they want to love as they have been loved. And I would say our ability to love others is wrapped up in our ability to receive God's love for us. And if you are having a hard time loving others, the way you address that is you go back to meditating on and believing God's love for you and bathing in that and drinking it in so you can pour it out to others. You don't try to conjure up in yourself, well, I need to be more this way or that way. No, you go back and you experience God's love for you.

Through the power of the Spirit that lives in us. And then let it just kind of pour out of you. It will pour out of you. At our church, I say, here's the cycle, drink in, pour out, drink in, pour out. And you can't pour out what you don't drink in at first. So you've got to start by drinking in. But then it should just gush out. You don't have to turn on any spigot.

It should just overflow over the top because it's there. That's what belonging is all about, right? Yes. Thank you for your honesty, your transparency. Thanks for the book.

I think it's going to help a lot of people. Good to see you again. Good to be with you. Thank you. We have copies of Sharon's book, Belonging, available in our Family Life Today Resource Center. Again, the subtitle of the book, Finding the Way Back to One Another. You can order the book from us online at familylifetoday.com or you can call to order 1-800-FL-TODAY is the number.

Again, the title of Sharon's book is Belonging. Order it online at familylifetoday.com or call to order at 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. You know, here at Family Life, we are proponents of extended community. We think there is real value in married couples being connected to other married couples. David Robbins, the president of Family Life, is here with us to talk a bit about that.

David? Thanks, Bob. Growth so often happens in the context of community. Over the past few years, we have two small group resources that we've developed from people that you really trust if you listen to Family Life Today. There's the Vertical Marriage Small Group that features Dave and Ann Wilson, and there's our most recent Love Like You Mean It Small Group, where Bob Lapine walks us through 1 Corinthians 13. Of course, we have mainstays that truly hundreds of thousands of people have gone through, like Art of Marriage and Art of Parenting. I heard from Sean in Pennsylvania who has listened to Family Life Today and gone to several weekends to remember, but he recently sent me an email just how much getting that close community to grow with matters to him. And he shared, We have recently taught the Art of Marriage curriculum to a couple of churches, and we most recently taught the Vertical Marriage curriculum this past fall with nearly 40 couples, and it was an amazing response. And Sean went on to say, I want to share this to encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ to use your gifts to strengthen and build up the church. The enemy is attacking from many directions, Sean says. Our time is short on this earth to serve and worship our Lord and King.

Sean, I could not agree with you more. Thank you for the challenge. Each one of us continues to grow in Christ, and as we grow, we get the opportunity to bring others into that growth also.

Take a step of faith. Someone is out there looking for someone to invite them into a community. Maybe you're the person that gathers some neighbors or gathers a few couples that are in your sphere of influence and walk through a marriage study today.

And of course, we've got information on our website at familylifetoday.com about those studies that you mentioned, so go to the website to find out more and connect with some other couples. It's been a while since we've had good, meaningful connections, and maybe we're starting to feel like we can do some of that more safely now. Thank you, David. Well, we hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to worship together in your local church this weekend. And I hope you can join us back on Monday, especially if you're a grumpy person, okay? If you're grouchy. If you're negative, Monday, tune in, because we want to talk about how you deal with negativity. And if you are that person, you probably know who you are, and you should listen.

And if you wonder if you're that person, just ask your spouse, and they will tell you, okay? But join us Monday when Nicole Phillips joins us to talk about the negativity remedy. Hope you can be here for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch. We got some extra help this week from Bruce Gough. And of course, our entire broadcast production team was involved in this program. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. Have a great weekend, and we'll see you Monday for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today, hope for tomorrow.