When I was growing up, my parents attended church every week and I went to Sunday School—which was a welcoming place but I mostly worried that no one would come to pick me up.
All the other mothers would arrive on time until I was the last child in the classroom. The teacher would look at her watch and look at me. “Would you like to do a puzzle together?” she would ask.
I had done all the puzzles but I said yes and sat at the little table with her, moving the wooden pieces around. My stomach felt funny. What if nobody ever came? What would happen to me?
Jesus loved me, this I knew, but it was my mother I wanted to come in the door And finally, there she was in her bright blue coat and purple hat, breathless and smiling. “Sorry to be so late,” she always said, “I just lost track of time.”
Many years later, a therapist would say to me, “Karen, you seem to have a fear of abandonment.”
“Yes,” I said, “I don’t know why.”
