rMag

Louise’s Voice

Bethany Carlson

Years ago, I was skimming over a library bookshelf, when a name, Katherine Paterson, caught my eye. I had enjoyed another of her books, so I slipped the book out from between its neighbors and surveyed the cover. Jacob Have I Loved. It was a wistful blue watercolor - something about a boat and a girl’s face in the mist. Looks promising, I thought. I bet I’ll like this one. I checked it out and brought it home.

The protagonist, Sara Louise, spent a miserable childhood struggling to grow up in her uncaring family. She lived in the shadow of her gorgeous, talented, selfish twin sister Caroline. “Jacob have I loved,” her evil grandmother leered, comparing the two sisters, “but Esau have I hated.”

All the while, her parents watched passively as their daughter’s life became a casualty of Caroline’s privileged destiny. When I reached the last page where an adult Louise moved into a poor community in the backwoods mountains, I threw down the book in disgust. What an unsatisfying end to a depressing story. The poor girl’s life never improved! Caroline, who was off singing in opera houses all across the country, had obviously won. Apparently, Louise had been doomed from the start.

I wanted to wash my hands of her – to shove the unloved girl out of my memory. She had my sympathy, but I feared her and all that she represented. I feared the first faint echo of her voice rising up inside of me to whisper that I too was unloved. Esau have I hated.

So I forgot her.

However, the following years of high school brought many lessons. I now understand why I feared Louise so much, for I know her better now than I did back in middle school. I recognize her fears. Nobody really wants me. If I left they wouldn’t miss me. If they really loved me… I know them because I have carried shadows of the same fears inside of me.

Over the years I’ve sometimes listened to Louise’s voice: the fear of being unloved, or in my case, unlovable. That self-pitying voice made me desperately hungry for love and affirmation. By trying to feed that hunger, though, I lost the ability to give love back out, and instead I began to “horde” it, to grab for it. I stopped looking for ways to bless others, and thought only of how to feel loved again. But even that feeling was ultimately empty, because in my heart I had already denied that the love existed before I reached for it. I was miserable, floundering in insecurities. For years I battled this inner Louise, and sometimes I soundly trounced her, hoping the war was over, but she wouldn’t leave me alone. Each time I thought she was gone at last, some small thing set me off and all my fears returned as strong as ever. Esau have I hated.

At last, the Lord in His mercy showed me the root of my problem. He revealed to me all at once that I didn’t really believe that He loved me. It stunned me. How could that be? I’d always known that “Jesus loves me,” and “God is Love,” and “…as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love…” (Psalm 103:11). But I knew He spoke the Truth: I didn’t believe that He loved me!

All this time I had not been receiving the loving rain which the Lord was pouring out upon me. The water was running all over the outside of me, drenching me, but I wouldn’t dance childlike in the rain or open my mouth to catch the droplets. I had been too busy trying to perfect myself and being disappointed with the outcome to look up and surrender to His love.

Once I understood what I had been doing, the Lord gave me a weapon against the demonic fears that actually brought victory: assurance of His love. God began bringing me to a sweet new place where His love is boundless and unconditional and I know it and rejoice. I haven’t fully arrived yet – some days I seem closer than others – but the journey has been wonderful and filled with joy. And when I hear a faint whisper of Esau have I hated, as I still do once in a while, there is no battle. Instead it’s a massacre, and the Lord’s side never loses.

Just a few weeks ago as I scanned the schoolroom bookshelf for my next reading assignment, the words jumped out at me again: Jacob Have I Loved. Once more, I tugged the book loose from its neighbors and surveyed the cover. Again, a boat and a girl’s hungry eyes stared up at me:  photographs instead of watercolors.

I remembered little about the book except that years ago I had disliked it because it was “depressing.” But it was assigned, and read it I must. Besides, after three and a half years of high school, depressing literature was nothing new to me. Tucking the book under my arm, I ran upstairs, sprawled across my bed and entered Louise’s world for the second time.

Before I finished many chapters, though, I realized that this wasn’t the world I recalled. Something had dramatically changed! The setting, the plot, the characters were all intact and as I remembered them, but the meaning of this story was the opposite of the one I had read years ago.

Louise hungers for attention and love, but she can’t or won’t see that her family cares for her. Unable to see past her jealousy of her sister, she won’t accept any love that is not exactly like that given to Caroline. I saw so much unkindness in her family when I read it through Louise’s eyes, but now that I can see through her self-pity, I understand that they are normal people, nothing evil. The problem is entirely with Louise – she is no victim. How had I missed that before?

This time, when I finished the last page, I didn’t throw down the book and try to forget, but instead I closed the pages lovingly and sat in awe. Louise’s destiny is beautiful, and far from hopeless: she finds love and purpose in serving others and has children of her own. The restoration of her soul brought me to tears; I couldn’t find words for the beauty. There is no despair in this story, only hope.

Perhaps you too sometimes hear Louise’s voice and fight battles with her like I did. I would encourage you to abandon the hopeless weapons that the world uses to feel loved, and ask God to teach you His love. If you don’t truly understand that you are loved by the Almighty Lord, I am that I am, then learn from Him. In Adonai our souls can find a restoration far deeper even than Louise’s. Only in Him can we be whole, for His love is as high as the heavens are above the earth.