How to Handle Your Emotions (Counseling Through the Bible Series) (54 page)

Lauren Chapin

Growing up, I knew the kind of family I wish could have been mine. It was Lauren’s family.

Lauren’s nickname was “Kitten,” an endearing term that brings to mind a cute, cuddly ball of fur. She was a delightful part of the family—accepted, wanted, loved.

It seemed so real, but it was all make-believe, in more ways than one. The Andersons were a made-for-TV family on the popular 1950s series
Father Knows Best.
They were the kind of family everyone longed to have. But the warmth and acceptance bestowed week by week upon little Kathy (or Kitten) onscreen were woefully absent in her off-screen life.

In real life, Lauren Chapin’s heart was ruptured by rejection. While she had a TV father who “knew best,” her real-life father rejected his role as protector and instead sexually abused her from ages three to five, and then again from 14 to 16. Likewise, she felt powerless to withstand an uncle’s abuse for five years beginning at the tender age of three.

Lauren’s alcoholic mother was verbally and emotionally abusive—not only outwardly, but in other ways, through a lack of time, lack of attention, lack of love. Too busy living the socialite lifestyle and too busy with acting aspirations for her two older sons, she abandoned her four-year-old daughter at a convent not far from home. There, further rejection resided. The nuns wrapped dirty socks around Lauren’s hands and tied her wrists to bedposts in an effort to end her thumb-sucking habit.

In the midst of all this rejection, glimmers of hope remained. One day, Lauren received a call that her mother was going to pick her up. She was thrilled! One by one, parents picked up all the others girls waiting to go home for the weekend. Meanwhile, Lauren waited and waited, expecting each car to be her mother’s
Maybe that’s Mama,
she would think. As day turned to night, a deep sense of rejection returned. Finally, a car pulled up…and in her excitement, Lauren grabbed her little bag and raced toward
the door—right through a plate-glass window! The car outside continued on its way—it wasn’t her mother after all.

A nun called Lauren’s mother,
“
Mrs. Chapin, your daughter has been badly hurt. She needs to go to the hospital. You must pick her up right away. There is no one here to take her.” Yet, Lauren’s mother did not come—she
would not
come, for she was too busy. In disgust, the nun slammed the receiver down.

An hour later, a neighbor’s teenager drove Lauren to the hospital, where she received 150 stitches and then was taken home. She noticed the street filled with parked cars, her house filled with people, cocktails, and laughter. Bloodied but bandaged, Lauren saw her mother and impulsively ran to her, hugged her, and began sobbing.

Though initially startled, Lauren’s mother regained her composure, then dispassionately pushed Lauren away. “Go to your room…go to your room.” No comfort, no compassion, no concern. Blinded by tears and whimpering in pain, Lauren wondered,
What have I done to make Mom hate me so?

Though Lauren’s wounds had not yet healed, that following Monday she was sent back to the convent, where the nuns paraded her from room to room, standing her on a chair and announcing, “This is what happens when little girls run through the halls.”

On the show
Father Knows Best,
Lauren Chapin played the role of Kathy Anderson. The show was wildly successful for seven years straight. Yet the pain of her personal rejection was so great that at the age of 11 she tried to commit suicide.

When
Father Knows Best
ended, Lauren was 14.

One Monday morning she walked up to the studio lot expecting the guard to let her walk through, but her pass had been revoked. She couldn’t enter the lot, and she didn’t know why. No one had told her the show had been cancelled.

Why? The teenage son, “Billy,” was on marijuana, which defied the family image offered in the show. “Father” Robert
Young was in a deep depression, and college student “Betty” was married and pregnant. The TV network felt that the program was in too precarious a position, so they cancelled it. Lauren felt shocked, stunned, rejected.

Several months later, a judge awarded custody of Lauren to her father, who began molesting her again. At the age of 16 she eloped with a man she barely knew, just to get out of the house.

From there, her life continued to spiral down, down, downward—into drugs, prostitution, forgery, jail time, and even a month in a psychiatric ward. After she was released, she wandered about aimlessly, feeling like “a reject.”

Why shouldn’t she? Lauren had been repeatedly rejected by her mother. As a child she was told, “You’re not beautiful. You’re not pretty.” She was rejected as a teenager (and as the breadwinner of her family), yet she was sued for the money
she
earned! And she was rejected as a young adult. She was told, “I hope your baby dies—you’ll be a terrible mother.”

Added to all this was the physical abuse she endured—beatings at home and being locked up in a small closet for hours. She felt so much hopelessness that before her thirtieth birthday, she had already attempted suicide at least ten times. She had experienced almost every kind of abuse imaginable. How could she
not
feel like a reject?

Then one day Lauren learned some truths that changed her life: God loved her (John 3:16), He would never reject her (Deuteronomy 31:8), and He offered to adopt her (John 1:12).

When Lauren came into a life-changing relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, she experienced a security she had never known before. Few have experienced this reality or could speak these words with more conviction than Lauren: “Though my father and mother forsake me, the L
ORD
will receive me” (Psalm 27:10).

After experiencing the ravages of rejection, Lauren finally found the love and acceptance she had always longed for. And because she was adopted into the family of God, she not only
could rest securely in her Savior, but also found that her heavenly Father truly
does
know best.