There’s a raw human desire to feel need­ed.  I am learn­ing to embrace my depen­den­cy.  I am under­stand­ing things now that I did­n’t quite appre­ci­ate when I was younger.  I know my need­i­ness keeps me depen­dent on God.

Much like Katie expe­ri­enced in, “Kiss­es from Katie”, I would use these words often to encour­age oth­ers, “God is in con­trol.  He has com­plete, absolute, and sov­er­eign con­trol.”  But the truth is, I did­n’t always lis­ten to my own advice. It’s much hard­er to embrace the fact that God is in con­trol when, “we are the ones with the ter­ri­ble diag­no­sis, the emp­ty bank account, no job, or the drug addict­ed son or daugh­ter.”  

Strange­ly, when life is good and I have all I need, i.e., access to med­ical care, food, mon­ey, a lov­ing and sup­port­ive fam­i­ly, I feel dis­tant from God, and though I still rou­tine­ly pray, it’s not as heart­felt as when I am in a bind and real­ly need Him.  I still walk around giv­ing thanks for all my bless­ings, but my prayers are quick and less intense.  The oth­er day, how­ev­er, I was under a lot of dis­tress.  I prayed real­ly hard, dur­ing the mid­dle of my work day, I just closed my door and prayed pro­found­ly. I felt His pres­ence so near it took my breath away.  I believe we face chal­lenges every­day to remind us to call on Him for help.  If things are always per­fect, we might for­get about our Father.

There’s a depen­den­cy imbal­ance through­out the Cir­cle of Life.  The world tells us we ought to be inde­pen­dent as soon as we reach the right age.    When we’re in our moth­er’s womb we are depen­dent on her; we con­tin­ue being depen­dent for a short while longer, and then we pro­claim our inde­pen­dence soon after.  Decades go by, and then when we’re in our dying bed, we declare our depen­dence once again.  But why do we ever stop?  When we for­get we are depen­dent on God for all neces­si­ties, we start putting empha­sis on mate­r­i­al devel­op­ment and neglect our inner val­ues.

It is sur­re­al how in a mat­ter of a few years my life went from danc­ing the night away–thinking I was this sassy, inde­pen­dent mon­ey­mak­er, to a grown child who is learn­ing to let go and just breathe.  I did­n’t real­ize how thirsty I was for this type of knowl­edge or love, nor did I real­ize how emp­ty my life was, even though  I was in the com­pa­ny of a lot of peo­ple, chat­ter, and wine.  If you find your­self in sim­i­lar situations–feeling unful­filled and not know­ing exact­ly why, take it as a cue to checkin with your inner self.  Take the time to qui­et your mind and lis­ten to the beat of your heart.  Sur­ren­der all con­trol; do the best you can and leave the rest to God.  We have to ask for what we want, work for it, and believe that God will take care of the rest.  And if things don’t go as planned, know that He will give us what we want and need when He knows we are ready to receive.  I wish you all a fab­u­lous 2015 and I hope that you stop by often!

Xoxo,

Irís