Emotional Dependency

In the January issue of P31Woman magazine, I compelled by the article Pam Shattuck wrote.  Oh, this might be the first real post about the real me.  No, I don’t want to do it.  All the other post seem good and positive.  This one, it will go a little deeper.

Yet, emotional dependency isn’t who I am anymore.  

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17

Oh, this is one of those pesky habitual sins that will creep into my life without me knowing (like seeking food over God for comfort).  Yet if Pam could share something that hit so close to home with me about her journey, why can’t I?

I could go back to my childhood as an overlooked middle child.  I could analyze what others did to make me this way.  It comes down to I’m this way and it is a sin!

Isaiah 2:22 Stop trusting in mere humans, who have but a breath in their nostrils.  Why hold them in esteem? 

I can crave validation from man over God.  Did they pay attention to what I said?  Did they hear me?  Why don’t they call me right now when they must know I need the phone call?  Did I get a response to my post (this is one I can fall into, especially in writing a blog)?  Did I get an email back?  And the worst, volunteering to do something, not for God’s glory, but so everyone will know how selfless I am which is really very selfish.

For the longest time in my life, I sought validation from my family.  I never received what I needed as a child.  I had great expectancy.  If they really love me, if they really want to be with me, they will behave or react this way.  Ha.  It rarely happened.  I usually copped a poor attitude which only further strained relationships.  It came down to realizing no matter what I did, I would not please all of them nor did they look to me to do it.  They could not give me something only God could give me.

Jeremiah 17:7 “But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him."

God has worked on this in me.  He is showing me who He sees when He looks at me.  I need to encourage others, not seek the encouragement.  Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians (and a few other places) how their faith was an encouragement to him.   I need to volunteer to be the useful tool He created me to be to bring Him glory, no other reason.  As Pam says in her article, it is freeing. 

So many people believe to follow God is to be in bonds for Him.  In a way that’s true.  However, the more of me I give to God the more freedom I have in Him.  He created me, He knows what’s best, He knows the perfect way to live a life that will have great joy.

It is a privilege to serve my God.