Parasitic "NEEDS"

It's funny to look back on things and try and remember how they were
when you are so different now from where you were then?!

I was thinking about the old saying,
"If you love something set it free. If it comes back to you it is yours. If it doesn't, it never was."
I remember wallowing in my teenage pain and misery ... the anguish of
a breakup ... the utter despair in love lost.
I remember well meaning adults quoting that old saying to me
and I remember wanting to DIE just thinking the thought of the saying!
I didn't care if it was TRUE! The hurt inside was so deep and so intense,
I NEEDED this person.

They were, afterall, my life support system.

I was, afterall, a parasite.


I remember a season in life where Chuck and I were having a bit of a rough patch ...
miscommunication abounded and silent walls seemed built around me.
We show love in different ways.

I guess it's sort of like the "Five Love Languages" book --- you have to speak your
spouses language.

I remember trying SO hard to show him love~!
It seemed my advances and efforts fell to the wayside.
We seemed so emotionally disconnected ;(

I was praying about things
and felt the Lord show me a picture in my mind.
I was over in the left field playing baseball - And I was playing the game of my LIFE!
BEST EVER~! (before I didn't even know HOW to play baseball!)
but pan the camera far right and Chuck was in the other field playing HOCKEY!
He was playing a mighty fine game himself! Only we weren't meeting.
My balls flew through the air,
whereas his sailed smoothly upon the ground.

*ugh*

I guess it was around the seven year mark that I felt so alone.
He was a wonderful husband (protector, provider, COMMITTED, faithful and true,
supportive, encouraging) and an even more amazing father --- we just didn'thave
the intimacy that I was yearning for --day to day filling and fulfilling communion.
I remember taking a walk and crying out to God.
I remember saying to God,

"I can't draw blood from a stone!"
Meaning I can't get from him what he isn't capable of giving.

God said to me,
"Yes, but I can bring water from a rock."
Meaning, yes, Laura, but I can make all things possible.
But it was like,
"But Laura, did you hear yourself?"

Then I realized how unhealthy it sounded that I would even ask for blood?

Blood is a lifesource,
essential for living,
but we, if we are healthy,
should we not need a lifesource from another human being?
Shouldn't we get our lifesource from Christ?
HE should be the one to complete us,
not another human being.

God began to make it clear to me how parasitic I had been?
How needy and draining I must have been to my spouse?
How high my expectations had been in ways that he was never created to give.

If we NEED another person,
perhaps we are not ready to HAVE another person in relationship.
It becomes unbalanced and unhealthy.
One is always taking and requiring and needing.
One is forever giving and never having enough for themselves.

They say marriage isn't fifty-fifty.
They say it's 100-100%.
That can only be possible if you are a whole and healthy individual.

One thing I am learning from Celebrate Recovery ---
I can't change another person.
I often can't change my circumstances or how things in life are going,
BUT
BUT
BUT
I can change my reactions to them.
I CAN change and work on ME.

When I work on me
and allow GOD to work on me
and FILL ME
and HEAL ME
and LOVE ME
in my innermost places ...

I don't really "NEED" Chuck anymore.
NOW I can really LOVE Chuck for WHO HE IS and
not for what he can give me.

IT's not a needy love.
It's just a blessing love.
NOW my sun moon and stars don't revolve around Chuck (which sounds
tragically romantic, but really is unhealthy!)

Now CHRIST is my center
for real
and of a truth

and everything else in my life can come and go
(I would not wish them to!)
but I wouldn't be utterly cast down and destroyed if tragedy struck,
perhaps for season,
but not utterly.
God is my source and my center and WE can face this life together.

When you don't NEED something, you truly can enjoy and love it for what it is ---
lightly
and fully


And now I can read this with no pain whatsoever,
just great joy at the ability to truly let something go and rejoice in IT reaching it's destiny
and full potential and the rejoice in the TRUTH of the saying,
"IF you love something, set it free.
If it comes back to you, it is yours.
If it doesn't, it never was."


Father God show us the things in life we are strangling with our tight grips on.
Show us what needs healed in our lives and in our hearts and in our innermost beings.
Father God, come and bring light and life and healing to those places,
in Jesus name I pray. Amen.