I saw myself clearly and it took me by surprise. No, really, I was amazed that I could miss that much and still be functioning as well as I was. But we humans are always so full of surprises, aren't we? Well, the end result of all this was that I learned an important lesson about God, family, and romantic relationships (yes, somehow all three of them managed to be involved, what are the odds). And what I saw surprised me, but also clarified and deepened my life and my relationships.

I saw the way I was getting value, worth, and love and it wasn't what it ought to have been. I don't know why I couldn't see it before, but it took a seemingly unrelated statement to jolt me out of my safe shell and back into a consciousness of God. I'd been trying for weeks, but I couldnt' figure out what was wrong, couldn't see what was holding me back from where I had been only a few short weeks ago. I thought I had let everything go, and in a sense I had, but there were still pieces of those things that I found myself clinging to again.

But there was more to the problem, much more. In fact, this was a relatively small infraction next to the magnitude of the second one, and that is this: I realized that I was not clinging to what God wanted me to be clinging to. I don't mean just clinging to God, I mean I was focused on the wrong issues, the wrong people, the wrong stuff, and I needed this jolt to push me back into a God-focus. I say this was a bigger problem because this problem was more complete, and I was much more blind to it. I knew that I had become disconnected from God, and I was desperate to fix that problem, but I didn't realize that part of the problem was that I had lost my God-focus and needed to get back to focusing on what God wanted me to focus on.

And I think that He needed to give me that big jolt to get my attention, because I see now that He has been trying to point out to me that I was slipping there for some time. It was only when I had finally begun to work on it that God showed me the magnitude of the problem I had created (I guess that was to show me that I can't fix it all by myself).

I am learning that life is not about letting go once, twice, or even three times, but about getting up everyday and letting go of everything again to cling only to God. It's a concept that is much easier to grasp than it is to consistently apply in my life. I pray that if I can get up everyday, let go of self and cling to God that will help me to maintain a God-focus and a God-love for everyone that I cannot maintain on my own. I pray, too, that others would learn what I am learning and that they would see God for themselves, up close and brilliantly radiant in their lives. Would that I could see Him blessing other lives the way He has been blessing mine!