The End?

I have been in counseling for my addiction for two years.  Summers are busy for everyone, including my counselor and myself.  For the second summer in a row, we met only once.  When the fall arrived, and I expected things to get back to normal, I have not been able to get in touch with her to set up a meeting.

At the end of the summer I failed but managed to pick myself up.  It is true what she says: I know the truth -- I just have to remember to live it.  And so I managed to get back where I need to be.  And have been consistently doing that for some weeks now.

Perhaps I don't need her anymore.

But the idea that I won't be meeting with her anymore makes me sad.

When God Chases You

It can be a hard thing.



As you can see by the dates of my posts, it has been nearly a month since my last post.  I wish I could claim busyness or forgetfulness or even that I have simply lost interest.

Alas, that is not the case.

I have not posted because I have not been reading the Diane Evans book.  Nor have I been reading my Bible.  Nor have I been spending much time with God or even thinking about God.  I have been willfully and determindedly running from God by sticking in my addiction like a fly in poisoned honey.

But God is not willing to let me go. 

Today I was the storyteller at church.  The young children have three main ideas that the curriculum circulates: God made me, God loves me, and Jesus wants to be my friend forever.  This month is God made me, and the verse is from Psalm 139: 14 --

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
I did a cute song and activity -- it wasn't really a story this week.  We did "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes."  We jumped and marched and used our hands to pick up stickers off the floor.  Because God gave us eyes to see and ears to hear and mouths to speak and feet to walk and hands to help. To see His people and to hear their needs and to tell them about Jesus and to walk with them and to help them. 

Then I left the kiddos with their teachers and entered the adult service.

This month our pastors are teaching from Jonah. What happens when you run from God.

Um....

The pastor was teaching on chapter 2 today, what happens when you pray to God.  Jonah prayed from the belly of the fish.  In the farthest down he could get -- the living dead way down below the surface of the sea -- he prayed to God....

And God listened.

The pastor read the passage and then turned to the psalms and said there is a psalm that very nearly mirrors what Jonah was saying, although Jonah came after the psalm.  So I guess Jonah mirrored the psalm, but the reflection is there.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.

That's from Psalm 139.

Um....

And then the pastor said that God gave us these legs, even though He knew we'd run.

Um...

"You can't run from Me, my daughter.  Wherrever you go, I am there.  You run with these legs I have given you -- given to you so that you can GO to them and tell them about Me.  I knew you'd run.  I didn't have to give you legs.  I could have made you so that you could never leave Me.  But I didn't.  Go ahead and run -- but I'm right there with you."

Oh, God, my Father.
I don't want to run anymore.
I am faithless.
You are faithful.
Thank you for loving me, for chasing me.
Oh, God, let me run only ever after You!