Needing

*This quite possibly could be the most real and personal thing I have ever shared on my blog before. And though it feels kind of big to put out into the blogosphere, I feel as though I may explode if I don't. I am coming alive and experiencing healing and freedom in my story that is life-changing. I guess I felt the need to express that to the readers that I don't see or know in my every day life....Thank you.*

Neediness. I am needy.

I have hated that I need God to live and survive.
I have hated that I need others to come through for me in order to live and survive.
I have hated that I need food to live and survive.
I have hated myself for ever being in need of anything.

The theme of hating my neediness is all over my story.

When I have had an actual need that has gone unmet for me, I go somewhere violent or damaging with it.

At some point as a child I made an agreement with evil that it was a bad thing to be in need. It was bad to need something from someone else. It was bad for me to need my mother's love. It was bad for me to need new clothes because I was growing. It was bad for me to need my parent's to stay together and not divorce. It was bad for me to need to see God come in and do something big to know that He was real and that He loved me.

To need something meant that something was wrong with me, that I was an inconvenience, that I was too much or I was expensive. And when I had legitimate needs, I rarely, if ever, voiced them. I tried to figure it out on my own and fulfill my own needs. I poured contempt over myself for what I needed because it hadn't been filled for me.

The self-loathing and self-hatred that I have carried around for years has had this tough exterior layer that has been hard for me to break through. I know - I've been at this for years. Last night, I finally broke through it and found the messy, muddy, slime of my shame that was underneath it.

I feel like a great mystery has been solved. A light bulb has gone off and I can suddenly see what has been underneath my self-hating all of these years. The places I went to have my needs met are tragic, violent and ugly. I have carried immense shame over what I have done to get what I needed. I can't say those things here - there is too much to share and it wouldn't feel kind to go into detail here. But those places are tragically sad and they exist. And in this place is where I have camped out in various addictions over the years - the main one of course being with food. And under all of this shame was me. The real me who was just a human being in need of something.

I was created to need.
I was created with a hole that needed to be filled.
I was created with a stomach that needs to be nourished so my body can thrive and do what is needed of me.
I was created to need food!
I was created with an empty heart that only God could fill up with his unbroken and lasting love.
I was created with a soul that needs relationship, affection, fellowship and friendship with others.
I was created with a need for consistency and stability - but only the kind that God can provide.
I was created with a need for a warm, safe and loving home.
I was created to need these things.
They are good, God-given, normal, natural needs.

I was a needy little girl. I was a needy teenager. I was a needy young adult. I am a needy woman. A desperately, gloriously needy woman.

I don't want to agree with evil anymore that it's bad to be in need. I don't want to agree with evil anymore that I have to fulfill my own needs and seek out violent or damaging ways of doing so. I am needy - and it's a glorious, wonderful thing to be so!

Since about 9:00pm last night I have felt the icier parts of my heart that I have felt towards God start to melt. I am feeling warm and soft and tender and alive there. I don't hate that I need Him anymore. I was created to need Him. It's good to need Him. I am at rest knowing of my beautiful and desperate need for Him....