From Dirges to Anthems – Wrong Sources

Greetings Dear Reader,

Garden gate

An empty plate waiting for someone to come and fill – Dan Fogelberg

I know that I carry a deep emptiness inside me.  I can see the chain of long poor choices in the expectations I have held in getting my needs met. Even thought that chain is forged also by links from people who promised to be there for me, it was never proper to see them as the source for filling that void in me. 

It is a good thing that we receive love and validation from those who claim to love us.  It is too much burden to place on someone and any number of someones to be the source of our sustenance.  Our only proper source for these things is Christ.  While it is wrong for someone who assures us that we are safe trusting them to be there for us to abandon us, it is not to be where our dependence is. 

Every gesture of love and support from another should be seen as a gift and not some kind of payment on a debt.  When I view received love as a gift it fosters gratitude and a genuine return of that love.  Whenever I think that someone should show me love in a certain way I become expectant and demanding.  This fosters pain and bitterness.  It creates the fear that showing gestures of love will only engender further expectations of the same.

It is in the absence of expectations that others are free to love us for who we are and the one capable of doing so will do so.  It is in the empty plate places in my life that I am in danger of not allowing Christ to send in those who can touch those places.  If I try to squeeze someone into that mold they will not fit and it will frustrate them.

The only true source for having those needs met is Christ.  He alone will fill me to satisfaction.  He will choose the right people to be a part of that process.  While it is important that I wait for my needs to be met it is just as important that I look to the right source for that meeting.   

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn                              

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store."