Why?
Why?
It’s not fair.
Why does God want so much from me? I feel so desolate and empty. I have released so much to HIm that I held dear. You would think that He would reward me… no such luck. I am so struggling and He wants more. Why does He want me to release the grip from everything in my life that I hold dear? I feel like He wants more from me than He does from most people. Sure I’m an addict. Sure. I can get hooked on anything and it can cloud my head and my life and keep me from being able to fully be present in life, but I feel like I surrender something out of fear. And then I get more attached to other things. and almost more depressed. Why is it like this. My life is so friggin not fair…
Ok… ok. I need to calm down. We can never understand the ways of God, but recently I feel like He has taken from me everything that I held onto to give me temporary fufilment. And now He wants more. I must sound like a spoiled brat. I really do have so many blessings. I have a good life. Good health. A loving family. But I feel like all of my little things have been taken away from me. I have been feeling like a dry desert recently without my little highs (except for one that I haven’t given up fully yet… but boy God keeps convicting me =( =( ) I feel like I obeyed God… yes… grugingly… BUT I did obey God and gave up lots of little things… AND I would expect He would bless me… But soon after I gave up my addiction to sugar… guess what… my boyfriend leaves me because He has no hope for me recovering from my eating disorder and doesn’t like me that much anymore!! This has been one of the hardest things that has ever happened to me along with everything else. It doesn’t fully make sense, but I just have so many pent up emotions of so many kinds about this. I feel like my mind is full of emotional mud. The past year and where I’ve been and where I am now just sort of meld together in a muddy rainbow of good and bad, beautiful and ugly. I gave Him my heart. I thought that He would marry me. He said He would. But it’s no more. It’s so hard to surrender hope here for the relationship to be restored. But I have to. I’m not sure it’s the right thing. Plus everyday I hear from Him less and less. This was the boy who I thought had my whole heart. My eyes have been so moist with tears recently about this. I feel like someone close to me had died. But yet He is alive and well and having fun which makes it more hard almost because I always have hope that maybe, just maybe something will change. It hasn’t. And I don’t think it will.
I will write more about that I”m sure. I have so many thoughts on that! But right now I’m going to write about some of my angry feelings at God. I sit right now in a cute little cafe at a table. My mom dragged me here as she had to take care of business with a friend. I’m listening to music that Andrew introduced me to. Seemingly everything in my life has to do with Andrew. As I said in the past year, God has really been stripping me of alot. Especially recently. He has convicted me. And I surrendered.I used to rely on fancy beverages to fill me. i’d frequently turn to coffee or other drinks and would drink it like crazy. It filled me. Made me feel emotionally ok. I became hooked. Last August I gave it up… actually because I was beginning a homeopathy program that required no coffee… but I still felt that God didn’t want me to have it any more. That was not too hard. I still had tea.
The major thing, however that was so difficult for me to give up was stevia. Stevia is a natural, white totally o my gosh so amazingly amazing sugar alternative. I was so addicted. So in love with this substance in a way I can’t even wrap words around. I couldn’t leave the house without a bottle of the substance tucked safely away in my handbag. It made me feel secure. My stevia addiction started out innocently enough a few years ago, but gradually it became that I needed increasing amounts and felt depressed and moody and that life wasn’t worth it without it. i knew in my heart that i was addicted and had to give this up, but would not let go. I couldn’t live without my stevia. I even dumped it on food. It was supposed to be healthy, I thought. I had researched it extensively enough that my freshman year of college I wrote a research paper on it!
I wrote the following at the time I gave up stevia…
“For a long time I’ve known that I’m completely addicted to the sweetener stevia. For years now I can’t go anywhere without a bottle in my purse. If I get low, I get depressed and irritable and anxious and my life basically stops until I get more. I do not drink anything without first adding stevia. I eat a lot of things with this substance too, and often even overeat things with this as I love it so much. I have tons of stevia rituals… I probably spend over 30$ a week on the stuff and then a lot more money on food and drinks to use it with. If I have any money it goes to stevia and I haven’t really cared. I’ve known that I’m totally out of control, but I haven’t wanted to admit it. This is a big part of the old life that I’ve been holding onto.
Fast forward to the Friday after that incident in the car… the week between that incident and the Friday, I had been running low on stevia, but had enough to last me. Usually I got a total high by going to purchase more stevia. I know which stevia brands are at which health food stores in the area, and how much each one has in stock (well not now, but I have known this)… I am like a stevia expert (if only you could earn a living with that title)!
Anyhow. I was planning to go to therapy and then go to buy food and stevia. I felt excited for this ritual, but this excitement was definitely mixed with a tinge of guilt. The past few days I had been feeling extra convicted about this issue (like I always do when I try to connect with God). Even that morning while on the road, I remember having one of my conversations where I cried out to God about this, like a toddler who wants a pacifier… I knew God had told me no and had for a while, but I had been disobeying… “Why Lord… why can’t I have it? You made it? It’s not bad… nothing that you make it?” I even tried to picture Jesus lovingly giving me stevia… I mean I sort of can! But I felt like I heard Him whisper into my mind to answer my question, “Because you put it in front of me.” Still I intended to go get my stevia fix. I just hoped God wouldn’t punish me in some way like get me in an accident on the way there. I did tell myself I’d talk to the therapist and maybe I’d reconsider if he said that it wasn’t a good idea to buy the stevia. I fully thought that the therapist would say… “Of course it’s ok in moderation!” That’s what the several other therapists I’ve talked to about this issue said… But… he told me it’s not ok to put anything in front of God and pulled an article on this out of his filing cabinet. I was surprised and uncomfortable, but I knew that this is what God told me just that morning.
I got in the car to leave and I felt like that toddler again. “But I want it God!!!” But… I decided to not at least for the time being. Over the next few days I decided that I definitely needed to give up stevia. The next week was a crazy week of riding on God’s back. He really carried me as I decided to let him. He has really been helping me in unimaginable ways to put to death the old life that I clung to for so long, but that brought me nothing but misery.”
So fast forward a month or so… I have not touched the substance since. Has my life been wonderful?? Um. how about. Not. Far from it. All I feel is the sense that God wants more from me. Here sitting in the cafe, I would love to down a decaf soy cappucino laced with stevia. But I know I can’t. I am no longer addicted. I gave that one to the Lord, but I feel a deep hole in my heart for it. I guess as He empties me, if I don’t go to Him to get filled with my living water, I”m gonna feel quite empty. I haven’t had quiet time in over a week. I got in a major car accident a week or two after giving up stevia, so I now owe every cent that I make to my parents and cannot afford expensive stevia. GRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I could really use it about now. I’m so immature. I’m sitting here crying about it. I’m a mess. He took away coffee, sweetener, my car…
And then my boyfriend. After things had been up and down for a while, he finally decided to end the relationship after a few mess ups with food. I still haven’t surrendered that yet. =( And thats where I am. Why is God so hard on Me??? Why do I have to be an addict. Most people can sit and down a piece of cake or cup of coffee without worry of what God thinks… but me??? Most people can have some sweetener. Even diabetics!! But me. No. not me. I should be happy that God wants me. But instead i have a hurting heart and refuse to surrender everything to Him in this moment. I feel like He should be happy. But yet all I sense is guilt at my “half way surrender”.
But everyone has their little escapes? Why can’t I!!!!!!! A year ago I’d live on stevia and coffee. My life seems tasteless and bland and dark right now. Figuratively and literally. I guess things can only get better. I feel so empty. Did I pray to be emptied? I might have.
Jan 27th I wrote:
“Make me dependent on you, Jesus… you who made me, and died for me and know me more intimately than anyone. So often I depend on Andrew, or mom… or… just feel like I’ll fall apart, but you are always there and are holding me. I’m sorry that other things got in the way… food, Andrew. I’m sorry to be in this place once again…
Please help me to cling tightly to you and your truths and find my meaning in that… not in food or my boyfriend. I want Andrew and am addicted to Him but I am leading a dependent relationship where we can be all physically passionate but then I hurt him again… I am not the girl he fell in love with… He fell in love with the Liz that was growing and passionate about God. Oh Lord… can I be that girl again?? You died for me… please help me to live like someone freed from bondage and from death row cause that’s what I am! You have given me life and freed me from prison but so often I choose to stand in the prison doors and bask in it’s safety… I miss out on life that way. I’m sorry Lord. You have given me life beyond what I could imagine and I thank you.
Please give me that passion and free me and help me to live for you, Lord. I place myself, my relationship with Andrew, the food in your hand. Please guide me and bring me back to a place of passion and excitement for you. Forgive me for straying, Lord…”
I know I did when I first came to Christ. *Sigh* I think He’s emptying me. I don’t know why. All I can do is trust. I hope He can help me in some way. I guess He answers prayer but this is a painful answer. I’ve never felt so depressed in my life. I have hope in Him.
xoxo,
Liz
Hopeful Bunny. 