Dependency

Dependency

     I couldn’t believe I was just about to do this.  I walked into the gas station.  A man sitting on a stool jumped up and asked if he could help me.  I was about to cry.  I said to the man, “I know this is a self-serve gas station and I will be happy to self-serve, but I don’t know how.  If you can show me how to do it, I promise I will always come to this station and self-serve in the future.”  He stared at me.  I knew I was going to cry.  He kind of laughed, but said come on.  He walked to the door, opened it, let me out first and we walked to the pumps.  He was so nice.  He showed me how to put gas in my car.  My husband had always told me self-serve was the best way to go; I told the man what he had always said.  He agreed.  I learned how to put gas in my car and I always went to that gas station. 

     I didn’t know how to write a check.  I had to open an account.  My husband and I were separated and I had to have my own bank account.  I walked into the bank.  It was a bit intimidating, everyone looked so important.  I walked over to a desk where this lady sat.  She asked what I wanted and invited me to take a chair.  I waited for about 20 minutes.  I was nervous.  Finally this man stepped out of an office and invited me inside.  I sat down in another chair.  He said, “I understand you want to open an account?”  I told him I had never been inside a bank.  I was 24.  He stared for a moment and then said, “Well let me show you how we open this account.”  Thank you God.

     I had lived in one city all my life.  It was a very small city in North Carolina.  It was a beautiful place; I thought it was the only place in the whole world.  I had a friend that lived in Virginia.  She invited me to visit with her.  That sounded so nice to me.  I needed to spend some time with her.  She called to give me directions to her house.  She started at some highway north of where I lived.  I interrupted her as she was talking and said, “Carolyn, I need for you to start from my driveway.  I have never left this town and don’t know how to get to this highway.”  There was silence.  After a few minutes she said, “Sure, let’s start at the beginning.”  I was so thankful.

     It was the end of the year.  Someone told me I had to file taxes and if I didn’t, I could go to jail.  How was I to do that?  I found out an accountant could do them.  I drove up Main Street looking for an accountant.  There it was a sign with a name and accountant written beside it.  I parked the car in front of the building gathered together all this paper in my front seat and put it in a big yellow envelope.  The paper was sticking out everywhere.  I walked into the office.  I waited for a while; finally the secretary told me I could go into this office.  I walked in with this big yellow envelope in my hands.  A man looked up from his desk.  I knew I was going to cry.  He asked if he could help me.  I walked over to his desk, dropped the yellow envelope on top of it and all the papers went everywhere.  I said, “I understand I need to file tax returns, but I don’t know how.  I don’t even understand what I was supposed to bring to you, but here is a bunch of stuff.  I am sorry to be so much trouble, but can you please help me?”  He stared at me for a few minutes, then reached over to the telecom, spoke to his secretary and cancelled his afternoon appointments.  He told me to sit down.  This man helped me for over 5 hours that day.  He told me many years later that he could not get over the look on my face and something deep inside told him to help me.  Thank you God.  Thank you Steve.

     When my husband left me, I didn’t know what to do.  I had been with him since I was 15 and I was very dependent on him…..for everything!  I was physically dependent on him, emotionally and mentally.  I didn’t know how to do the simplest things for myself. 

     Shortly after the separation I met God.  He was taking me down a different path than the one I thought I was going to walk down in life.  He had some things to show me as went though.

 

     He showed me many of the things I depended on my husband for, I needed to depend on Him for.  We are all created with needs; the need to be loved, accepted and valued.  But He alone was met to meet these needs; of course it would be through community, but He was the Source.  My husband had a lot of responsibility, more than he was met to have.  He couldn’t meet these needs and it wasn’t right to ask him to do it.  I am sorry I did this to him.

     God created us and He alone knows how we work the best.  He will work through people in our lives to meet our needs, but we must seek Him first and trust Him.  We need to lay down all the ways we have tried to meet those needs.  It was so hard for me to trust God when my husband left.  I had always looked to him for approval; he told me if I was OK.  But God had already said in His word that when I was not OK, He made a way for me to be OK through His Son, Jesus Christ.  Because of Jesus, I now had God’s approval and I didn’t need to get that constantly through a person.

     Oh it didn’t feel right though.  It felt so wrong.  I knew my worth was in my husband and what he thought of me and now that he was gone; there was nothing.  But that was not what God’s Word said to me.  He said that I was His child, that He loved me, accepted and valued me.  I would read and read His Word trying to understand.  Someone finally told me that if I waited till I felt like it, I would never do it.  I needed to make a choice.  That word choice, I never really thought of myself having a choice with anything.  I always look to other people to tell me what to do.  But God was telling me to make a choice and then He would deal with my feelings.

 

     I made that choice.  Sometime I made it over and over, a thousand times a day.  Every time my feelings said no, I would make that choice again.  I would say, “God, I choose to believe you, regardless of what I feel.”  It was such baby steps at first, but I was depending on God, I was receiving from Jesus.  I was trusting God.

     God was helping me so much.  He was with me, even when I had no idea.  As I look back on all these times of learning how to do things; putting gas in my car, writing a check, driving and handling taxes; God was there.  Oh I didn’t feel it at that time; I was scared to death, but look at even the people He put in my life.  He showed me grace.

     Today I am much more aware of God and I have come a long way in my journey with Him, but it is still a moment-by-moment receiving from Him.  I can’t do it the way I always did it in the past.  Oh I wish sometime I could put together a formula from my early years and then follow it all throughout my life, but would that be dependency on God or dependency on the formula?  I think you know the answer! 

     The only formula in the Bible is receiving from God; looking to Him in each situation, hearing His voice and obeying.

Scripture: Matthew 6:33