Addictions

"These ways we find to numb our aches, our longings, and our pain are not benign. They are malignant. They entangle themselves in our souls like a cancer and, once attached, become addictions that are both cruel and relentles. Though we seek them out for a little relief from the sorrows of life, addictions turn on us and imprison us in chains that separate us from the heart of God and others as well. It is a lonely prison of our own making, each chain forged in the fire of our indulgent choice. Yet, "our lovers have so intertwined themselves with our identity that to give them up feels like personal death...We wonder if it is possible to live without them" (The Sacred Romance).

We need not be ashamed that our hearts ache; that we need and thirst and hunger for more. All of our hearts ache. All of our hearts are at some level unsatisfied and longing. It is our insatiable need for more that drives us to our God. What we need to see is that all our controlling and our hiding, all our indulging, actually serves to separate us from our hearts. We lose touch with those longings that make us women. And the substitutes never, ever resolve the deeper issue of our souls." (Captivating)

When this passage mentions "lovers" or "addictions" it means things we turn to in hard times in hopes of feeling better. Mine are movies and TV shows, particularly chick flicks haha. Now, I don't see anything wrong with having a "happy place," but when that thing you turn to is merely a means to find momentary contentment, I think thats a problem. You start relying on it, expecting that it will make you feel better. It's basically a drug and, yes, an addiction. You see, these things only give us brief pleasure. Wouldn't it be so much more productive to turn that longingness for our addictions into a longingness for God? Why don't we? Why don't we find who we are in Christ, or at least how he created us to be? Because like it says up in the few paragraphs I stole, those things we rely on, that are ultimately going to fail us, are the very things that destroy our identity....