Finding My Security in God Alone
I brought my children to the Family Christian Bookstore one day. As we meandered around the store, my eyes fell upon a book titled, The Friendships of Women, by Dee Brestin. On the front cover Dr. James Dobson wrote, “Every woman should read this book” Dr. Dobson was a spiritual mentor to me through the different books he wrote on marriage and parenting, and his ministry with Focus on the Family. If he said every woman should read this book, then I was going to read it. I bought it and took it home fully intending to receive the wisdom written within.
Within the first few chapters I noticed a recurring theme Dee Brestin was making: “women need to learn to find their security God alone.” Looking back, this is very wise and prudent wisdom from God. However, from where I stood at this time, these words fell on hard ground, not good ground, in my heart. The words bounced off of my hardened heart, and I put the book down. I resisted its message that could have spared me much pain down the road. I realize now that God had seen this hardness in me and was trying to reach me to help me heal and avoid unnecessary heartache. He was shining light on an area in my heart to reveal what was there in order to heal what was wounded. Until this moment in my walk with God, I had been very meek to receive instruction and correction from God. I was referred to as a sponge when it came to listening to and receiving the things of God. So, why was I so resistant to God’s call to me to learn how to find my security in Him alone?
Emotional Wounds
Emotional wounds are hard to see. They impact how we think, how we interact with others, and the hurt caused within often hurts those around us. In the wake of my mother’s departure from our home when I was twelve, I lived without having any close relationships with people for a long time until I was 23 years old. I had spent a lot of time alone, had moved around a lot without having a place I could call home. The absence of relationship carved a deep canyon of need and hunger to be loved and cared for. I walked around with wounds of abandonment and rejection the human eye could not see. I was crippled emotionally, but unlike physical handicaps, my handicaps were hidden from view to all but me. I was very aware of the glass walls I had built around my heart from where I watched the world go by. These glass walls allowed me to see the world happening around me, but I could not participate. I longed to get out of this glass prison, but did not know how to break free. A lesson I learned as a child was how to read people to figure out who they wanted me to be or what they wanted from me so they would love me. In the end, no one really knew me, but worse of all, I did not even know myself. This is what eventually led to my breakdown years later. I had lost all sense of who I was while trying feverishly to get this need for love met by people around me. My heart was a desert with cracked soil craving to be satisfied, yet unable to receive any moisture of love sent my way.
Proverbs 19:22 (NIV) says, “What a person desires is unfailing love; better to be poor than a liar.”
My desire was for unfailing love, but the only source for this kind of love comes from God, the fountain of living waters, and cannot come from people. Looking to people for unfailing love is like going to a broken cistern that can hold no water like Jeremiah 2:13 states. Just when you need that depth of love, it will not be found. Both my husband, Dick, and sister-in-law, Anne, had managed to get to the other side of the glass walls around my heart and were beginning to see the real me. I let them see my wounds, and they loved me anyway. I believe they were a gift from God, but I took what God had given me to meet a need, and I turned it around into an idol as though the source of my need was coming from the gift rather than the Giver. I was hewing out a cistern, a broken cistern, by looking to them to give me what only God could give me. The more I was going to them for the help I needed, the less I was letting God inside. This is always a recipe for disaster.
This reminds me of the time a believer shared about Jesus Christ with me when I was 15 years old. Marlene Weed was a beautiful woman of God sent to me in answer to my prayer asking God how I could get to know Him and how would I ever know it was the truth since there are so many churches. One afternoon shortly thereafter Marlene shared the gospel with me about how God loved me so much that He sent His only Son Jesus Christ to save me and to give me a relationship with God as my Father. She told me it was His love I needed. In my heart I longed for her to be right, but I was so starved for human touch, that I told her, “How can a God I cannot see give me the love I need? I need someone to hug me. I want to hear someone tell me they love me.” Many years later, I was still trapped by that question in my heart. God was trying to tell me that the way out from behind the glass walls was to let His love in, for it is the only love strong enough to penetrate the strongholds that held me bound.
Come to Me
There I was married, had children, and had some friendships in my life. However, when I read the phrase “find your security in God alone”, in my brain I heard I would have to give up these relationships in exchange for my relationship with God. I thought God was going to take away these relationships. I am not sure why I computed this message this way, but I surely dug in my heels like a defiant toddler and said “I will not give up these relationships I have in my life. I am finally not alone!” It was like I was yelling at God as these thoughts ran through my mind.
God saw what was happening in my heart. I was making these wonderful relationships in my life into idols in my heart as I cleaved to them more than to God. I had a loving and caring husband, three beautiful children, and some friendships with a few women. I was finally feeling some stability in my life, and I did not want to give that up. However, I was finding my security in them rather than in God, and was not willing to let loose my hold on them. Did God get mad and say, “Well, if you aren’t going to listen to Me, then good luck!” No, He started to teach me things from His Word that would later on serve to help me through a rocky road He knew was just around the bend. All the lessons pointed to the same message, “learn to find your security in God alone”.
Lesson one:
“Choose that one thing that is needful, that good part that will not be taken away from you”
Luke 10:38-41
“Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.” And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. “But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”
The record of Martha and Mary depicts two sisters who respond differently to Jesus’ presence in their home. Let’s take a look at each sister to see how they responded and what the result was of each of their choices.
Upon Jesus’ arrival Martha invites him into their home. Her sister, Mary, upon seeing him, sits right near Jesus’ feet and listens attentively to him teaching. Martha, on the other hand, was “cumbered about with much serving” which led to becoming anxious and mentally disquieted. To be cumbered about means to be distracted or drawn away by being over-occupied; to be driven about mentally. As I read this, I saw that on the surface it looked like she was rightfully serving Jesus since she had welcomed him into their home, but the fruit of her labor indicated a different story. Her serving brought her to a place where she questioned Jesus and told him what to do. “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.” Jesus speaks the truth regarding where Martha’s heart was when he tells her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things.” Her service came before relationship.
Then there was Mary’s response to Jesus entering their home. She noticed Jesus sitting down and beginning to teach. She sat herself down near to him so she could hear every word that came from his mouth. She inclined her ear to listen and understand what he was saying. Jesus pointed to Mary and said that, “One thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” Mary was choosing relationship before service. And, Jesus said that she had chosen the most needful thing, that good part that nothing or no one could take away from her. That is quite a promise!
I may not have welcomed Jesus into my home, but I did welcome into my heart and life. Like Martha, I too had become “worried and troubled about many things” as I placed my focus on who was in my life and scurried about trying to maintain these relationships so they would not leave me. I began choosing time spent with family and friends over time spent with God my Father and Jesus my Lord. What was the result? The cares of my heart were distracting me away from that which was most important. As I was becoming more dependent on people, I was becoming lazier and weaker spiritually. If the relationship was going well I felt secure, but if I perceived there to be a problem, insecurity ruled my heart. This insecurity led me to not being able to travel without Dick, unable to deal with conflicts well, being motivated by the fear of losing someone rather than loving them, and finding my identity in the relationship with people rather than in Christ.
God began to teach me that when I choose time with Him, the things that I learn from Him and all that I glean from those quiet moments in His presence are the most needful, they are good, and will not be taken away from me. God never wanted to take relationships away from me, He wanted them to be as healthy as they could be by asking me to find my security in Him alone. He wanted me to learn how to quiet myself down in His presence so He could take care of my heart and draw me into a deeper more intimate relationship with Him. He wanted to heal the hidden wounds in my heart and satisfy my craving to be loved and to belong in a way that would actually free me up to engage in healthier ways with those that I loved. I wanted to believe Him, but I was still stuck in a place called “codependency”. A place that I would soon learn was eating away at all of my relationships little by little like a moth.
Lesson number two:
Learn how to quiet yourself in the calm of My presence
Psalm 131:1- 3
“Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with great matters, Nor with things too profound for me. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, Like a weaned child with his mother; Like a weaned child is my soul within me. Oh ,(Charlotte), hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever.”
With all of the troubles I had within, I had developed the habit of running mostly to Dick, my husband, or to my sister-in-law, Anne, to help me manage the mental and emotional struggles I dealt with. I looked to them both for counsel, for strength, for stability, for comfort, and encouragement. It was causing spiritual atrophy in my walk with God as I relied more on them for help than on God. Their acceptance meant more to me than God’s. I had developed more confidence in their ability to listen to God than on God’s ability to speak to me in a way that I could understand. My need for them was greater than my love for God.
Try as I may, I was not able to knit my heart well with others either due to this underlying codependency that lurked within my heart. My craving to be loved and to belong ignited a desire to be who I thought others wanted me to be so they would love and accept me, and it severely limited my ability to be myself in a relationship with others. Therefore I was not developing healthy and meaningful friendships with other women. I tended to suffocate people with my needs when they began to get close to me. Rather than receiving others, my neediness pushed them away as I tried to fit in. I always felt on the outside looking in through a glass window watching others enjoy relationships while not being able to participate. I studied them to see what they wanted and tried to be that person, but in the end I failed at being true friends with them because they did not know who I really was.
God did all He could do to draw me close to Him and encourage me to trust Him enough to turn to Him with all my heart. But, I chose to continue to chase after and cling to the relationships in my life over God until eventually codependency began choking the life out of them, and I lost one of my most treasured relationships, the one with my sister-in-law, Anne.
In the wake of losing my friendship with Anne, I found myself devastated and emotionally floundering. The pain of losing her felt akin to losing my mom back when I was a child. I had lived a long time with the wounds of abandonment from my mom, and was like the little duckling wandering around asking, “Will you be my mom?” in search of a female who would take her place in my life. Anne became that person, and now that she was gone from my life, I felt lost without her. God had tried to warn me that idolatry was creeping into this relationship, but I ignored His warning signs along the way. The very thing I clung to and tried not to lose was suddenly gone.
The Casualty of a Spiritual War
A casualty of this falling out was the loss of a lifetime relationship between two brothers. Bill and Dick had grown up together and forged a friendship over the years as they both came to Christ and built their lives on God’s Word. Dick always told me that Bill was the best big brother anyone could ever have. Bill had led Dick to the Lord in his teen years, and taught him God’s Word. He encouraged and counseled Dick as well as he navigated the years into adulthood. They shared a special bond and unique relationship in Christ as a result. But, that was destroyed in one quick strike of the enemy’s hand. In following advice to talk to Anne about the inner conflict I felt in our relationship with the intent to work things through to reconciliation, a letter I wrote turned into a match that burned the relationship down to nothing in one day. Not only was my relationship with Anne over, but the relationship between the two brothers was for the first time in their lives over as well.
I had been told that talking my concerns out would lead to conversations towards a better relationship, but in the end nothing was left but ashes of what was. I was told that others would come along and help us out as needed, but nobody stepped up to the plate to help. They watched from the sidelines as things self-destructed in front of our eyes. Lesson learned- keep your hurt to yourself, and never talk about it when there is conflict. Just suck it up and move on.
That was when I remembered the book The Friendships of Women, and decided to start reading it again. However, this time, when I came to the phrase “women need to learn to find their security in God alone” I was pricked in my heart by the truth and humbly received God’s counsel. In this book, I first learned about codependency when I read, “even if a physical relationship does not exist, codependency is a sin.” Codependency is an imbalance in a relationship that is commonly developed in relationships where one person is the caretaker and the other one is the needy one. Rather that there being a mutual balance of giving and receiving between the two, one person is the giver and the other the receiver. Both are getting a need met in an unhealthy way. Codependency exists when you don’t have the freedom to come and go as you should in the relationship, and live and grow as you need to without the other person in your life. You need them more than love them. That is the place I had gotten to with Dick and Anne. With Dick being my husband, we began to work on that aspect of our relationship. However, with Anne, the relationship was severed, and without the promise that my relationship with her would ever be restored, I began the journey to find my security in God alone.
God gave me this verse to pray over this relationship. Philippians 1:6, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” I wrote this verse on an index card, placed it by my kitchen sink, and I prayed this verse upon every remembrance of Anne and her husband, Bill. God’s promise to me was that what He had begun in His fellowship with the four of us, He would bring to completion. I was asked to place this relationship in His hands and let Him take care of it.
Lesson Three:
Learn how to place your expectations only on Me alone
Psalm 62:5-8 “My soul, wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense, I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory; the rock of my strength, and my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, Charlotte; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for you.”
During this season, I was drawn to write on my calendar “Date time with God” every day that our youngest child went to preschool. For two hours three days a week I sat down with my Bible, my journal, and a cup of tea. God asked me to start writing in my journal all the thoughts, feelings, and struggles I had just as if I was talking to Dick or to Anne.
He said, “Come to Me as you would to them with all of your heart; pour out on the pages all of your thoughts and feelings, and I will hear you and respond” He told me “I will never tire or grow weary of all you have to say.” One day when I was reading Luke 10:38-40, He asked me, “If I sent My Son Jesus Christ to sit on the couch with you to talk, how well would you listen to him?” I thought to myself that I would sit like Mary did, at His feet, intently listening to what He had to tell me. So, God said “Do the same as Mary did, and all that I give you will not be taken away.”
Thus began a wonderful journey into the heart of God as He listened to all my cares and concerns. At first, all I wrote were the thoughts and feelings I had. Writing helped to slow down my thoughts and be able to ponder what was going on in my heart. I could “spread” it all out on the lined pages of my journal. Then God began to whisper verses in my heart. I would travel through the Bible to that section of scripture and God would begin to expound truth to me in light of what I was going through. He was giving me the answers I needed to hear and learn as we shared in a dialogue together during my date times with Him. My prayer life matured from being a monologue to a thriving dialogue with the Creator of the heavens and earth. I discovered that I could open up my heart to God about anything and He would listen then guide me through His Word teaching me golden nuggets of truth and showing me what to pray for. My time with God had become so special to me that I hardly wanted it to end as the two hours closed out.
One of the golden nuggets I found was Psalm 62:5 which says, “My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him.” (NLT version)
God exhorted me to learn how to quiet myself down before Him and to place my expectation on Him rather than on people. Learning how to do this, freed me to learn how to love people not need them. I was learning how to rely on His counsel, comfort, strength, and encouragement as I stepped out in obedience to His call for me to find my security in Him alone. Slowly but surely, my spiritual legs got stronger as I learned how to discern His voice and walk by the spirit on my own. I was exercising my will to come into alignment with my Father’s will, and became in tune with His voice and His ways of working in me to do and to will of His good pleasure as I went about my day. I was growing up. I could have learned these lessons without all of the pain and loss had I responded in meekness several years back, but the moment I chose to turn to God for help, I was received with mercy and I found His grace to help me in my time of need. God did not bring the pain and loss, but rather it was due to my own willful choice to find my security in someone else rather than on God as my first love.
God’s Victory
It was a long journey, but God redeemed my marriage from the fallout of codependency. I became more of the helpmate and team player I needed to be for him. He no longer had to be “perfect” or always strong for fear that I would crumble if he showed weakness. I no longer had the crippling nightmares of him leaving me without notice or reason. I was able to travel places without him. We found a better balance of giving and receiving with each other, and a freedom to help each other grow into who God called us to be. The freer Dick felt from my neediness, the more he began to blossom in his own life. As a result, our marriage grew in many more ways with both of us contributing in a more balanced way.
God also restored my friendship with Anne. Through forgiveness, deliverance, and healing on both of our parts, God was able to do a mighty redemptive work between us. I no longer need her to be my “mom” or my caretaker. There is a freedom now that allows us to be the women God has called us each to be. There is also a balance of giving and receiving between us that did not exist before. Make no mistake; it was not an easy journey for either of us. It required God’s redemptive hand working in both of our lives to bring about the healing and restoration of our relationship. There was a need for forgiveness for the things we could not change from the past. We now enjoy a mutual giving and receiving of love, counsel, sharing of hearts, and laughter. We can breathe in our relationship with one another, and it is wonderful.
The greatest work of redemption, however, was the mending of the relationship between Dick and his brother Bill. Little did I know, but Anne had prayed for their relationship when things had fallen apart. Anne said losing our friendship had been the closest thing to a divorce she had ever experienced, and she knew that she needed to pray for the relationship between the brothers to be restored. Through the power of forgiveness God was able to fulfill His promise to me when He led me to pray Philippians 1:6, and Anne’s prayer for the brothers to be reunited. It was a long journey filled with God’s mercy and grace as He continued to do a mighty work in both of their hearts over the years. Today, not only is their relationship restored, but they are working together and enjoy fellowship together. They even play Pinochle on Friday nights! What Satan meant for harm to take down a family and cause division in the family of God, God turned around for His good and to His glory.
The patterns of thought and behavior that go along with codependency in my life are not always easy to overcome. They happen less often and with less intensity than before, and I recover quicker if I fall into that trap. I have learned to recognize how Satan uses that to back me down and cause me to stumble. When life throws curve balls and I feel overwhelmed or unequal to the task, the knee-jerk reaction to look for someone to help me or rescue me can arise to the surface. But, then I remember what God has taught me: choose that one needful thing of coming into His presence, quiet myself down before Him so I can listen, and let my expectations be of Him alone. God always comes through for me as I walk in what He has taught me. This is an area of my life that I need to keep in check as I continue to develop more and more friendships and relationships. If I find myself falling back into codependent ways of thinking and behaving, I now know what to do and, more importantly, WHO to turn to for help. For in learning how to find my security in God alone I have also learned that He alone can “satisfy my longing soul, and fill my hungry soul with His goodness.” (Psalm 107:9)