I watched the little girl from afar. I never got too close to her, but then I’m not really sure I got altogether close to anyone back then from the little I remember. No matter how much I loved, loved, loved candy and anything sweet and sugary, I suppose I just didn’t want to buy into what she was doing. I kept my distance, even if it meant less candy. Less candy from her anyway. I had my source. Sugar addicts always do, I suppose. I watched her though. I couldn’t help it. She stood out from the crowd of elementary school kids, what with all that candy giving and all. She was too young to have a checkbook to buy what she so desperately wanted. So she must have figured the candy would buy her way.
She wanted friends. Who could blame her? Don’t we all? I wonder now, all these years later, if she had some sort of system to keep track of how many pieces of candy it would cost to get different kids in our class to like her. And I wonder now if she ever figured out she didn’t need to sell her soul to the world – or give away all that candy anyway – to find her way to being loved and accepted, validated and approved of.
I never had all that candy to give away to find my own way to the love I wanted, not when I sucked in candy like air in my own desperate attempt to satisfy my longing heart. My own longing to be loved. I found my own ways through the years to sell my soul. I found my ways, but I never found what that little girl who gave away all the candy so desperately desired. I didn’t find the love. Until.
Until now. Until Him. Until I discovered I didn’t need to give away candy, and to give up other things, and to give up my soul to get the love I sought from the world. Until I found I needed to give up my life. My life? Yes, I needed to give up my life. Not to the world. To Him. And finally have. My dreams, my desires, my wants, my needs, my hopes, my wishes, my way of life, my agenda, my plans, my past, my present, my future. To Him. And when I finally laid it all down at the feet of my Lord, I came to see no amount of candy, nor anything else, nor my very soul, would have ever been enough to get from the people and things of this world what I thought I needed to live and survive and thrive. None of it would have ever been enough. For I had given away my candy, or my own version of it anyway, and I had given up my soul, to get love and acceptance and validation and approval from a world that could never give it. From a world that could never satisfy.
I have never known a greater peace, and hope, and faith, and tranquility, and joy, than I have now. Now that I have given up the life I had, now that I have given up this world, now that I live here on this earth now simply, and wholly, for Him.
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 KJV
She wanted friends. Who could blame her? Don’t we all? I wonder now, all these years later, if she had some sort of system to keep track of how many pieces of candy it would cost to get different kids in our class to like her. And I wonder now if she ever figured out she didn’t need to sell her soul to the world – or give away all that candy anyway – to find her way to being loved and accepted, validated and approved of.
I never had all that candy to give away to find my own way to the love I wanted, not when I sucked in candy like air in my own desperate attempt to satisfy my longing heart. My own longing to be loved. I found my own ways through the years to sell my soul. I found my ways, but I never found what that little girl who gave away all the candy so desperately desired. I didn’t find the love. Until.
Until now. Until Him. Until I discovered I didn’t need to give away candy, and to give up other things, and to give up my soul to get the love I sought from the world. Until I found I needed to give up my life. My life? Yes, I needed to give up my life. Not to the world. To Him. And finally have. My dreams, my desires, my wants, my needs, my hopes, my wishes, my way of life, my agenda, my plans, my past, my present, my future. To Him. And when I finally laid it all down at the feet of my Lord, I came to see no amount of candy, nor anything else, nor my very soul, would have ever been enough to get from the people and things of this world what I thought I needed to live and survive and thrive. None of it would have ever been enough. For I had given away my candy, or my own version of it anyway, and I had given up my soul, to get love and acceptance and validation and approval from a world that could never give it. From a world that could never satisfy.
I have never known a greater peace, and hope, and faith, and tranquility, and joy, than I have now. Now that I have given up the life I had, now that I have given up this world, now that I live here on this earth now simply, and wholly, for Him.
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 KJV
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