.: love and addiction :.

Someday I will clearly see the difference between everything that I loved, and everything that I was dependant upon for survival. Someday I will see all that I surrounded myself with, and know clearly why such things were important to me. Someday I will see my needs and realize the objects of desire in disguise. Someday I will realize everything that I did to make it all okay, as well as the times that I intentionally made a mess of life (mine or someone else's). Someday I will glory in the things that I counted as my flaws, little things that went unnoticed by the rest of the world. Someday I will see everything that I did to make a good impression on everyone around me. Someday I will live in a new world, which will make this old one look so pathetic. Someday I will suddenly enjoy my own voice, for it will have found its proper place and tone. Someday I will find that I can relax and rejoice in everything around me. Someday I will awake to a brand new day, and I will live with the joy of knowing that it is only the beginning. Someday I will find that I am no longer wasting away. Someday I will not expect as much as I do right now, for it all will have found its truest fulfillment. Someday I will be caught up with visions of people running towards me, those that I have longed to be with for years gone by. Someday my spirit will be free from the weights that hold it down. Someday I will truly understand all that you and I say to one another. Someday I will see everything and everyone that pulled my strings. Someday I will be able to quit this facade that I am so committed to. Someday I will see the fine line between being needed and being free to go at any time. Someday I will smile at the desperation that used to control everything about me. Someday I will be separated from the burdens that I know far too well. Someday I will no longer need to compromise to find what my heart is longing for. Someday I will finally know what it was I was doing all along. Someday I will find the freedom to approach the Father fearlessly, and ask for what it is that He wants for me. Someday I will find that He was pleased with me far more than I assumed. Someday I will laugh at the petty things that I made such an issue about, as well as share in the same sort of laughter that pours from others. Someday I will live like someone who truly knows how to live. Someday I will learn to handle my expectations far better than I do right now. Someday I will live the life of grace realized and accomplished. Someday I will find out who all was listening when I was pouring out my soul. Someday I will be more than fine with it all. And someday you will be with me again... and this life that we have lived will have only been faint whispers of the life to come.

.: one real clue :.

Let's just accept it - they may never truly get it! This world in which we live knows very little about real love. To start with, genuine love begins by being genuinely selfless. And how can a whole world of people that are bent on glorifying themselves have any clue about what it means to take that first step? Thus they have no real idea of what it means to think of someone else higher than they tend to think about themselves. How can a human world that teaches us to rule over everyone else through manipulation and control and every kind of human advantage know anything about seeking another person's highest good? How can this world that is so quick to use another human soul to achieve some end be in a place where it can be caught up with sacrificing everything that it may have to benefit someone other than itself? And the truth be told, how are we as Christians any better? Who are we to say that we truly love Christ when we do not take seriously His call to love others above ourselves? Let's face it - our churches have become places where those who say that they are following Christ are more concerned with being theologically correct and spiritually superior to those all around them, more than they are concerned with authentically loving their neighbors. To follow another is to imitate their every move, to be caught up with their ways of thinking, and to be consumed with what that other soul was or is consumed with. But is that going on in our own lives, if we truly are honest with ourselves? I fear that I fall miserably short of doing even that; following Christ. Real love begets real love. But when I continually allow myself to be fascinated with how I can advance my own agenda, as subtle as the case may be, all I succeed in is begetting more selfishness. To love someone would mean to let go of my own set of ideals for them. But how could I ever reach that sort of place, especially in a world such as this one? To love someone is to remove all hopes of somehow profiting myself in that endeavor, and giving all for the sake of another. What lies around me that would ever prompt me to live like that? I know the arrogance of this world far too well, for I bear it myself in forms far too cloaked for my neighbor to detect. And though I claim to know this love, you would never know it by ever knowing me. So I release all hopes of somehow just getting it. I release myself from thinking that this world will one day come through for me and point me in the right direction. For I know now that it knows nothing of love. We ourselves know nothing of love. Well, maybe almost nothing. We have been satisfied with the mere shadows of it, but very few have truly tasted of what the Father has intended all along. We make much noise about what we think it looks like, but every instance comes up short in some way or another. We fail... and in turn it fails, time and time again. When and where might we ever come face-to-face with what true love looks like? Its faint whispers are calling out to everyone who is discontent enough to listen for it. It begs us to come taste of something that is liberating, that sets a soul free to become what it was intended to be, rather than weighing it down even more. I pray that it seizes every one of us before we find a soothing alternative. No question, it is there. He Himself stands ready to teach us, though it is far beyond us. But do we truly want to learn to love like that? The question remains, unchanging from day to day.

.: any one of them :.

"No one is ever going to love you as much as I am going to.
No one is ever going to love you as much as I do right now.
I may never get over you.
Life with you feels virtually endless.
Even when everything seems to be falling apart all around you, I am here for you.
I would do anything to make you smile.
You might be better off without me, but I would never be, apart from your love.
To simply be with you is enough for me.
Any sort of fear that I might have is no match against the sort of love that we share between us.
No one ever told me that love would be like this.
Has anyone else ever felt towards another what I feel towards you?
There is nothing better than being in this moment with you.
You matter to me more than you may ever know.
Anything that I might give up is worth the price of getting to be with you.
You fill my heart in ways that I never could have imagined.
The thought of you ushers such joy into my heart, all in a moment's worth of time.
Life seems richer and fuller and brighter because of your choosing to be with me.
Nothing ever takes so long as the time it takes for you to return to me.
Life feels far less cruel knowing that you are with me in and through all of it.
Our being together simply makes sense.
I do not need you... but I want you!"

Any one of these words has the power to give us life. But what will it require for us to speak them? What will it take for us to get to hear them?