Trisha, God wants to hold you and let you cry out all your tears on him.
    He is worth any sacrifice. Once you fall into his love, he is a warm, soothing addiction. That is why the devil works so hard to stop us from drawing close to him.
    I want you to win. I don’t know where victory lies for you. But I know God does.

    Can I tag along with you to God about this? I see you as a real winner.

    Yes, we can go together.
    God is my passion; my obsession. I’d die to get him. I live to have him. He is beauty that surpasses everything. He is an addiction and I am trapped in a desire to cling to him.
    I am not super holy. I am in love – passionately in love with a divine being.

    How did you get that way?

    I tasted him. I smelt him. I felt him. I saw him. I heard him. I connected with him.
    It came during an intimate time of fellowship with him. From that moment I knew I was hooked.
    At one stage I tried to leave him. I had mistakenly thought he had abandoned me and I was heartbroken, because he meant everything to me. I was scared of reconnecting with him, lest I ever again feel such heartbreak. I told him I wanted a divorce. “You are dangerous,” I told him. Being that much in love is dangerous.
    One day after that he asked if I still loved him.
    “We are divorced,” I told him.
    “Yeah, but do you still love me?” he replied.
    In my heart I knew. “Yes, I am still in love with you.”
    “Okay,” he said, “This divorce thing isn’t working. I am still in love with you. So what now?”
    I told him that I guess we had better work things out.
    I have to have him, Trisha. Having God in my life is the most expensive relationship I have ever had, but far more than anyone else, he is worth it.
    It is an adventure. It’s a relationship between a perfect Person and someone imperfect; between the infinite and the limited; the divine and a human. But I can’t stop. I just can’t.
    It started when I was five. As a lonely, hurting little girl sitting under a cherry tree, I asked him to be my friend. That began a long, wild, twisting journey.

    I want to experience that, too.

    It comes from just going to him – not looking at yourself or considering your worth, but simply asking God to be your friend.
    Whitaker Chambers did that and it turned his life upside down. Grace Lumpkin did and it turned her inside out. David in the Bible did it, and what a ride it was for him! None of the Old Testament prophets could say God is boring. Moses would say it will take you to the brink. But the brave win, and the passion won’t let you down.
    It is about abandoning yourself and embracing God in all his mystery and greatness.

    That’s scary!

    Oh, but it is worth it!!! It is soooooo very, very worth it! And, strange as it sounds, you are perfectly safe, even though every hair on your body is standing on end.

    I don’t know him.

    But he knows you intimately and wants to be a part of you. He wants permanent union with you.

    How can I abandon myself?

    You abandon yourself by letting him take the lead; by losing yourself in him and letting all of who he is fill you. He pushes the pain out. He pushes out everything that will hurt you.

    I’m the one who works so hard to try to do that.

    No, you’re called to worship him. You are not called to be God, not even god of yourself.

    I have to admit that you are freaking me out.

    Good. God is so powerful and beyond you. He is so great and so worth the risk.
    I am deeply in love with a man, but nothing on earth compares to God or to his majesty. This God longs to know you and have you know him. This is your answer – not you being more holy, or being this or that – but you and God connecting in love, with him being at the helm. Let him be God.

    I’ve never really known love. And I’ve been the only one at the helm.

    Scary and painful isn’t it?
    Abandoning yourself to God is the only way to truly find yourself.

    But I don’t have to look for myself. I’m in the control room of my life all the time.

    That isn’t living. That is bondage.
    Take a ride on the wild side and go with God.
    Just let God be your God. He is your way out of pain and a bad marriage. He is your husband’s way out of his pain and confusion. God is the way.

    The only way I’ve known to cope with the pain is the rage I feel against my husband.

    Rage is such a superficial fix. It is no lasting solution. There is no peace and no answer to that rage except God’s love. I remember a vacation in Hawaii. The sea was so warm. I floated in it with the warm sunshine on me. God’s love is like that – a warm sea floating you and taking away all the pain.

    Can I be honest with you?

    Yes, and being totally honest with God is amazing, because the truth is not what you think it is.

    I’m panicky right now. I don’t know about all you’re suggesting.

    Trisha, you’ve told me you want to rewire your emotions. You want to stop yourself from feeling pain.

    Yeah.

    God wants to do that rewiring. He can take away the pain and awful feelings. He can teach you to win. It is about letting go and letting God – who is love and is pure and safe – take over, and rewire you to be free. This is what he has wanted all along. It is why he sent Jesus and rent the temple veil. He wants not religion, not works, not acts, not ideas, but a relationship with you. Yes, with you!

    I’m not good at relationships.

    He is. You can never succeed like God can. That is why he wants to lead. If we were lost in your neighborhood I’d let you lead because you know the area. It is the same principle.
    God’s world is relationships. You are lost in his world. He knows that. This is a neighborhood you are unfamiliar with. It is his turf. So let him lead.
    God’s realm is the supernatural. It is not human and yet it makes us fulfilled humans. It is our destiny. It is your destiny. He is your God. He wants you to be who you really are. But you will never be that without him. He is the 75 percent of you that is missing. You hunger for him. He knows that. Now come and feast on his love.

    I’ll have to think about this for a while. I really don’t know much about this.

    Sure, think about it.
    Maybe you don’t even know that you are hungry for him, but that empty feeling – that craving for more – is your heart looking for him.
    God has a gift for you. It is his Spirit longing to fill you. Please pray about it.

    I don’t know much about prayer.

    Prayer is honest communication between the depths within you and God. Prayer is not religion. It is your heart connecting with the Creator of your life – no lies, no religion, no notions – just honest and open communication.
    The best prayer I’ve had was prayed with my fist beating the sand at 4.30 in the morning, kneeling on a freezing cold, wet beach crying my eyes out and telling God I hated him.
    What made this special? I finally broke through my inhibitions and released my heart to connect with God in naked honesty. It was then that my life turned around and I got my God back.

    Let it out. God can handle it. He is neither afraid nor offended by raw emotions. Unveil your soul to him.

    I’m stuck in the control room of my life. Do you think he would help me figure out how to get out?

    Not only can he help you, he is the way out.

    Well, he’s not here with me.

    He is with you right now. It isn’t about the natural. You have to learn how to connect to him and this is done through praising him.

    Have you accepted Jesus into your heart?

    I’m not even sure who he is.

    Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. You have to accept his sacrifice that he made as the Son of God who came to earth and was killed to pay for your sin and bondage. He rose again, triumphantly gaining your victory – and that victory is his gift to you.

    I find it hard to grasp. I’m an unpleasant person to be around, filled with rage and bitterness. Why would anyone want to be killed for me?

    Everyone sinned. The degree of sin isn’t the issue. The power of his love is what saves you from you and from the hell of being without God.
    Without God, you are separated from your destiny.
    He is love. No matter how much rage you have, he is love.

    I think I might like love better than rage.

    I am sure you will.
    So would you like to swap with God? How about trading that rage and pain for his love and a new relationship with Jesus? How about getting out of the control room of your life and truly living?

    Okay. What do I do? And how do I know that this is real?

    God will be real. Don’t worry about that.
    Ask Jesus into you heart. In fact, I’ll pray with you if you like.

    Sure.

    Dear God, I acknowledge that Jesus is your Son. He died for me. You are my God and I would like you to be my father. Please let me be born into your family by your Spirit.
    Jesus, I ask you to be my Lord and to have a relationship with me. I surrender to you and let you take over.
    Can you pray this?

    Yeah, I think I just did. I have at least read it to God.

    Say this:
    By faith in Jesus I receive your Spirit. Wash me from all that isn’t who I truly am. Lord, I invite you into my life. Open my heart so that your love can be in me and I can be in your love. We are now one. I give up and surrender to you.
    In the name of Jesus, I am your child now! I thank you and praise you that you are my Lord. I am free from being my own god. Fill me with your Spirit. I give all to you – my marriage, my house, my kids, control of my life – anything that is mine is now yours. My cares are yours; my pain is yours. By faith in Jesus, crucified for me and risen from the dead, I am yours! I am free!!!

    Yippee!!! The pressure is finally off!

    Welcome to the family of God.
    You are now a completely new person because of Christ, and he is in you. You have just commenced a relationship with the most beautiful and amazing person in the universe.
    You now have the Spirit of God in you. He is tender and strong, a real being, and now he is yours and you are his. He wants to introduce you to you. You aren’t who you think you are. He knows the real you and wants to set you free. As you draw near to him, this will become clear.
    You are on a journey and in a relationship now. This is the beginning, not the end.

    Okay. What do I do now?

    Praise him. Go to the www.Net-Burst.Net webpages and feed your spirit on God’s truths. Read the Gospel of John and see that our Lord is real and that he is love. Invite him into everything you do and talk to him.
    You know what? You are my sister. Now when you get up in the morning, feed your spirit. Net-Burst.Net will teach you and feed you. Read your Bible and ask God to lead you in the ways he has for you.
    Let me give you a cyber hug. (((((((((((Trisha)))))))))))
    Hey, give your husband to Jesus, too.

    How can I do that? My husband is not mine to give. I only can give myself to Jesus.

    You can give your relationship, or lack of it, to Jesus.

    That makes sense.

    Great! I Love you. Call me whenever you need to.

    So Trisha has begun her exciting romance with the King of kings, the most passionate person in the universe. He is the perfect lover; faithfulness personified. He will stick with her through thick and thin; keen for them to share their secrets with each other in ever-growing intimacy.

    It only takes one human in a relationship for there to be dramas and misunderstandings from time to time. Christine has had her share of them in over thirty years of knowing God. She has endured times of needless heartache because she misunderstood instances when God was less talkative and expressive, wrongly presuming it meant he had left her side. Trust is the most critical element in a loving relationship. She had misinterpreted a divine opportunity to grow in faith and trust as indicating that the Lord had ceased to be faithful to her. She had forgotten that the existence of the entire universe hinges on the constant integrity and faithfulness of the God who sustains it. Nothing is as dependable as God.

    Now Christine’s trust is deepening. She knows that she can let her passion for God run wild because, despite times when his presence is less tangible, he will never leave her nor forsake her. Not even death can end the thrill of intimacy with the most exciting person in existence.

© 2008, Grantley Morris. May be freely copied in whole or in part provided: it is not altered; this entire paragraph is included; readers are not charged and it is not used in a webpage. Many more compassionate, inspiring, sometimes hilarious writings available free online at www.net-burst.net  Freely you have received, freely give. For use outside these limits, consult the author.