This is in response to Eric's comment to my last entry, that I may need a little more than God.

I thought about that for a minute. "A little more than God." Why did that strike me as so strange? How do I see
God? As the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the last. Huge, mysterious, encompassing everything. A God who goes everywhere with me, who never leaves me, no matter how hysterical I get in my emotions. Who walks with me when I'm in a slump and somehow sustains me to keep going. He promises I'll find Him if I'm looking for Him. He finds me when I'm not looking for him (like a coin, or a sheep, eh Uncle Paul?)... But, more than anything I know about him, I know he meets my needs. And he does that with people, I think, more than anything else. Yes, I admit, the tears of the other night were selfish, considering the amount of pity involved. I think my point was, bringing up Harry Martin, that people and God are very connected. Well, some people and God. Some, like Harry, who make statements like "I'm happy to be 75 and still have a future to look forward to," can sense what I need to hear and say it to me. The "Man." at the end of the last entry was in response to the way my needs were met, with a person, after lamenting that I was too burdensome for people.

I can look back at my life and see that people come and go quite frequently during the course of it. If I look at that from the surface, it looks like I am simply bad at keeping friends close for more than three years at a time. If I look closer, I can see that each person had a purpose. I like to believe that each person was placed there, by God, to meet the needs of that time. My friend Jenni, now in Thailand, is a great example of that. During the three years that she was around me, God used her tons of times to point me back in the right direction. If I look at my life surrounding my time with Jenni, I can see that I wouldn't have survived without her. When she left, I cried knowing that my time with her would never be the same (I knew that when she returned that she would probably be damn near having a new last name), and that was hard. But in time I had peace about it. "You needed her right next to you during that time," my Reason told me. And He was right.

I'm reading a book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer now where the verse from Proverbs, "The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord," came up. I think it was put there just for me at this time. I see that I do isolate myself, to an extent, but I can never isolate myself from God as long as His spirit is with me. But if I open myself up to people, I am allowing myself to see God clearer. Because of what Harry said the other day, it was clear that God uses us to be lights (He tells us He does, anyway. "You are the light of the world. Not, if you want, you can try to be the light of the world, but as matter-of-factly, "You are the light of the world.") Isolating myself from people, yes, is a sick form of hiding from God's light.

To wrap this up, I'll mention that there is really no such thing as "a little more than God." I think, what Eric meant, though perhaps he'll disagree, is "I think you need a little more OF God." The God that manifests himself in the people around me, to meet my stabilizing needs. Anyway, Eric, thanks for responding, because you're right, I have plenty of people around me that help meet my needs. It's foolish of me to try to love them and to isolate myself at the same time.