I reread The Screwtape Letters this weekend, which is still, hands down, the best commentary (albeit clothed as a series of letters from one fictitious demon to another) on spiritual warfare. I also read Strong Women Soft Hearts by Paula Rinehart, which is a nonfiction commentary on the tendency in many Christian circles to make strength and efficiency hotter properties than other elements of a woman?s interior life and heart. As a woman I have always protected myself from men by trying to act and think like them. The book does not address this idea, specifically, but it discussed, more, the feeling that many women with whom the author has worked felt they needed to sublimate certain elements of their femininity in order to be seen and respected as Godly women.

Rinehart also discussed the ever-present tension between vulnerability and strength and the travails of learning to negotiate them, not as mutually exclusive properties, but as interwoven elements of one?s feminine identity.

Other than this, I spent Friday night at Sarah?s place, and enjoyed a leisurely day with her on Saturday. Another friend of hers from high school days came to visit and we all went out to eat at what had been one of my favourite places. Unfortunately, the quality and service are no longer very reliable. After a lackluster (and incomplete meal) we ended up needing to summon the manager, who took care of our entire bill, and we left without even eating our entrees. Sarah and her friend dropped me off back in the city?and went off in search of dinner. I made myself dinner at home.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how I?ve searched for my significance in other people, when I should have been trying to find it in the Lord. As a Christian, my significance should be derived from my relationship with God through Christ. On the one hand, there?s nothing wrong with helpful, healthy validation from a friend. But there is also a clutching, clawing, blatant demand for reassurance that has emerged in several of my relationships that is wearying?because of my idolatrous paradigm. I am not saying this in a twisted, self-flagellating spirit. I need to move on from this mindset. It is just as much a cop out to accurately label a negative pathology but to keep living it, as it is to be utterly blind to it. It is probably worse because awareness equals responsibility.

I sent my sister a letter apologizing to her for utilizing her innate nurturing qualities to reassure me over and over again about Gordon. First of all, she is 12 years my junior, and as such should not have to parent me through any crisis. This is what my mother did to me, and lo and behold, I did what I said I would never do, because I know first hand how damaging it can be. She never even said anything to me about it, but as I?ve been forced to look closely at my life, I see what I did and it pains me.

I am at a point in my life now where I long for intimacy with God to the exclusion of anything else. I have wanted so many other things to legitimize and authenticate my value, my life, my choices. But ever since God got me alone, cordoned me off for a period of time, I have seen that He is what I need. Everything and everyone else is all the more appreciated and lovely filtered through my relationship with Him. So, regardless of who is in my life or who leaves my life, it can?t destroy me?because I am not looking to anyone but God to determine the value and worth of my days.