Everybody wants to be loved

**I will eventually finish posting recipes from 25 days of baking. Sorry to those who have been waiting for it. I will never again put a deadline like that on myself during the holidays. If there is a recipe you were looking for that has not been posted, email me and I can send it to you.**

I am a people pleaser. I will sacrifice what I truly want if it will keep people from being angry at me. Not to say that I never make people angry... because I certainly do, just that I will avoid it when possible. I often hide what I am feeling or when I am hurt because I fear being disliked. We as human beings give our love so conditionally and take it away so easily. I run away from situations and people who could potentially abandon me or cause me that pain. I am constantly working to prove to myself that I deserve their love, but it also leads me to (sometimes unknowingly) believe that people don't actually love me, just whatever it is they get out of our relationship.

This often becomes a struggle with me and God. It is hard for me to grasp sometimes that there is nothing I can do to make him stop loving me. That while I can live my life in an effort to please Him, I can do nothing to deserve His love. The God of the universe loves me exactly as I am and has made me that way for a purpose. He knows my heart and He is with me in those moments when I am hurt and hiding. I often wrestle with knowing how to show my gratitude, or with remembering that I need to be thankful for all of these things that He brings me, both the good and bad. I lose sight of that attitude of service and having a grateful heart.

I want to live in such a way to change that first sentence from "I am a people pleaser" to "I am deeply loved by God, and because of His love, I am called to be a servant."