Exposing myself

I have pride issues.
A lot.

Some are obvious (I don't like boys taking heavy things away from me), other are less obvious. Some are even unknown to me. But I think its important to understand why we do the things we do, and self awareness* is a never ending journey towards truth. (*I define self-awareness as who and how we are in light of who and how we were created to be)

In the more recent part of my own journey I've thought a lot about community, and why I seem to repel it. Things are becoming a little clearer, but in the words of Will Durant, "Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance."

I need give-and-take relationships. I'm ok being on the "giving" side the majority of the time, but if I start to feel like I'm continuously taking, I can't handle it. I feel like that makes me weak and inferior.

I've survived by hiding things, pretending I don't need help when I do, trying to seem just as strong (ok, maybe stronger) than the other person. When I start to see an imbalance and feel weak, I run. I hide. I deal with it myself, because "help" is a four letter word.

After awhile the running and hiding became natural behavior. Now I've built walls I don't know how to tear down. I've held everyone at a distance for so long that no one knows how badly I need them to break inside.

Somehow in all of this I managed to push God away as well. It hasn't been intentional, I've never tried to hide my junk from Him. I've embraced my weaknesses and failures and struggled over the idea of grace. But still, our closeness has been affected by my lack of honest and real human relationships. I think this reveals something about the way we're created. Yes, I know we all say "we're created for relationship," but would you go so far as to say that the quality or our lack of community hinders our personal connection to God?