The difference between security and shelter

As a child, shelter is vital and necessary while the child has time and room to grow and learn. How to live, how to act, how to treat people, this process is something that requires careful attention and nurturing to guide the child until the child can start making decisions on their own. Even after that, the see-saw tilts from sheltering towards guidance as the child inevitably grows to stand on their own two feet, and ultimately spreads his/her wings and flies. The job of the parent is to provide an environment in while this can occur, and act as a filter, a shelter between the less able to defend themselves and the rest of the world.

However, one of the last transitions between childhood and being a man or woman is that the shelter becomes internalized, and that's where God comes in. It's been my own experience that the more secure I am in God, and the firmer my conviction is that He is on the throne and in control, the less I need that external filter between "me" and the rest of the world. The faith and security I initially had in my parents, and in those around me, becomes transfered to God as my need to be "sheltered" decreases and I find myself wanting to experience everything life has to offer. I find myself not fearing external circumstances, whether my life will go one way or another, because I'm secure in the fact that God is in control. I may not understand why things happen the way they do all the time, and I may not like the way my life is going sometimes, but the anxiety, worry and fear is all but gone. I believe having this faith in God is the transition between needing to be sheltered to hide away from the world, and what may happen to me, to security which is an inborn conviction that no matter what does happen to me, God will pull me through. This is not to say that having faith and confidence in other people is misplaced, but it is to understand very clearly that people are fallible, all of them, myself most of all. I cannot judge someone for failing me when I have failed so many others in my life. However, in the long run, that and a buck-fifty will buy me a cup of coffee. When I need someone that won't let me down, when I need someone that is always there for me, I don't pick up the phone. I pray. When I'm confused and don't know what to do, or where to go, I don't call my girlfriends or my mother. I pray.

Of course, I gab all about it to my friends and my mother because I want to hear their input, but my final decision is made in that quiet space where I talk to God and He talks back. No matter what happens, or what shape I'm in, that's where the heart and soul of what drives my life happens. It's been working great so far, I see no reason to change it.