When my daughter was little, my best friend used to say that we were connected at the hip. When I was growing up I felt like my parents loved me because they had to not because they chose to. I didn't know how wrong I was at the time, but it shaped how I raised my kids. I wanted them to have no doubt about my love for them and told them often. I became a Christian when I was a senior in high school. I was raised in a Christian home. I had a very close relationship to Christ until about 20 years ago and it all seemed to slip away, not unlike my relationship with my daughter when she started using drugs. I don't know to this day why I went through a ten year drought with God to where praying was a chore when I used to spend an hour or more at it. Praying for five minutes was an extreme stuggle. Then the day I found out my daughter almost commited suicide broke something in me. It was suddenly easier to pray and I have never looked back. At the height of my daughter's addiction, which was right around the bend, the room turned to ice when I walked into it. All the hugs and smiles and I love you's dried up. It cut like a knife. So when she returned from her addiction and I gained them all back, I treasured every single one of them to this very day. I know how quickly they can be lost and how very precious every one of them is. I wonder how God felt when I was so distant from Him. I imagine it was much the same way. I treasure hearing His voice again and the peace of knowing He is in the room with me once again. I also wonder if others had lost that connection with God like I did with Him and my daughter, if they would even miss it, or if it would be life as usual. There is something so satisfying in intimacy. Do we long for intimacy with God enough to pursue it? If we lost it as it stands right now, would we miss it?