Recieving Love

Sometimes often I struggle with letting people in... In fact if you know me and you read this you'll probably be shocked. For the past year and a half I have had various people tell me I need to let people in, let people love me, and care about me the way I try to for everyone else. People I consider my best friends I have lost or have gotten so frustrated with me they have given up in fact. This of course has just made me want to be harder, rely less on people b/c now its been brought to my attention I cause them pain when all I want to do is everything to lessen their pain. Its been happening my whole life, it just took some amazing Godly people the last 2 years to finally tell me. So tonight I am reading a book called "90 min in Heaven" by Don Piper and Holy Moly he went through the same thing, always a people helper never a receiver... But so far it seems that he only had to be told once... My thick stubborn head takes 2 years
to decide to listen. I may even have an idea finally how to put my receiving self out there. See if you can figure it out for yourselves :). God is so good to bring this to me and to be a constant reminder not only to receive but to be grateful for it. After all that is how we are to be with Him, and if I can't allow a friend to listen to my problems, or help me with a project, how do I treat God my father??? Prob. Not very well I am afraid to admit.