Carry me

Somewhere along the line I embraced the idea that it's weak to need anything, especially anything you can't get on your own. People who need people aren't trying hard enough. Nobody wants to do you any favors, so nobody wants you to ask. You die alone, so you should live alone, stand alone except for God who sort of doesn't exactly count because you can't see Him, don't have to look into His eyes to say you need Him.

Maybe this is one of the many reasons God made more than one person, because maybe it takes more courage to ask for help than it does to forge ahead by yourself, more self-awareness to admit confusion and fear and loneliness than it does to sit in the dark alone, more humility to say I need you to another person than it takes, sometimes, to say it to God.

Maybe telling people how you're feeling, asking them to help you, reminds you that God is outside of you, too, not just your personal internal cheerleader but something better, because we want something more than feeling loved by the internal, we want a sacrificial love from outside even when we're too afraid to ask for it.

I have been having a rough couple of months. Good months, overall, but there are ways in which they've been hard, and I crashed hard this past week into illness and exhaustion, which is good for reminding me the world stays up even when my shoulders slump. As I'm rising through the physical exhaustion I'm swimming through a layer of emotional exhaustion, which is good for reminding me I'm not as self-sufficient as I try to be. (I need so many reminders of this.)

I know what I want you to say, and it's this: That God is faithful, and so are you, and that neither of you need me to be perfect and that the world goes along just fine even on the days when I need someone to hold me instead of the other way around.

If you could pray for wisdom and courage in the weeks ahead, I'd appreciate that, too.

"Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows." -- Matthew 10:29-31

"It is vain for you to rise up early,

To retire late,

To eat the bread of painful labors;

For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep."

-- Psalm 127:2