I’m out of my depth.
I’ve said, “I don’t know what to do,” more times in the last six months than I have in my entire life. Despite some efforts to change it, we still live in a culture that tells us that asking for help is a weakness, and no one has embraced this lie like I have. I love being independent, a lone wolf. I love the feeling of doing something all on my own. For years, I wore my self-sufficiency like a badge of honor, letting it puff up deep-rooted pride in me that said that somehow my stubborn autonomy made me better, stronger, more valuable, worthy.
During my pregnancy, everything I saw online was about how important it is for postpartum moms to have a village, to ask for help, to not try to do everything on your own. Well, duh, I thought. I have a community. How hard can it be to let them help? The answer is, very hard.
I thought I had made a lot of progress in my ability to rely on other people and ask for help, and I have. But the first few months after having a baby revealed just how deeply rooted some of those beliefs were. Turns out, I still have a really hard time not feeling like an absolute failure when I have to ask for help, even if that help is from my own mom. Just the idea of accepting help from someone makes me feel a little nauseous.
I thought that I would only need help during those first few months of having a new baby, but it’s been six months now and I’m slowly realizing that my life is only going to continue getting more complicated. My need for other people is never going to go away. So I can either learn the discipline of dependency now or I can make myself miserable by insisting that I have everything under control all by myself, thank you very much.
Recently, the Lord really pressed on me 2 Corinthians 12:6-10, Paul’s thorn in his flesh.
“Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.’ Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
According to this, the way I view my ability to “handle everything” is contrary to scripture and how followers of Jesus are commanded to live. Paul doesn’t reluctantly accept his weakness while simultaneously doing everything in his power to hide it from everyone. He boasts in it, he takes pleasure in it.
Why? Because his weakness creates room for the Holy Spirit to work, to replace human strength with supernatural power. His weakness is evidence that the Lord is at work in him.
In the past, when I’ve felt like I had everything in my life under control, I didn’t really believe that I needed God’s strength. Why would I need help? Everything is good, and I’m doing it all on my own.
But now, every day my weakness feels like it is on full display for the whole world to see. Hey, everybody! Look how out of control I am! All the human strength in the world could not keep my life in order.
The truth is that in those times when I thought I was holding everything together perfectly on my own, I was just blind to my weakness. I was full of pride and arrogance, and I couldn’t see or hear the ways God wanted to refine me.
My weakness makes me so painfully aware. Lately, the weakness list has felt long, but Paul says that is a reason to rejoice! For now I have the opportunity to trade something frail - my own strength - for something powerful. It is a chance to rely on the grace of God “so that Christ’s power may reside in me.”
I don’t want to be a lone wolf because Jesus wasn’t a lone wolf. I don’t want to raise kids who hold people at arm's length because they’re afraid of looking weak. I want them to be people who hold their arms out to others, welcoming them in and relying on the power of Christ in them.
Ultimately it is a question of what our lives are for. Is the goal of my life to look strong, competent, and independent to other people? Or is the goal of my life to make the glory of God known? If it’s the former, I should never, ever ask for help and never, under any circumstances, be vulnerable with anyone, ever. But if it’s the latter, I have no other option but to rejoice in my weakness, for by it, God’s power sweeps through my life and my heart, changing me, changing my circumstances, and changing the people around me.
What kindness, what goodness, what grace, that our God would love us so deeply that he would make us into new creations and give us something far better than what we have on our own.