Showing Up & Asking for Help

 "Would you like me to drive you?"

In a simple question in a text, a friend reminded me a few weeks ago that I had a community to do life with. That I didn't have to do it all on my own.

The truth is: I know this. 

When I think about it, I know that I have a number of people who I could have asked. People who would have been willing to say yes, if they could.

But, in the moment, it can be hard to make the ask. In a world where doing it all on your own is prized & encouraged, it's easy to not ask. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking I need to be a strong, independent, single woman & do it on my own.

Yet, going all the way back to Genesis, we see that God said it wasn't good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18). Whether you see this verse as being specifically related to marriage or not, there is one thing we can be sure of: God didn't intend for us to do this life alone. Scripture continues to remind us of this as we read it (see Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 & Hebrews 10:23-25). We were created to need each other, to do life together.

A simple text with a simple question. A friend giving of their time to drive me to an appointment, wait for me, & drive me home. It reminded me of a powerful truth.

We don't have to do this alone. We can & should ask others for help when we need it. This is how God intended us to live.

And it challenged me as a single person. Sometimes it can be easy to use the fact that I live alone & can look after myself as an excuse not to ask for help when I need it. 

The truth was that I really did need someone to go with me to that appointment, but I wasn't going to ask. I was afraid of imposing on someone (. . . & yes, I know some of you reading this will be quick to tell me it's not that). I was afraid of looking like I couldn't handle things on my own.

But, as single adults, we need to have that community around us that can help us when we need. People we can call or text when we need a ride somewhere, or just need to know we're not alone. 

Risking to Let Someone In

 

Clear blue skies.

Fluffy white clouds floating by.

Afternoon sun making it feel much warmer than the 30 degrees the temperature says it is.

A gentle breeze keeping almost comfortable.

The cool water of the creek flowing over our feet.

Birds chirping in the trees surrounding me.

The sound of rushing water providing the background for the chirping birds.

I honestly don't know what could be more peaceful. A respite from the busyness and stress of life. Calm in the middle of storms.

The tree across the creek from me stands tall and barren. A white pole in the midst of the lush green. From this distance I can't tell if it's dead or alive. I can get close enough to see if there are buds or signs of life.

It makes me wonder if we could say the same things about our lives.

How often do we stand alone, feeling barren, in the midst of lush life around us?

We've kept people at a distance. They can't tell if there's life in us or not. No one knows looking at us from the outside. No one gets close enough to actually see.

Unlike this tree, we make the choice to keep everybody at a distance. We build up the walls and protections to keep people from knowing what's really going on. We isolate and self-protect.

We think we're doing a good thing, but we end up actually causing ourselves harm. In our quest to look like we have it all together, we close ourselves up from what we really need. While trying to keep from getting hurt by others, we actually hurt ourselves.

So what does it look like to open up? To all others in? To allow people to see if there are signs of life?

It means taking a risk. We have to be intentional about opening up with others. And that might mean we get hurt sometimes. But, for all the times it does go well when we risk letting people in, it will be worth it to take the risk.

So, who is one person in your life you can take the risk with?

And, what is one thing you can risk sharing?

Let's Stop Pretending we Have it All Together All the Time

We all need permission to not have it all together all the time. But, we don't usually feel like we have it.

This post was prompted by a song by a dear friend of mine on this same idea. As I listened to the song on the way home from work today, I was struck by what it said. God was using it to remind me and encourage me about some things I've been struggling with lately.

The truth is that we all need to feel like we have permission to be broken. We need to know it's okay to not be okay, to need each other, to let our brokenness be seen by others.

But, we don't usually operate this way. We try to cover it up, to pretend everything is good.

I've spent a lot of time in the last few days thinking about why we do this.

Why do we try so hard to hide our brokenness?

Why do we work so hard to look like everything is good?

It seems to me that we've gotten our thinking messed up here. We've believed the lie that we have to have it all together. That we have to be okay. That we have to be able to do it all, balance it all. And look good while doing it.

But then I look at Scripture and I see something very different presented. Galatians 6:2 tells us we should carry one another's burdens. We carry one another's burdens if we're busy trying to make it look like we've got it all together. To be able to carry each other's burdens we have to share what they are. And that means letting others know we're broken.

I was reminded of this last weekend. As I sat in my house at church online, I found that I was unable to sing the words to one of the songs. That song was declaring God's goodness. While I still absolutely believe God is goo, I was struggling with that in the moment.

And I realized I hadn't been letting anyone see or hear that struggle for a couple weeks. I had been working hard to present an image of having it all together in every situation, even though I was often barely holding on and getting through. All because I thought that's what I needed to do.

In that moment, I clicked on the option to ask for prayer and told the person who responded about my struggle. I gave myself permission to be broken and to let another person see it. And the response was full of grace and love.

That simple click and choosing to share changed so much.

It didn't instantly change everything to be good.

It didn't remove my struggle.

But, it let light in.

It reminded me I wasn't alone and didn't have to try to do it alone.

In it all, I was reminded of the importance of being honest and allowing our brokenness to be seen. I was reminded of the importance of carrying one another's burdens as Scripture tells us to. Of not just being the one to carry other's burdens, but also allowing others to carry mine.

So, let's stop pretending we have it all together all the time.

Let's give each other space and permission to be broken.

Let's learn to carry one another's burdens - both us carrying them for others and letting others carry ours.

The Most Important Part of Friendship

"I don't have time to get involved in that group."
"I'm too busy to spend time with others."
"I would have people over, but my house isn't good/spacious/nice/etc enough for that."

How many times have you said things like this? Or something similar to them?

Maybe you stopped with just saying you didn't have time or if you were too busy, but how would you have finished those statements if you actually completed the thought?

I've said all of those things at different times.

But, guess what?

All of them are just excuses not to try.

Maybe that sounds a bit harsh, but I think it's true. When we really want to do something, we make time. We also make time when it's something we really need to do.

So, the same thing is true about making time for friendship, for community. It we really understood our need for it, we would make the time. If we really desire it, we will make the time.

I think part of our problem, is that we think it needs to complicated.

But, the truth is, it's simple.

All it takes is time.

It doesn't have to be complicated or fancy. And it doesn't have to have a cost.

The only requirement is time.

The best times I've had with friends have been the simplest.

In his book 7 Myths About Singleness Sam Allberry, talks about the simplicity of it this way:

"We must never underestimate what can be achieved for the kingdom of God around the kitchen table. It is a place God loves to use."

Some of the best times I've had with my friends have happened sitting around the table. The food on the table didn't matter, because that wasn't the important part. Sometimes the game that was on the table didn't matter, because that wasn't the important part either.

The important part was that we were together. We were taking time to be together, to build friendship with each other.

Why we Need Friends

"There's a closeness, an intimacy, to friendship, without which we become vulnerable to ruin."
(Sam Allberry, 7 Myths About Singleness)

I've spent the last couple weeks looking at what Scripture says about friendship (here and here). I believe that's the place we need to start everything from. And I hope you've begun to see the importance of friendship, or community, that is found in Scripture.

I purposely left my previous posts on this topic mostly just Scripture with little interpretation or explanation. That's what I want to talk about now.

What does friendship look like for us?

How does the importance of it play out in our everyday life?

Our culture tells us we can do it ourselves, that we don't need anyone else. But, a look at the lives of so many, both inside and outside the church , tells a different story. Trying to do it alone doesn't work long term. Even if it appears successful in the short term - almost all the time it ends poorly.

As Sam Allberry wrote in the quote I shared at the start of this post:

"There's a closeness, an intimacy, to friendship, without which we become vulnerable to ruin."
(7 Myths About Singleness)

We need people who we allow to get close. We need people who have our backs when attacks come. We need people to celebrate with us, to mourn with us. We need people who can and will warn us when we're getting off track and who will help us get things right again. Without this, we easily find ourselves in trouble.

Even as I write this, I'm challenged about how I've been living and my own friendships. With a significant change in circumstances in some key areas of my life this fall, I pulled back from most of my friendships - some partially, some completely. I started trying to go it alone again. And it seemed like it was working for a while.

But, as the new year approached, I realized it actually wasn't going well at all. I was walking through some hard stuff by myself and it was quickly becoming overwhelming. I saw how easy it would be to head down a path to ruin, to trouble. In fact, I was already taking steps down that path.

Thankfully, when I choose to reach out to friends again, they were still there. But, through this, I was reminded of why we need friends. How important it is that we have people we're walking through life with. And of how vulnerable we are when we try to go it alone.

So, who is in your circle? Who are the people you're walking with?

Or, have you started trying to walk through life alone? What steps can you take to correct this?

Our Need for Others

We live in a culture that teaches us to be proud of doing things without a need for others. We praise individual accomplishments. Even on a team, we look for what we can consider the most important individual contribution.

We're taught that asking for help is a sign of weakness. That we can't need other people. That the way to do it is to figure it out on our own.

And this works, at least to a degree, when life is going as we planned. When things are going smoothly and predictably we can manage on our own.

But, what happens when life throws something unexpected our way? What about the times when something happens and you're not sure you can keep going?

Those are the times when we can more clearly realize the ways our culture ahs it wrong. Those are the times when we can see our need our need for other people in our lives.

Yes, in those times we need God and we need to depend on Him completely. Yes, in those times we can't get through them without God.

But, God has designed us to need people. Often the way God helps us get through those times is by using the people around us to be His hands and feet in our lives - to show us His love.

Hebrews 10:24-25 says,

" And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deed, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

We need to have people around us who can encourage us, love us, buid us up walk with us through life. We were made to need this. It is God's plan.

I've been reminded of the importance of this in the last couple months. Life threw some unexpected things my way and quickly became clear I wasn't going to get through it all on my own - or even just me and God. I needed to allow the community God had placed around me to walk through it with me - to encourage me and love me and help me keep on going when I couldn't on my own. God was choosing to use them to get me through this time.

As I've reflected on this, I've been able to see a beautiful picture of how God intends for His people to live, of how God created us to care for one another. A picture that is so different than the one our culture tells us we should live by.

All Parts Working Together

Community

Serving together

Unity

Words we talk about often in the church. But sometimes it can seem like just talk. We don't seem to see them in action.

Paul talks about the church being a body - all of us working together, doing our part. Each person has role that is important to the whole. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul speaks of the need for each of us to take our part - the part God has given us - and do it with our whole hearts, not comparing it to others. This is just one of the examples in Scripture that speaks of our need to work together.

This has been on my mind a lot this weekend, because I've been privileged to see it in action. Privileged to see each part of the body of Christ working together in unity and serving God. And it has been something beautiful to see. This has moved from just talk to being action.

It's something that we see glimpses of throughout the year. We get it right sometimes - hopefully, more often than we don't. We're on this journey called life and we learn over time how to do it better.

This weekend of the year, I get to see it in my church in an amazing way. Living Nativity weekend is a weekend where I get to be a part of my church coming together to serve in a great way. Each person doing their part - no matter how small and insignificant or upfront and seemingly important. All the roles are important and each is required to make it happen. An example of the body of Christ working together as Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 12.

And my prayer is that it is something that carries on beyond this one weekend. That it becomes a part of who we are as a local body of believers. That each year we learn to serve together this way all the time even better. That we can be an example of what God intended His people to be.

And each of us has a part to play in that. It's not something any one of us can do on our own. Each of us needs to choose to be a part of it and fill the role God has for us in that.

We Weren't Made to Walk Alone

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:23-25)

This is just one of many passages of Scripture that speaks of our need for other people to walk this journey of life together. In these verses, the writer of Hebrews is reminding his readers of their need to make meeting together a priority. And giving them a reason why - to encourage one another.

We weren't made to go it alone. When things get hard, we need other people who are walking with us to make it through. We need their encouragement. We need their presence.

When we try to go it alone, the hard times get harder. And it's easier to just give up rather than pushing through what God has for us.

As I look back on my life, I can easily see the difference in the times when I walked through hard times with other people walking alongside me and times when I tried to get through it myself. Life experience tells me that we weren't created to walk alone. We need other people with us.

If past experience makes it so clear that we need other people to walk with us through life, why do we so easily slip back into trying to get through whatever comes our way alone? Why do we pull back and not share what's going on with those around us who care and want to know?

It doesn't make sense, but it's often what we do. And we have many reasons why we do it.

• We don't want to burden other people.
• We don't want to sound negative.
• We don't know anyone well enough to share it with them.
• We don't want to be perceived as weak.
• We want to prove we're strong enough to get through it alone.

The truth is, all of those reasons we can give for why we try to go it alone, really come down to pride. We don't allow others to walk with us because of our pride. Sharing what is really going on would require us to be vulnerable and show our weakness.

Our culture tells us that we shouldn't show weakness. We are encouraged to live as if we have no weaknesses. So, we learn to live behind walls that never let anyone behind them. We don't let others in because we're not willing to be vulnerable - we're told being vulnerable is a weakness itself.

But, Scripture makes it clear that we need one another. We weren't made to get through life alone. And past experiences confirm that for us. We need to learn to share with one another and allow others to walk through the hard times with us.

People Matter

Silly songs. Fun activities. Field games. New friends. Reconnecting with new old friends. Great speakers sharing God's love. Worshipping God. Chapel. Camp fires. Spiritual decisions. A feeling of coming home. Those are the things that come flooding through my mind when I drive on the camp property.

This weekend, I was back at the camp I went to as a kid and then had the privilege of working at for a few summers. It was a celebration of 40 years of ministry in that place. 40 years of lives being changed as people met God - some for the first time and some in a way they never have before. Celebrating 40 years of what is still occurring in that place and will continue to.

As we heard stories of how God had worked to provide for the camp, to protect the camp, to keep the camp moving forward. Provision of people and funds to continue to point people to Jesus. So much of it came down to people who were willing to allow God to use them.

That's what it comes down to for me. The camp is special to me, because of the people I met there. People who cared and gave of their time and energy to pour into my life. People who saw something in me they thought was worth investing in. People who gave me a chance to learn how to lead. People who gave me a safe place to fail and get back up and try again. People who celebrated with me when I succeeded.

So much of what really matters in our lives, the memories that we hold onto for years, are of the people. We might remember some of the place or the things, but it's usually the people who we hold onto in those memories. That's because God created us to be in relationship with others. We were created to need others in our lives. And when someone does take the time with us, we remember them easily. They become a part of who we are today.

As I sat and visited with some of those people in my life this weekend, I was reminded of how they have impacted my life. My response is one of gratitude. Gratitude to God for bringing them into my life. Thankfulness to them for being willing to be used by God in the lives of other people.

Five Minute Friday: Belong

It was always one of my favourite places to go. I loved the place. And even though the people there were different every time, it was a place where I felt like I belonged. Summer camp was always the place where I could be who I was and be accepted for it. I didn't have to try to fit in anywhere. It was a place where I belonged.

We all want somewhere to bong. We search for it. We long for it.

When we find it, we feel safe. When we feel like we belong somewhere we're able to be ourselves - able to be who God created us to be.

When we can't find a place to belong, we might try to change ourselves to fit in somewhere. We hide who we really are and try to make ourselves something we aren't just to belong and fit in.

Those places where we belong. The people who we feel like we belong with. They are important to our well-being.

Unfortunately, it's not as easy as it should be to find those places. But, maybe we can change that. What would happen if we stopped being exclusive and started welcoming people - started giving them a place to belong with us? That could change the world.


Joining in with Five Minute Friday again this week. This week's word is "Belong."

One Family

I've been reading Paul's letters to churches the last couple of months. When I got to Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus, I found that I was staying in chapter 3 for a while.

I've read this passage many times and in that familiarity I've often moved quite quickly through it. This time when I got to Ephesians 3, I slowed down. I read the chapter out loud a few times. And noticed some incredible things I've missed before in it.

Before you read the rest of this post, I want to encourage you to read Ephesians 3. In your Bible, or follow this link to it. Read it out loud and listen to the words if you can.

The things I noticed as I read are the topic of the next few posts here.

What I noticed when I read this isn't anything that hasn't been there all day long, but it is something God used to speak so clearly to me.



Paul begins this chapter talking about how God has now included the Gentiles along with the Jews in His way of salvation. He talks about how it is through the work of Christ on the cross that all are brought together in one family.

I've often struggled with getting through the first part of this chapter because it didn't seem to be the really important part of it all. But this time as I read the chapter all as one, I realized that these verses set the foundation for the rest of the chapter.

It is because we have been brought together as one family through Christ that anything that follows makes sense.

It was a radical shift in thinking for the day that Jews and Gentiles were both a part of God's chosen and holy people. That's one reason why Paul takes the time to focus on this. He knew that for his original audience it was important to begin here.

God showed me why it was important for me to begin here to as I carefully read each word this time. The starting place for everything that follows in this chapter is this understanding that we are one body as Christ followers. Christ's work brings us all together as one big family.

And within that big family, we have smaller groups that we in close relationship with. This forms the foundation of what Paul says in the rest of the chapter. And it's an important foundation, because we weren't meant to live this life as followers of Christ alone.

It's also because we're living in a community with one another that we can begin to understand other things we find in Scripture. They just wouldn't make sense if we lived this life alone.

Five Minute Friday:Together

It`s that time again. Five Minute Friday over at Lisa-Jo Baker`s blog. Five minutes of unedited writing that we then share. Today`s word is together.



Ì enjoy it when we spend time together.

She said those words as I climbed in my car. She walked away before I could respond. If she hadn`t I would have responded the same way.

I enjoyed spending time with her too. But this was the first time in three months we had taken the time to spend together. We had our list of excuses why it hadn`t worked for us to get together, but I wondered as I drove away how true our excuses really where.

Sure I had lots of things going on in my life, but I still always found time to spend with people if I wanted to. And I knew that she was home most evenings because we would chat online. But that online chat that we tried to make replace seeing each other face-to-face really didn`t do it. It didn`t replace spending time together - sitting across a table from each other having a conversation, walking along the lake while we talked.

I decided that I would make spending time with friends more of a priority as I drove home that night. With this friend and with others that it had been far too long since we sat down to talk.

Together . . . time with people we love and care about . . . it`s something we all need.

Work Together

A few days ago was the 35th anniversary for the place where I work. For us that meant a chance to celebrate 35 years of changing lives. That's something worth celebrating.

The day of our party as I watched everyone working together I was struck by the team of people that came together to make it happen. My coworkers and our guests, churches in our community, and other groups. We were all needed to make it happen. None of us could have done what we did together that day if we had tried to do it alone.

As I've thought about this since, I've realized that everything we do as followers of Christ to offer hope to the world around us is done as part of a team. We need each other and we need to be working together to do it. We can't do it on our own.

So many of the stories I've heard of God transforming lives talk about multiple people and multiple groups playing a role in that transformation. That would be my story as well. Some of those people or groups have a bigger influence than others, but it's rarely just one person that God uses.

I walked away from our 35th anniversary party with a new reminder of the importance of working together for God's Kingdom. That's how God designed it to work. He uses us to transform lives as we work together.