needy...

I am so needy.

I hate being faced with that reality, and I hate admitting it.

I hate being the friend who asks for help, but feel like I rarely have the ability to offer it in return.

I hate that I look around at parents of 3, 4, and 5 young children and feel like I'm the biggest wuss because I'm struggling with 2.  How do they DO it??  And appear so... together?

Why does it feel like I'm always drowning a little?

I know.

I must give grace to myself.

I can't do it all.

But when showering and getting two children to church all by yourself (because Daddy has to preach at another church 2 1/2 hours away) takes every good bit of 2 1/2 hours??... that's my accomplishment for the day??  Really?

Probably thanks to seven weeks of sleep deprivation, I'm having an emotional weekend.   As amazing as it is to have sweet little Jameson in our family, it's also been a challenge.  And I'm feeling worn down and ragged in my body and in my soul.

I love how people ask if we're getting any sleep, and I tell them, "Well, about 3 or 4 hours at a time," to which I'm met with laughter and chuckles.  Okay people, in a year, I'll laugh with you.  :) But right now?  Lemme tell you-- it's SO hard!  (can I please have the world's smallest violin to play right now?)

Two days after Christmas as I sat in a hospital recliner with my sick infant in my arms and a stir-crazy four year old bouncing off the walls of a hospital room, I hit a low.  I have no family here.  It's Christmas time, and I have no family that can help.  And usually that's okay, because our RUF students and our church family more than make up for that loss in our life.  When you're like a missionary to your own culture like a RUF campus minister is, that's just part of life.  But this time, while everyone was busy enjoying Christmas with their own families and we were cooped up in a hospital and help was so difficult to come by... it was hard.

It was at that point that I didn't want to ask for help,
though I needed it desperately.

I came up with every excuse as to why so-and-so wouldn't want to help us.

I just don't want to be a bother to anyone.

So there I sat crying in the hospital room, having my own pity party, feeling like no one loves me. (I know, I'm so ridiculously sensitive and dramatic sometimes.  Forgive me.)

But in all honesty, most of it was probably my own fault for not reaching out to enough people and asking for help.

(at this point I must say that two of my close friends here were literally life savers to us, so I can't go on writing without thanking them first!)

This week, my family has come and gone, and here I am again.  Feeling alone and shut-in my house.  Just trying to keep everybody fed and alive and out of the hospital again.

Most of the time I'm just in survival mode, and I don't even have time to stop and process how hard life feels right now or what a difficult first month it's been in and out of doctors offices with Jameson while trying to also parent our daughter and figure out how to do life with two children instead of one.  I still don't even know what "normal" life looks like once Marc goes back to work full time this week, or when I take on my part-time worship director job next week.

I wish I could tell you godly things like Scripture is really sustaining me.  Or that I can feel the prayers of the saints lifting us up.

But in all honesty, it's more like caffeine, chocolate, and numerous episodes of Parenthood that are keeping our household going.

That and the grace of God, of course.

Today, after my big accomplishment of GETTING myself and two children to church, I realized how needy I am right now in this season of life.  It's been a WONDERFUL!!, but difficult, month.

And I can't pretend otherwise.

I bawled almost the entire way through the sermon, fighting within my heart how much I need help, but don't want to be that person that asks for it.  I don't even know where to start, and the thought of it seems exhausting.

I didn't even want to go to church, but it was the arms that reached out to hug me immediately after the service that brought me to more tears.  It was the saints gathering round to offer their ears to listen, their arms to hug me, their nods of understanding.

And I couldn't help but speak the words, "I need help."

There's really no amount of cute clothes or false facades that can take away our neediness, is there?  Often times I feel like church can be a place where we all put on a big, fake show-- before God and before one another.  

But today?  I couldn't cover it up.  I'm so needy.  Really, I'm no better than the beggar on the street corner.  I've just learned how to hide it better, I suppose.

I guess that's what Love does to you.

It reaches out to you, and takes you in Its arms.  There's no hiding anymore.  There's no need to. There is freedom.  And the masks fall away.

You can't help but crumble into the mess that you really are.

And it's okay.

Love humbles you, for Love is not expecting return.  Love is not there waiting on you to just get it together, so then it will reeeeally love you.

Love, quite simply, loves.

Today I feel my need so keenly.  Love knows that not just today, but every day I will be in great need. (whether I feel it or not.)

And that's precisely why I need
Him.