It’s Okay to Need Help

When my second daughter was two or three years old, she had a moment I’ll never forget. This daughter of mine now has children of her own, and I likely won’t let them forget this moment in their mother’s life either.

She had just gotten a new pair of shoes – sandals with a velcro strap that had to be pulled through a metal hoop in order to latch the shoe closed. I’d been securing her shoes up until this point, but suddenly on this morning, this child of mine decided she was going to latch these shoes herself–that she didn’t need help.

She sat on the floor trying to pull the velcro through the hoop, and failed, time and time again. It got to the point where she was crying in frustration, wailing until I thought surely the neighbors would complain.

I went to help her, she pulled away. I told her I could give her a hand, she cried harder and said no.

She was determined to latch those shoes if it were the last thing she ever did.

I wanted to help her. She was carrying on like she was being tortured. (Yes, she’s a bit extra.)

Still, through the tears and screaming, she finally won, she prevailed. She got those shoes latched and she did it all alone!

After that moment, did she always latch her own shoes? No actually, she had me do them for her after that again for quite some time, no problem. It was just that initial time that she’d decided needed to be ONLY herself.

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Are You Afraid To Admit You Need Help?

Our society values independence. But is that always a good thing?

Let me show you another example at the other end of life. We took care of my husband’s grandmother for twelve years until she passed. When we moved in, she hated it. She needed help, you understand. A victim of stroke, she was paralyzed on her right side. She could not live on her own, and no one in the family wanted her to have to go to a rest home, especially herself. Yet the thought of having us in her home in order to care for her was something she nearly could not accept.

She gave us a really rough time during those first couple months. I won’t describe it in detail, but it was not pleasant. She’d been taught that she ought to be able to do everything on her own, by herself. And now when she was becoming dependent on someone else, she fought against it with everything in her body. (I do see a parallel with her great-granddaughter here.)

We eventually did come to an understanding. She was happy, we went on to peacefully live with her for twelve years, and she was able to live out her life in her own home with family around her.

It’s Okay If You Need Help

Every day I see people struggling through life, trying to figure things out on their own, trying to get life right. At the same time, they’re surrounded by people who have lived life and understand what’s happening, and still have so much wisdom to offer.

The truth is, we need each other.

How much drama could have been avoided if my young daughter had just let me show her how to latch her shoes?

How much stress could have been avoided if granny had known how to accept help in her old age?

And there are so many other similar examples.

Yet isn’t this how we are with God?

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Do You Need Help From Jesus?

We don’t want to rely on God. I mean we say we do, right? We talk about leaning on God, not leaning on our own understanding – then we spend hours stressing and worrying over whatever drama is happening in our life at the moment. We determine we are going to unknot this tangle, latch that shoe, live life on our own – we WILL be independent. We won’t rely on anyone else.

But we then glibly quote Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths.”

We need God’s help through life, and sometimes God sends other people to provide that help. How much better would our life be if we just let God help us? If, instead of fighting to do every little thing on our own, we learned to accept help from others graciously and gratefully.

Of course I’m not talking about unhealthy dependence, but we do need each other. And it’s okay to allow others to help us. It’s sort of like practice for relying on God, too.

It’s no shame to let someone else help you when you are in genuine need, and it’s no shame to rely fully on God too. I mean we say we understand that concept, but do we?

• Do we turn to God first when there’s a need, even when we think we can fix it ourselves?
• Do we turn to God when we’re upset?
• Do we turn to God when we’re in despair?
• Do we turn to God when we fearful?
• Do we really rely on Him?

Join the Conversation

What do you think? Do you have times when you know you should rely on God but have a hard time doing it?

Do you have times when you wish someone you knew had let you help them? Have there been times you needed help but didn’t know how to accept it from someone?

Do you ever wonder what God thinks of us when we try so hard to do things on our own?