My neediness has always felt like a character flaw. How dare I have needs and burdens? How dare I seek an arm to hold me up, a crutch to lean on, a body to embrace, or a hand to hold? I hid my neediness all my life behind invisible walls I erected around myself, and whenever I opened a window to reach out for help and so revealed my weakness, I scorned myself for doing so afterwards.
The year of my divorce was the year in which those walls could no longer contain my neediness. Despite how much I had fortified them over time, they fell like the walls of Jericho, and I awaited the onslaught from the enemies outside.
I won’t lie—there were those who had watched for the fall of those walls and did attack. Not all at once, but slowly here and there. They snuck through the debris, pretending to help pick up the pieces while secretly preparing to ravage and further destroy. My fears and reasons for upholding those walls were confirmed. In those moments, I pried the remains of my walls from the rubble, but they were a pathetic barrier.
Things like the years of loneliness I had spent lying about the abuse I endured and my financial helplessness without my husband were left in the blinding light, unable to be hidden anymore. I couldn’t have been more needy, pathetic, or vulnerable. And while there were those who took advantage, they weren’t the only people who came.
There were many more who came to rebuild and protect.
When the walls could no longer contain my neediness, friends, family, and even strangers in the community surrounded me and supported me.
Christmas became the pinnacle of that. My children had never had so many gifts under the tree in their lives, and only a small portion of them were from me; dozens of packages without names sat under the tree, so that I couldn’t even thank those who had given them. Bags arrived on my doorstep with food, clothes, and toys. Weeks before Christmas Eve, I received countless messages from people asking for clothing sizes, favourite activities, beloved characters, and items we needed. A loved one spent Christmas Eve away from home making homemade pizza with my three boys. A man from the community that I’d never met plowed my snowy driveway and gave me two whole chickens, ready to be slow-cooked.
Our Christmas that year, though in our greatest moment of poverty, was the richest Christmas I have experienced because of how many times I met with Christ Himself.
We want to hide our neediness from others. We don’t want them to see or bear our burdens. So we hide, we act, we lie—because if they ever knew, what might they do? We can’t risk it.
Yet Christ made Himself the most vulnerable of all. He left the safety, beauty, and glory of Heaven to become a helpless babe in a manger to two poor folk, one of which was likely viewed as an outcast of her Jewish society because she had become pregnant before marriage. He came to die the most horrific death and be exposed to His enemies for every insult and physical assault, to be betrayed not just by those who hated Him but also those who claimed to love Him. He opened Himself to the greatest of human afflictions—emotional, physical, and spiritual.
He did so for us, that we may receive the greatest gift of all. But we must make ourselves vulnerable before Him too, in a much smaller way: we must bare our soul and admit that we are not the perfect people we want others to see, but sinful and broken, with no hope of ever getting it together on our own. We must let down our walls before Him to receive the gift He offers.
If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous one. He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world. (1 John 1.8–2.2 CSB)
For our burdens to be borne by others, they must first see and know those burdens intimately so they can discern how to best carry them. Unless we are willing to release our grip on our walls, we will crumple under the weight of our neediness until we can’t hold them up anymore. We must open our white-knuckled fists to receive, but that also means being willing to reveal the brokenness underneath.
We beg God for a miracle, for a word, for a peace, for a Jericho-like moment in our suffering. But our Father works through ordinary means much more often, through the very people He’s placed on this earth and called to be His hands, feet, and mouth. To receive the gifts He gives through such ordinary means, we must allow those people to see our neediness. Perhaps the miracle He does provide is bringing down those walls we are cowering behind, with a great trumpet blast, so we can no longer hide.
This Christmas, I’m striving to see and accept the ever-present brokenness that remains in me. I want to bare my neediness to those who love me. Because this is the only posture in which to receive the gifts Christ has for me.
Editor’s Note: The Christian Standard Bible translation does not capitalize pronouns referring to God; these have been added by Cultivating editors.
The featured image, “Evergreen,” is courtesy of Julie Jablonski and used with her kind permission for Cultivating.
Lara d’Entremont is a mother and author. She is the author of A Mother Held: Essays on Motherhood and Anxiety. Lara writes stories for the young and old alike, always striving to share the light of hope in the darkest of places—whether it be essays for a new mom through postpartum depression or a novel for a child wondering if their art matters. She is a member of The Maker’s Project, and her work has appeared in Christianity Today, The Rabbit Room, Verily, and others.
You can learn more about her work at laradentremont.com.
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