"Moses' father-in-law said to him, 'What you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you. For the task is too heave for you; you cannot do it alone."
-Exodus 18:17-18
"You breathed infinity into my world and time was lost up in a cloud and in a whirl" -Missy Higgins, They Weren't There
I'm a pretty independent person. Asking for help is about as exciting to me as trying to pick a golf ball out of a jar full of scorpions. You get the idea. I'd much rather fail doing it my way than have someone else show me an easier way. I suppose I get this from my dad, Mr. Stubborn Pride himself.
I went to my first open Alcoholics Anonymous meeting last week. It was an eye opening experience, and one I won't soon forget. Before many of you ask, no, I am not an alcoholic. I've never been drunk in my life. But I did have to attend a meeting for my pastoral care class this semester in an effort to get a better glimpse of how to offer support for someone in the midst of addiction.
My experience was transformative to say the least. If you've never been to an AA meeting, everyone introduces themselves as such, "Hi, I'm (insert first name here). I'm an alcoholic." And then everyone else in the room says, "Hi, so and so."
The meeting I went to was very simple. I walked in just as it started and sat in the corner trying to be lost in the wallpaper. They read the rules and principles of AA and recognized sobriety checkpoints. And then someone read a short devotion about self-pity, and everyone in the room shared a reflection after introducing themselves. And all the while, they claimed their battles and their struggles and pulled one another up.
These men and women needed help. That's why they were there. They're fighting a battle every day and every day they need somebody else to walk that battle with them. But I couldn't help but think, while I was sitting there in the corner, how painful it must be the first time each of them had to acknowledge that struggle.
"I'm so and so, and I'm an alcoholic."
Admitting that struggle sounds so much like defeat in my ears. Admitting that I'm in pain or hurting or that everything's not right is hard. Maybe it feels that way for everyone. But these men and women around the circle had come to a very important realization. If they were going to get better, they had to admit their struggles and failures and admit their pain.
But in the midst of that, they were surrounded by a room of others who had made that very same admission. They were surrounded by a room full of people who had been where they were and wanted to see them get better. Even as someone who wasn't an addict, when I noted that I was a first-time attendee, three different men came up to me afterwards to let me know they wished I'd come back.
It's amazing what can happen when everyone starts from the same place, admitting that they have limitations and brokenness and imperfections. When we all start at that place, we don't have to hold up masks or prepare a face for others to see, because we're all in that place. We all need help. Sometimes asking for it is the hardest part.
It's been a really hard semester for me. My classes at Brite, while no more than the course load I've managed any other semester, have felt like a never-ending mountain of reading and writing, a pit from which I couldn't climb out. Work at the church has been chaotic with different people in and out for different reasons. I hadn't been able to sleep through a full night in months. I've spent the whole time training for a marathon, a training that was extended by a month and a half because the first race was cancelled due to ice. In Texas! And on top of training, I spent Lent fasting from sunrise to sunset every day except Sunday (an incredibly fruitful discipline, but one not recommended for marathon training.)
And about mid-way through February, my body finally started to crack. I was exhausted and couldn't muster the energy to do much of anything. I'd get home and head straight to the couch and want to fall asleep. My teenagers and coworkers at the church were getting a shell of a youth minister. I was trying my best to keep up with school work, but as much time as I invested, it was barely more effort than a glance. I'd push phone calls to voicemail because the idea of answering seemed too much. I couldn't even muster the energy to spend time with an amazing girl because all I could imagine was trying to rest and regain some energy and life.
It was like I was sleepwalking through the day, like I was watching the time pass slowly, very aware that I wasn't engaged, but unable to do anything about it. My conversations were shallow. I couldn't find time for the people I love the most. Every fiber of my body was exhausted and I couldn't get interested in anything.
So I did something I've never been able to bring myself to do. I went to see a counselor. Because I needed help. "Help me." The two words I hate saying more than any others. When I got to the waiting room of the TCU Counseling Center there were other people waiting. Imagine that, I wasn't alone!
So we talked, the counselor and I. And everything didn't get instantly better. I asked her if I had depression, because at least that would have given me a word to describe what was going on. But she didn't have any medical diagnosis for me, unless "extreme overwhelmed busyness" is in the medical dictionary now. But it was the first hint that I was able to recognize that I needed some help. That things weren't the way they were supposed to be. And she listened to me share it. She carried it with me for a little while.
It's a lot like the story of Moses and his father-in-law Jethro. The Isrealites had just been set free from slavery in Egypt and had passed through a parted sea. They'd arrived at the mountain of God and had set up camp, waiting for direction on where to go next. But as people sometimes do when they have to wait for the next thing, they started to get a little whiny. While they wondered in the desert, disputes and fights came up among the people. That'll tend to happen when people have to wait together for a long while.
So Moses was put in charge of judging between all of the disputes. ALL of them. After all, he was the one who had brought down all the plagues and led them out of Egypt. If anyone was qualified, wasn't it him?
But when Jethro arrived to see the camp and his son-in-law, he didn't see a strong leader ordering others from authority. He saw a man beat down by the weight of expectations placed all around him. Everything was expected of him. Every responsibility was his. He was worn down and worn thin. He wasn't going to last much longer.
So Jethro gives it to him straight. "You need help! The big things? Sure, you need to take care of those. But everything else? Find other capable leaders to help you. You can't do it all alone." Wise words.
Earlier this week, something happened that made me realize that things had gotten too far out of whack. Something happened that made me see that the most important things in my life were getting lost in the exhaustion. I'd been trying for months to explain to myself what this numbness was that I was feeling, and I still couldn't put words to it. But I knew I had to wake up. And earlier this week I had my Jethro experience.
I wasn't myself. It's not that people weren't getting "the best Martin." They were barely getting any Martin at all. So I decided to push myself into doing the things that I love, the things that give me life. I found friends to grab lunch with after class. I found another friend to grab dinner with. I found someone else to throw a frisbee with. I apologized for the ways I'd let so much get out of balance before asking for help and the ways that it had affected others, particularly those closest to me. I got out in the sun and let it wash over me. As my friend Will says, "Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom so we can have something to bounce back up from."
What I learned sitting in that A.A. meeting was that we all need help. What makes A.A. so successful is that asking for help is the price of admission. No one is fooling anyone else, because if you are, you're in the wrong place. I wish I was better at asking for help and admitting the places in my own life where I need others. I wish I was that brave. And hopefully one day I will be.
So may you be like Moses and learn to ask for help. And may you find a Jethro in your life to tell you when you need a hand before you get too far gone. If you're battling an addiction or a mental health struggle, know you're not alone and there are people around who will walk with you. Know that we've all got our own struggles. Know that we all need help in our unique ways. And may you know that just as God did not forget Moses and the Israelites in their journey through the desert, God will not forget you. Sometimes all we need to do is ask for a little helping hand.
forever unfinished...
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