Sometimes what is needed...

Sometimes, what is needed is more than what we have.

I know you know the feeling.

Just another moment of holding your tongue so that the instance of anger or frustration passes and you can continue on in peace. Just another second of holding up the weight of the world on your shoulders so that the bills, the job, the family, and all of the demands on your time that come with living do not come falling down around you.

How did we get here? What on earth did we do to end up with so much responsibility, with so many expectations? What happens when we know we will fall short?

Many times in my life I have prayed the Litany of Humility hoping to turn back the tides of my pride and become a kind and gentle person. What I have found is that, in response to those prayers, I have ended up embarrassed, broken, lonely, hurt, scared, or some concoction of those. Perhaps I am not at my wits end, or at the bottom of a dark pit. Yet, broken is probably the only adequate word.

I know we all reach these points, because I see it happen to those I love. No matter how wise, how careful, how adapting, how patient we are, there comes a time (or many times) when life just gets the better of us. Rather, it takes the "better" and heads for the hills. And we get left with the "worse" and have to make the best we can. But trying to plug "worse" into a system where "better" was the necessary function just doesn't cut it. And the system falls apart.

I have to admit that there are times when I actually enjoy these stripped-down moments. Of course, all of the breaking and smashing is painful or at least uncomfortable. Yet, there is something so gloriously truthful about being broken down. I cannot help but love when the truth is known in a greater fullness. The truth is that we came from nothing. We were formed out of the dust, and we shall return to dust. Think about when you have walked through a cemetery. There are plenty of headstones there that you will never read, and that have no visitors. One man who has been lying there for one hundred years may be well out of living memory. Yet, when he lived, he too had a world built up around him. He had his family, his job, his social groups, his activities, his thoughts and his dreams. Consider how often we hold ideas and hopes that "one day" we might make a difference in this crazy world. Who is to say that he, too, did not have these hopes and work for them in his life? Yet, he has gone on.

We too, will join him. We will pass away, and some fifty or one hundred years later someone may walk past our headstone in a cemetery. All of the world around us that seems so big and strong and important, and perhaps the work that we do that also seems strong and important, will fade away like all of history does into memory.

That is in no way to say that what we do in life is not important - please do not mistake me. In fact, I think that history desperately needs to be rekindled in modern mind and heart, if we are to ever learn from the mistakes of the past and have hope to grow in healthy ways for the future. No, history is vital, and must ever be in mind for the living to truly understand where they have come from and where they are going.

For the sake of the reflection though, I mean to point out that we are simply not as significant as we often feel, or often would prefer to think we are. In light of this, it is rather honest when we end up broken down or feeling inadequate or weak. It is honest because we should realize just how much of "us being us" depends on "others being others" and above all, on "God being God." 

What if we couldn't pray? What if we couldn't call a friend? What if we didn't have the arms of our loved ones to fall into?

Sometimes what is needed is being the one who is weak. Sometimes what is needed is accepting our limitations, and accepting with gratitude the ways we are given to cope with those limitations. Sometimes what is needed is the joy that can be found when we surrender our strength and pride and allow God to be God, and our friends and family to love us in our need.

It is hard to know where we still have to go, how much room we have for growth, without first seeing the reality of where we are. It is a gift when we are put in our place, no matter how much it shames us. It is a gift to know in all truth how great the love and power of God is, which is all the more evident when we realize how little we accomplish without him. It is a gift to see the depth of love our friends and family have for us when we don't have anything to offer in return.

Sometimes what is needed is thankfulness for just how weak we really are.