Struggle Strategy: Help (I Need Somebody)

When the Man got home from his last deployment (the one where the twins were born), he was home a grand total of six weeks before he had to leave again for eight weeks. On a normal year, eight weeks isn’t a cake walk, but when you compare it to a 6 month deployment, it shouldn’t have been even a blip on my radar.

But that eight week TDY broke me in ways the deployment hadn’t.

Part of it was expectations. I knew the deployment would be tough, so I’d prepared well. Neither of us had really seen the TDY coming, so there wasn’t a great plan in place.

Part of it was that Bruiser decided it was a great time to stop sleeping. Completely. This was the period of time when Bee had her bed in the bathroom because I was willing to try anything (anything) just to get more than thirty consecutive minutes of sleep. I was so tired I would take the kids out for walks—Littles and Tiny on their tricycles, Bruiser and Bee in the double stroller, Trigger walking beside the stroller to keep an eye on his babies—and I would fall asleep walking. I’m sure this was totally safe. Mother of the year.

But the major reason that TDY was so hard was also fairly avoidable: I’d run out of the ability to ask for help.

You see, during the deployment, I’d been put on bed rest. Our family was on a meal train for three straight months. I had a friend’s teenage daughter come over to make my coffee in the morning and help get the boys up. Another friend would come by to help with bedtime. I had two different aunts, my mom, and my sister come in for weeks long stretches to tag team in to help me. Someone did my laundry, my cleaning, my yard work. Our next door neighbor even saved me from a possum in the garage. Normal stuff like that.

Truly, our community was unbelievably supportive. My friends anticipated my needs and stepped in, again and again and again. Our base community became the hands of God for our family and an incredible testament to how loved we were (and how wonderful they were).

But it is hard to always be on the receiving end of help. It is hard to feel needy. It’s hard to feel like you can’t get it together long enough to have someone else’s back for once.

It is hard…but what I wish I could’ve told myself twelve years ago when I had lost both my ability to function and my humility to ask for help is that leaning into my community and letting myself be vulnerable in that moment by asking for help (again) wouldn’t have killed me. And it might’ve been a blessing to others in ways I couldn’t have anticipated.

It was also what I needed. We are not meant to go it alone.

You guys know that this year has been One of Those for our family. I told the Man the other day that it felt like our life was a bad country song being written by a med student as a study guide. Well, on Friday, we got an unexpected diabetes diagnosis for one of the kids that felt like it came out of left field.

But…

I was with friends when the clinic called, and they immediately prayed with me and hugged me. I’ve been on the phone with nurse friends who have graciously given us more information to work with and answered our many (many) questions. My friends’ kids have texted to check on our kid and just provide the reminder of love and support. My cousin’s wife, whom I have met all of two times, I think, but who also has a kid with diabetes, picked up the phone to talk me through what to expect and what questions to ask. And again and again I have checked my phone and found texts and phone calls and voicemails from friends and family as they flood us with prayer and support.

Our community has been a safety net stretched beneath us. We don’t “need” anything right now. None of this is an emergency. We don’t need meals dropped off or child care arranged or anything like that. The beacons of Gondor are not being lit. But our community is continuing to display a grace that we don’t deserve and that we could never earn.

This year has been one thing after another, and it would be very easy at this point for our people to say, “Are you kidding me? Get it together, Frizzells! What in the world is wrong with your family?” And it would be totally justified in my book. We have taken up a lot of oxygen with our need for prayer this year, and if I had a dollar for every time I heard the phrase, “You guys just can’t catch a break,” we wouldn’t be overthinking how much car insurance has gone up since Littles got his driver’s license.

But that’s not what our community has done. Instead, they have checked in. They have prayed. They have hugged us. They have looked for ways to serve. They have not grown weary of doing good.

And if that is not the Church being the light of the world, if that is not God’s body functioning as it should, if that is not the image of Christ being reflected, then I don’t know what is.

Today, if you’re struggling, may I encourage you to ask for help? Reach out to your community. I know that not everyone has been blessed with the generous herd of friends we have been grateful to collect, but my hope for you is that your vulnerability and humility would act as a spark to light the warming fire of community.

You don’t know who may be out there who is desperate to know that they are needed.

And if you are one of the many, many people reaching out and checking in and looking for ways to love others well: thank you.

Jesus once said that whatever we do for the least of these, we’re doing for Him.

Sometimes the least of these is a deployed spouse with young kids. Sometimes the least of these is a carless immigrant who just needs a ride to the grocery store. Sometimes the least of these is a mom whose child is having a meltdown in the grocery store.

Sometimes the least of these is a family that appears to be incapable of catching a break.

Let’s offer help when we can. Let’s ask for help when we need it. Let’s look through each other to see Jesus.

This is the heart of community. Do we value it or not?

If so, then it’s worth it to make ourselves uncomfortable…whether we’re offering help or asking for it.