Sometimes I feel like I learn the same lessons again and again. Every time this happens, I’ll think to myself “oh, I get it now. Lesson learned.” Then I go on trying to apply it. I keep it up for a bit, then my conscious efforts to work these things into my life settle down, and maybe I’ll do things a little differently, but never like I intend to. So I go on with life, thinking I’ve got everything down, when a new situation will arise, and I find myself relearning the things I believe are most important.

Today, it’s this: we are not made to do life alone.

I think this lesson has popped up in my life every few months or so for the last four-five years. I feel like it’s something God keeps pounding into my head, probably because I keep forgetting it. But aside from the fact that God is faithful, I think this is one of the most important things I have ever learned.

So often, I find myself wanting to think I am strong enough to handle whatever it is life throws at me on my own. Or I end up in this “pull-myself-up-by-my-bootstraps-and-tell-everyone-it’s-just-me-and-God” funk, which basically ends up being the same thing as the former.

But yet again, in my life’s fascinating cycle of teaching me a couple of things over and over, I learn it again: we are not made to do life alone. I am not sure if I could count how many times I have thought about this in the last few days. Honestly, I’ve felt almost obnoxiously needy. It’s hard for me sometimes to be okay with the fact that I need other people most of the time. I struggle with feeling like a burden. But the beautiful thing is, I am not. None of us are.

We walk around pretending we are these self-sufficient entities, telling ourselves again and again that this time, we’ll do it on our own. This time we’ll be strong enough. And then we hit those moments when we realize that we aren’t. And it stinks. But then, in the middle of that place, someone shows up. Someone comes and grabs onto our hand and tells us its okay to feel weak, that in our weakness God is shown to be strong. Sometimes this someone is God himself, and sometimes its another person who, for just a moment, puts on the face of God for us when we can’t see Him. And these are weird moments. Not a bad weird, just weird in the sense of being beautifully unexpected. It’s the hug at the end of a hard day, the hand in the darkness, being told that it’s okay if I need to sleep on the floor in a neighbor’s room. And I realize again that it’s okay to need other people, in fact I’d say it’s necessary. We were made to hold each other’s hands and walk through life, to pick each other up when we falter, to be Jesus to each other when our faith falters and we can’t see Him.

So I find that it is absolutely okay to need people, that there’s nothing wrong with relying on others, that in the middle of our weakness, we can be each other’s strength. I think that the words of the Jars of Clay song “Shelter” say it best, so I will leave you with them.

To all who are looking down
Holding on to hearts still wounding
For those who’ve yet to find it
The place is near where love is moving
Cast off the robes you’re wearing
Set aside the names that you’ve been given
May this place of rest in the fold of your journey
Bind you to hope
You will never walk alone

In the shelter of each other
We will live
We will live (Never walk alone)
In the shelter of each other
We will live
We will live (Your arms are all around us)

If our hearts are turned to stone
There is hope we know the rocks will cry out
And the tears aren’t ours alone
Let them fall into the hands that hold us
Come away from where you’re hiding
Set aside the lies that you’ve been living
May this place of rest in the fold of your journey
Bind you to hope
We will never walk alone

In the shelter of each other
We will live
We will live (In the shelter)
In the shelter of each other
We will live
We will live (You will never walk alone)

In the shelter of each other
We will live
We will live (In Your arms are all around us)
In the shelter of each other
We will live
We will live (In Your arms are all around us)

If there is any peace
If there is any war
We must all believe
Our lives are not our own
We all belong

God has given us each other
And we will never walk alone

In the shelter of each other
We will live
We will live (We will never walk alone)
In the shelter of each other
We will live
We will live (In the shelter)

In the shelter of each other
We will live
We will live (Your arms are all around us)
In the shelter of each other
We will live
We will live (In Your arms are all around us)

In the shelter of each other
We will live
We will live (In Your arms are all around us)
In the shelter of each other
We will live
We will live (In Your arms are all around us)

In the shelter of each other
We will live
We will live
(In the shelter of each other we will never walk alone – never walk alone)