Guest Post: Better With You, But Fine By Myself
Note from Beth: I'm particularly excited to share this guest post with you because it is the first guest post I've had on the blog from someone who I don't personally know. I enjoyed reading it and there was much in it that I could relate to. I hope the same is true for you.
I love astronomy. The study of celestial objects has always been a source of amazement for me. If you can, for a moment, imagine life before the universe was. God in all his great power and awesomeness, surrounded by angels, looked into the vast blackness of the universe and said “I am lonely”. I sometimes look out at the night sky and wonder, if for just a moment, I could see that. Trust me, that is a terrifying thought.
I have trouble asking God for things, just like I have trouble asking people for things. I have always been independent above all things. I have never needed another human being to do anything for me. This becomes hard for all the wonderful men in my life who want nothing more than to help me when it comes to appliance repair or car repair.
If you have never fixed something, I suggest your try it, it's amazingly satisfying. When the thermostat broke on my refrigerator, rather than calling in a repair man, I spent a few hours online trying to assess the problem. With all the appliance repair websites online I couldn't bring myself to call in a professional. Five hours later I found myself the proud owner of a working refrigerator, much to the chagrin of every male in my family who was ready to call up his buddy to fix the problem or fix it himself.
Imagine, if you will, not actually needing anyone for anything. You don't need your husband to fix your car (this drives men nuts, trust me). That heavy package you just got, you will find a way to get it up the steps all by yourself. Sure no one can help you move your couch up three flights of stairs, but you can do it all by yourself. It's liberating, but lonely.
Since I moved out of my parents house at 17 (I graduated from High School and moved to my college town that summer) I have never actually needed another human being, except in extreme circumstances, and even then I spent hours trying to find a way to get on by myself. When a bad blizzard hit I drove home very late at night. I made it a large potion of the way through many cars that were pulled over to the side. I was within a few miles of home when the someone in front of me, who couldn't drive in snow, wrecked, forcing me to stop, leaving me sliding backwards down a hill. I parked my car, climbed out, and was prepared to walk a mile and a half home when an ambulance came by and I accepted a ride, only because it was almost 10pm and I was not prepared to fight wild animals. It's not within me to need another person. I want people, which is a totally different feeling, and for anyone who feels the same, a lot more intense. “Better with you, but fine by myself,” as a wise friend once told me.
It means my feelings are hurt a lot more and I try twice as hard to hold them in. It means when I love you I really don't expect you to ever do anything for me, but when you do it's so amazing and wonderful I can't help but feel so grateful. When I love you, and I don't see you I miss you like crazy and want so badly to see my friend, my love, my family, but I don't want to impose. I think that's how God feels, but his scale is infinitely larger. Here is this great divine creator who actually can get by without us, but instead, chooses to want people. God created us so he could be with us, not because he needed us, and that is a wonderful feeling.
But here is the catch, we need him. God designed us to need him, and we do, it's imprinted on our DNA. Everyone is searching for meaning in life, when in the end, being with God is the very reason for our existence. That's where I have my problem, needing God. I know in the end I do need him, as I am constantly reminded in little ways. I still can't help my nature, wanting to do things on my own and never ask him for anything. But I need to. I need to ask him to help guide me through everyday and be there with me. I need him to remind me that sometimes it's okay to be helpless and needy.
God, our great creator, made man, and still man was lonely. Man had God and with all that love man still needed a companion. “It is not right that man should be alone,” as it says in Genesis. So true. That's why God created woman, and man and woman need each other. We are supposed to need one another at some point in our lives and thus need God. So why is it so hard? Why do some of us fight so hard to be independent from everyone. Most of my closest friends are die hard hermits and it takes an act of congress to get them to go anywhere. I am not the easiest person either. We are self sufficient, and don't realize that we need to need people. We should go to church to fellowship with people of similar faith, because we need the reminder that God is amazing.
I try. Sometimes I have to let a stranger fix my washing machine because I can't fix it myself. Sometimes when my car blows up, literally, I need a lift. It kills me to not be able to do things on my own, but it's just God's way of reminding me that I need to need people. He made us that way. So I grit my teeth and pray for the patience to be okay with it. God loves to nudge me. Some of the situations I have gotten into have to make me laugh and just prove that God has a wonderful sense of humor. I think sometimes that is the only way anyone can get my attention. I have learned to laugh at a lot of things that would make most people cry. So when life throws me a grenade I simply laugh and throw a sandbag on it.
This year when I made my resolutions, my biggest was to need people more, and here is hoping it works out. I am trying to be more patient. Trying to be around people more often and really enjoy their company. In the end it's what God wants. We are supposed to be a light spread God's love to the world, which is hard to do by yourself.