Wow, happy November!! Time is really flying by here and I can’t believe that I’ll be home for Christmas in just over a month! And in less than two months I’ll be heading overseas!! Wow, life is so good. Thanks God.
On that topic real quick, I want to clarify that we are definitely heading overseas in January! We will be traveling to Central and/or South America, with the possibilities of other continents if any open up. We will hopefully find out specific countries soon, and I will keep you guys updated!!
But now onto the focus of my blog – Louisiana!! Wow, God truly is working in DeRidder. From the people we met to the places we went, it was evident that the community is special. The Lord used every single thing we did as an opportunity to teach me something, and I could easily write multiple blogs on everything I learned. But for now, I want to talk about asking for help.
I’ll admit it – I’m bad at asking for help. I like to be independent and do things myself, and acknowledging that I legitimately cannot do something just pains me. Something everyone might not know about me is I love to physically do things, and this has really been brought out in me since being here. At any given moment I will gladly go for a run, play a game, walk around, or just do anything other than sit. I just want to feel like I’m doing something productive, which is something I’m working on refining. But that’s a blog post for another day. Anyway. Serving in Louisiana really was my cup of tea, because we were pretty much doing things constantly. My team mainly cleaned up fallen trees/branches and tarped roofs, and I just wanted to be right in the middle of it. Give me a chainsaw or a hammer or any other tool and it just made my day. This was great at times, but the Lord was also walking me through being okay with not being right in the middle of things. With that, He also taught me a lot about knowing my limits.
Throughout the two weeks in DeRidder, I really tried to ask for help as little as possible. If there was a branch that was just a little too heavy to carry, I’d figure out a way to do it anyway. If there was a nail that needed to be hammered into the roof that was at a weird angle, I’d move so I could reach it better. And to an extent, this was fine. But as the time went on, I was getting a little extreme with this. I thought I was saving everyone around me from an inconvenience by doing these things, but I really was just being stubborn. Because as much as I wanted to get the work done, so did my teammates. And looking back, when I was pushing myself to carry that heavy branch, someone was standing next to me, wanting something to help with. And when I was half-dangling off the roof to hammer in a nail, someone was at a way better angle and could’ve done it easier if I just passed them the hammer.
One specific day, we were at a house, cleaning up a fallen tree. We cut the trunk into smaller pieces, but one chunk was still pretty heavy. I was struggling to pick it up for a bit, trying every grip and possible way to carry it to the burn pile. Finally I looked up and Kailey, one of my teammates, was just watching me with an amused look on her face. She asked if I needed help, and automatically I said no, that I could get it. She started to walk away as I paused for a second, accepted that I couldn’t carry it alone, and asked if she actually could help me with it. Y’all, you have no idea how hard it was for those words to come out of my mouth.
Over the next few days, I began to question why it was so hard for me to ask for help, especially in that situation when Kailey had just offered it to me. And I began to pay a lot more attention to what I was doing. When I’d get frustrated that I physically couldn’t do something, I’d remind myself that that doesn’t mean I’m useless. Everybody has physical weaknesses, and thinking that I wouldn’t is just crazy. And so I worked on allowing myself to ask for help when I needed it, instead of thinking that I needed to figure it out alone.
The Lord really used this realization to teach me. While I was struggling with admitting my physical weaknesses, He reminded me of my mental and spiritual weaknesses. He showed me that I need to rely on Him, because I can’t do anything alone. It’s okay to ask the Lord for help. When I’m scared, when I’m anxious, when I’m feeling down, He wants me to come to Him. He wants to help me when I need it. And being too stubborn to accept that just unnecessarily hurts me.
So as I’m walking through this season, I’m trying to rely more on the amazing support system I have. I’m leaning into living in community, knowing I’m surrounded by people who want to be there when I need them. People who don’t see me as an inconvenience, and a God that never will.
With love,
Brook
