Um... Right. Forgot!

I don't like being confronted. Really, I suppose few people do. It is highly uncomfortable, and very humbling. But once in a while, God deems it necessary to use someone in my life to point something out to me that I'm missing.

A good friend came to my house today. I was tired, and spouting off about how things have been at our house, not wanting to complain, but not sure how to explain, or even whether I should explain. I was airing my gripe about having no one to help me when my friend leveled her gaze at me and queried, "Have you asked for help?"

I started squirming internally.

"I've asked..." I've blogged about it. Can't people see that I need help? Aren't they just supposed to offer?

"Who have you asked?"

I mentally ticked off down the list of my friends - the people I'm comfortable asking for help. Let's see. AZ, NH, CA, DC, Central VA. (Nope. Nobody close enough to ask. I wouldn't want to inconvenience anyone. Safely justified. "Well..."

"I've offered to help you before."

Gulp. "I forgot." I had overlooked it.

I'm not sure at the moment if it is pride or fear that keeps me from asking others for help. I think I'm a more private person than my blog would suggest - I don't like having people in my house that I don't know really well. I don't like asking for help and risking rejection.

I've already walked that path to rejection. I've been the high maintenance friend, the clingy, helpless damsel in distress. I never wanted to end up there again.

But asking for help doesn't mean that I'm being clingy or high maintenance. If someone can't help, it doesn't mean they're rejecting me personally.

If they can help, we might both be encouraged.

I don't want to be vulnerable, but I do want to be vulnerable. I want to be vulnerable so that I can share of myself with others, so I can share what God is showing me and doing in my life. Being open on a blog where people sometimes comment is one thing, but opening myself to ask for actual physical help from someone is another.

I'm just starting to learn how to ask God for help. It involves humility, going to Him and letting Him be God, trusting Him to provide, even when I can't arrange my life myself.

I think I need to learn to do the same when it comes to asking others for help. (At least the humility part - not the letting them be God part. *wink*)

In the meantime, I am grateful for at least one very solid offer of help, and for a good friend who is willing to tell it to me like it is. I suspect we probably need to talk more often...

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: if one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!
~Ecc. 4:9-10