I Don't Need This

or do I?

“I Don’t Need This!”

Recently, I had some encounters with someone who was not showing me the kindness and respect that I thought I deserved, and the phrase kept coming into my mind: “I don’t need this!” I am almost 65 years old, and I guess I was thinking that at my age I shouldn’t have to deal with stuff like this. I felt free to walk away and say in my mind some version of, “I’m done with you.”

I was also feeling very weighed down by the fact that I am not living up to my expectations for myself. My job at school asks more of me than I can give. Teaching was like that, too. I had a dream vision of what it meant to be a teacher, and I was never able to fully realize that dream vision—not by a long shot. I feel the say way as an instructional coach. I fall short every day. Again, I think to myself, “I don’t need this!”

And of course, there is always my marriage. This new dynamic of caring for a brain-injured Tom is hard. He and I have many happy moments and joys in life, and at the same time, I have moments when the voice inside me shows me all the ways Tom falls short in meeting my exceptions—unintentionally, of course. I also see how I fail him, regularly. “I don’t need this!”

Then one morning, as I was thinking about my automatic response—“I don’t need this!”—I countered that phrase with a startling retort: “I do need this!”

Perhaps because I have pondered so often the contradictions in the Christian faith, this counter-phrase came to me. I began to think more about it. Maybe I really need this person, or this overwhelming challenge at work, or this deep call to love my husband. Maybe this is my road in discipleship, laid out lovingly by Christ to show me His way—because His ways that are higher than my ways. (Is. 55:8-9)

His ways. Learning to forgive, to put aside judgment, and to seek more to understand than to be understood, as St. Francis prayed. Learning to be weak and vulnerable and to depend on God in my work—to say to God, “My life is in Your service. Show me how to prioritize and how to be faithful in the small things with great love.” Lastly, learning to receive the gift of my life with Tom. We always desired a pure love for one another, and I believe these circumstances are the means to that end.

I need this. I need that. And I need His grace in it all.