Your Sign to Ask for Help (Don’t Let the Devil Keep You Isolated)

“The Devil tries to isolate people.”

My husband used to tell me this when we were dating, because I have a bad habit of pulling away when I am stressed or worried.

I thought I was doing it to protect the people around me from myself in those moments and to create the space I needed to take care of things. Then, once it was all settled, I could come back out.

I knew when I was stressed I wasn’t myself. I also knew when I was stressed I didn’t trust anyone else to fix the problem. It was my problem, after all, not anyone else’s responsibility to fix, and not something anyone else would know how to fix.

A little over a year ago, I reached a critical point. I needed help, but I couldn’t turn to the people I normally would.

And so, I did something that felt horrible: I reached out. I opened up to new people. I admitted I had lost my way. In a sense, I gave up.

But in doing so, I let light shine on places that had remained dark and hidden for too long.

This light led to action which led to more prayer and more work and undoing and rebuilding and breaking apart. But after the tearing down was finished, things were rebuilt. Wounds actually started to heal. People changed. And while I had made a great many mistakes, the people who loved me stayed. They listened. They understood. They knew me.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. These can include intentions that are paired with actions, which on the surface may be good, industrious, self-reliant, but are ultimately a lack of trust. Yes, work hard. Yes, pray harder. But for goodness sake, stop! Make time to listen and rest, too! All that work kicks up dust and can obscure your view of the reality of the situation.

Without my daughter, I don’t know if I would have seen it, the shovel with which I was digging my own grave. Asking for help didn’t feel brave, it felt miserable and weak.

But the second I fell at His feet, He sent people to pick me up, people He already had waiting in the wings.

And now, I am healing. Because we are not made to do anything alone: we are made to do everything through Him.

Ask Him to send you help. Then, be ready to open up.

Trust Him: His Mercy is New Every Morning ❤️