Daughters of Promise November/December 2014 | Page 23

Jesus I need you.
These are the words that have been
playing on repeat in my head for the
last 14 months. All my life I have been
aware that I need Jesus, but the past
year and a half has opened a whole
new understanding of how dependent
I am on Him. Even on my best days,
I am fraught with inadequacy. I pass
up opportunities to show love. I
say hasty words. I entertain critical
thoughts. On my own, I do not have
what it takes to, as Ann Voskamp
says, “live this one life well”. Yet, I
praise God! Though the events of the
past year have revealed my deep and
startling limitations, they have also
unveiled to me the completeness of
Christ’s sufficiency.
This past year, I made a big life
transition and moved from my home
of 17 years to a new community.
Living far from family and lifelong
friends has been more difficult than I
anticipated. I came with expectations
of a seamless transition and of doing
this transplanting thing right, so I was
shocked when, instead, I felt bowled
over by the adjustments. I dreaded
going to work at the God-gifted job
I had moved for. Making new friends
turned out to be really tough. My
whole identity felt rearranged, and
in the emotional upheaval of change,
loneliness often kept me home,
hiding in my room wishing someone
would come find me. The thing about
life, though, is that it doesn’t wait for
us. I had to get up and keep going
to work, paying bills, and managing
a magazine. Many days I felt so
emotionally raw that I could barely
find the physical energy for my daily
tasks.
In the past, I met trouble with the
support of close friends and my
own mental toughness. This past
year, those sentinels of strength were
stripped from my life. I learned to
reach out to Jesus more vulnerably
than I ever have before. In the
absence of people and situations to
ease or distract me from the burdens,
I learned to lay my heart before the
Lord, telling Him my troubles, and
crying out to Him for help. “Jesus, I
need you!” became, and continues
to be, my prayer. He heard my cries,
and answered, often in the form of
Scriptural promises: “I know your
heart’s desires and will satisfy them.
You are my beloved. If you walk
with me, no harm with come to you.
I will turn your night of sorrow into
the morning of joy.” Affirmations of
His good heart toward me brought
hop