A couple of weeks ago, Winter Storm Fern made its way through the middle of the country and wreaked a highway of havoc behind it.  

The hum of chain saws and generators filled the air for days. Every now and again dark smoke filled the sky over a home that had caught fire for any number of storm-related reasons. Even now, thousands of downed trees cover the land in apocalyptic scenes that if painted in the right light, could fashion the ambiance for the next end-times video game.

As with any natural disaster, some people experienced great loss while others didn’t lose at all, and even after a decade of working in power restoration post-hurricanes, I was still surprised by the range of peoples’ experiences. Some waited thirteen days for restored power while others never lost it at all. Some people huddled together in their freezing houses while they dropped to 40 degrees Fahrenheit inside. Others moved themselves and their families into local hotels. And others, God bless them, stayed right inside their toasty, WIFI-filled, Netflix-streaming homes.

Some people lost productivity. Some people lost their homes. Others lost their lives.

Fred Rogers famously said that when he was a boy and would see scary things on the news, his mother would smile. “Look for the helpers,” she would say, “you will always see people helping.”

And that’s true.

I’ve experienced many post-storm scenarios, and I have witnessed the inevitable goodness that rises from the souls of helpers. Sometimes they’re exactly who you think they’ll be. And sometimes, they’re the last people you’d guess.

Winter Storm Fern was no different.

Expected helpers showed up exactly how I thought they would, and others popped out of the woodwork with their chain saws, shovels, and hot cups of caffeine (including twelve-year-old Hudson, who came from across the street to help me chisel two-inch thick ice from the driveway).

But this post isn’t about the givers, heroic as they may be. It’s about the brokenness of receivers. And I was one of them.

You’ve heard it countless times…“It’s more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35)

A sentiment that’s true in more ways than one.

But what I’ve been forced to come face to face with is that it’s also much easier to give than to receive.

When we give, we give from a position of strength. Ability. Most of us give out of our own abundances. And it feels good. It’s satisfying. Filling. It’s great to have something to contribute. Something we can offer. Something we can do practically, to help. There’s a satiation that happens inside of us when we give. Whether an internal pat on the back, or a self-validating nod of approval, or an intangible check of a box that stacks the elusive cologne of karma on our side of the court.

Here’s what’s true about prayer: when we ask for a thing that’s in line with the will of the Father, He’ll give it. “Knock and the door will be opened.” (Matt. 7:7)

Perhaps this is something I should have considered before I started praying for the humble, gentle and lowly spirit we’re asked to embody. Because believe me, when you pray for humility, make no mistake – He’ll grant it. No matter how much it hurts. And though my training started long before Fern arrived, she had her own way of delivering the cold, hard truth: that it is, in fact, more blessed to give than to receive; and it’s also much easier. Because to receive, you have to be humble. And humble doesn’t come easy. Ever.

Humanity has a way of showing us our own core material and mine was lifted into the light in its own destructive way. I cherry picked offers for help that came my way to maintain my perception of my own self-sufficiency while carefully choosing the help from which I could craft my most preferred benefits. A choice that bit me back, severely.

How’s that for humbling?

Out in the rest of the world, there were numerous, numerous offers for help that were politely turned down by people all over the city. Group texts, churches, fellow friends with warm houses and power and running water reaching out continuously offering their homes and heaters to people without – and story after story came back of their polite declines.

It was the oddest thing.

Families without power or running water chose to stay for a week at nearby hotels instead of with their friends across the street.

My sister told the story of her friends reaching out again and again with offers to open their homes, but no one in the group chat took anyone up on it. The people were silent during their need, and then spoke up when they had something they could offer too. They preferred to struggle in stoic silence, while help was offered and available to them.

Another friend said she and her husband offered their home to over twenty people without power and no one took them up on it.

Another friend refused help, stayed locked in his house in the cold with nothing but blankets, eating only that which he could warm with a gas stovetop. And when his power finally turned back on, he offered to share his space with anyone who needed it and got only silence in return, and shook his head at the irony of it all. 

What is it in our nature that turns us away from free and available and willing help?

Though I think it’s more than this, it’s hard not to answer in one simple word: pride. An “I’ll do it on my own” mentality. 

It’s more daring; more romantic; more dramatic; more heroic not to ask for help. Not to take it when it’s offered.

The lifted chin of individualistic excellence achieved on our own is a more touted tale, a more revered fame, a sexier success story than one where we had to be rescued by an outstretched hand.

Our western culture has set us up for failure on this one because we are a culture of sticking it to the man. With a balled fist in the air and a jaw set against all the world brings against us, we can say we did it on our own. We made it. We overcame all odds to be what everyone told us we couldn’t be.

But that’s never the case, is it? There’s always help. ALWAYS.

Remember Fred Rogers’s mother. Just look. You’ll see the helpers.

Nothing is ever accomplished on our own. We claim so much of this as our own doing, our own hard work, our own brilliance or resilience or stamina. Our own refusals to quit. But down to the very decade you were born in, the gender you are, the country, state, and city that shaped you; the family routines that crafted or allowed for your habits; your natural affinities; your likes, dislikes, interests; and the very availability of income and resources your family of origin was able to grant you – there was and is so much that you and I don’t control. That we can’t take the credit for. That we had nothing to do with.

Along the way other people made introductions for us. Other peoples’ skills and abilities made the way for our own to flourish. Other peoples’ circles of influence, shares, and likes do work for us that we can’t do for ourselves. There is so much credit to be given apart from our own ability to muscle through the muck of our own making. There is so much help we receive along the way and even more we can receive along the way – if only we choose it.

What I saw with Winter Storm Fern was a community (including me) that actively chose for things to be harder than they had to be because we were either too prideful or too stubborn or too in love with our own storyline to simply receive. 

This happens in the Refuge trilogy too. People from different lands, taught to despise each other because they’re different, are at war with one another. A rescue ship sails the ocean saving those who are injured, but in doing so, these injured and helpless people who have been taught to hate each other have to lay next to one another while they heal. They have to be lowly enough to receive. Lowly enough to accept help. Lowly enough to heal.

The cost of receiving is humility. And it’s a high price to pay because humble doesn’t come easy. It hurts. It hurts more than most lessons in life do. And in my experience, God teaches it to me by stripping me of my own self-sufficiency. Taking away one thing after the other until I’m left with nothing but ashes. Empty hands. No chance to look back and take credit for anything because He kept me at nothing. And He keeps me at nothing, even still. Even now.

The lesson of gentle and lowly does not allow for personal credit. It doesn’t celebrate success against all odds. It doesn’t romanticize a hero or shower applause upon a champion.

Gentle and Lowly is in a wrung out towel that wipes dirt and dung away from the feet of its enemies. It’s in a clean hand, laid warmly over one riddled with leprosy. It comes as a baby, helpless, born among stinking sheep in a barn. It rides in on a donkey and dies naked next to criminals. Where all credit is due, it takes none. Where every right for recognition is called for and necessary, it simply gazes upon us with acceptance, asks for nothing, requires nothing but surrender from our restless souls, and says, “Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly, and you will find rest”. 

I don’t expect I’ll ever get this right or learn all there is to learn or ever be done in the fire of sanctification, but if you see me out there, help me be lowly enough to take my place in the stinking barn. Lowly enough to take a towel to the feet of my enemies. Remind me my place is next to the criminals too.

I’m always going to need your help, and I won’t always be humble enough to receive it, but together maybe we can do something that reminds someone of the king come not to conquer, but to weep. Come not to rule, but to serve. May we be lowly enough. Lowly enough to be associated with that great King. Lowly enough. 

love, Nic