Independence is Overrated.

[Hey, Zab, listen up, this is me being more specific about something I was vague on before ;)]

Remember that time I was all "I learned a lot on tour" and "I'll tell you about it sometime". Sometime is now.

I have been saying that the biggest lesson tour taught me was to trust, but before that, I needed to learn that I needed to learn to trust.

I've spent most of my life looking for ways to accomplish things on my own; I've always hated asking for help, appearing weak, or seeming like I didn't know what I was doing (even if I didn't, I liked to seem like I did, which is a whole other story that involves my eventual personal commitment to total honesty).

It was actually the insistence of a particular teammate that got me to consider, not for the first time, but perhaps seriously for the first time, the idea that I couldn't live like I had been. It's not possible to live independently of everyone else. We all need people. Not in the same sense that we need God, of course. Anyone could live without people, but not in the way God desires us to.

He tells us to commune together, to live, and work, and love together. Each individual Christian is a member of the Christian body. Inseparable.

I can't go it alone; as they say.

I've become quite adept at...googling my problems. That can be taken in so many ways, I guess, but what I mean is just that if I ever need to figure out anything (like a technological problem, or the answer to a simple question) I'll probably ask Google first.

This philosophy, for a long time, flowed into my personal "issues", not that I have many, but...if I was ever frustrated I tended to keep it to myself, because I didn't want to "bother" anyone with my "problems". Gee, that's a lot of air quote usage. Not to say I'm not self-centered, I am, obviously, since I'm a person, but I liked to pretend that I could make everyone else think that I wasn't. By never asking for help. Ever.

Alone, as it were, without my family, for an extended period of time, for the first time, tour forced me to reconsider.

What if I did need to talk to someone? Tour is an awesome experience; but it can be stressful too, and exhausting--both physically and emotionally.

Have you ever heard the expression "it'll feel better just to tell someone"? Yeah, well, I always ridiculed such statements, because I wanted to see how long I could do it alone.

I wasn't fooling anyone though, I wasn't doing it alone, anyway...I wouldn't be where I am without God holding my hand, carrying me, the whole way. I was an idiot to believe I could do anything alone.

And who was I to shun the helping hand of my brothers and sisters in Christ?

When I got to this point; when I saw through my own self-deception, that is when I realized that I would have to learn to trust. And that's another story for another day.

Sorry this was kinda long, thanks for sticking around if you did :)

-Kmac

p.s. Mom, this doesn't mean I never trusted you, or the rest of our family, I do and I have. This was more directed to...people outside our immediate family. Just to clear that up. =)