There are times when I focus so much on the end result, the finished piece, how glamorous it looks, how exciting it will be, that I forget how brutal the creating process is.

The breaking before the mending.

I remember a time when I hit rock bottom so hard I didn’t think standing on my own two feet again was possible.

Back then, I blamed my pain on other people. I thought they could see me drowning, as if I were in the middle of an ocean of fear and depression, waving a flashlight for help, and I couldn’t understand why no one threw me a life vest. But how could they know my lungs were filled with insecurity, or that my oxygen had been taken over by the lies of the enemy?

I walked around like my head was above the water, as though I was swimming soundly. You would think I knew my way around the ocean, that I knew when the waves would hit or which ones would make me sink or swim, but I didn’t. I was drowning, but the worst part is I know how to swim.

You know what it’s like to put on an act every day, to look whole on the outside while your heart is shattered into a thousand pieces on the inside. Pieces you don’t trust anyone with. Pieces you can’t even try to fix yourself, because every time you pick one up and try to put it back together, you cut yourself and start bleeding again.

So you learn to keep going with the bleeding, carefully and quietly, hiding the stain, while still hoping someone might notice how much it hurts.

Then He comes.

So gentle.

So kind.

He picks up each piece, and somehow He sees Himself in them. He doesn’t see the version of me that tried so hard to have it all together on the outside. He sees the inside, the place where I had given up on myself, but He hadn’t.

He tries to put me back together, piece by piece.

But I won’t let Him.

I don’t know how to trust Him. Everyone else couldn’t fix this mess, my mess, so how could He? The people closest to me let me drown, so why is He getting in the water with me? Why is He pulling me back up? Why is He helping me? And why won’t I let Him?

Then I realised the truth.

It was pride.

Doing it alone.

We have this way, especially as women, of believing independence is a good thing. A great thing. We wear it like a badge of honour: hustling on our own, providing for ourselves, holding everything together by ourselves.

Somewhere along the way, independence turned into pride.

We stop trusting anyone else to carry us when we start to drown, partly because of the expectations we’ve placed on people and the ways they’ve failed to meet them. I expect people to look at me sometimes and see the fight behind my eyes, to see that I can’t keep treading anymore, to understand that I need a shoulder without me having to ask. I want someone to notice that something isn’t right, that I’m crying out for help but don’t know how to say it.

But when no one does, we try to become that person for ourselves.

We become the superhero no one else could be. So when He comes close and tries to help, it feels strange… unfamiliar.

I can do this by myself. I don’t need anyone. Right?

The world tells us that doing it alone makes us brave, that it makes us strong. But if I’m being honest, doing it alone made me weak.

I know, because the more I turned away from Him, the closer the sharks got to tasting my blood. My pride grew heavier. I wouldn’t let anyone in. And it took me reaching the point where I wanted to let the waves take me to finally admit the truth:

I can’t do this anymore.

I’d rather try life with the One who doesn’t run away from my broken heart, but comes closer to it.

So I swam.

I stopped drowning.

I took His hand and let Him lift me up.

I stopped listening to the fears, and I fixed my eyes on Him as we swam back to shore, together.

Let me hold your hand when I say this:

The broken pieces were never meant to fit in my hands.

I was never meant to put myself back together on my own.

For so long, I thought I needed someone to throw me a life vest, to notice me, to rescue me from the sharks. But that wasn’t what I needed at all.

I didn’t need to save myself.

I needed to stop fighting the hands already reaching for me.

I didn’t need to keep swimming.

I just needed to let Him carry me back to shore.

“He reached down from on high and took hold of me; He drew me out of deep waters.” Psalm 18:16