Raspberry Iced M

Today is Independence Day.

As Americans, we tend to celebrate independence as something unquestionably good.

Freedom. Strength. Self-sufficiency. The ability to stand on our own.

And those things have their place.

But I have also learned that personal independence comes with a price. Especially when it is learned and not necessarily chosen.

I didn’t become independent overnight. I became independent one disappointment at a time. One unanswered need. One problem I had to solve by myself. One lesson that whispered, “Figure it out.” Over time, I stopped expecting rescue. I stopped expecting people to notice. And I stopped asking for help. I simply learned to carry my own weight. And eventually, it became who I was.

There are parts of it for which I am genuinely grateful. I am resilient. I don’t panic when things are collapsing around me. I have learned to adapt. To work. To think outside of the box. To keep going even when I don’t feel like it. I am resourceful, capable, reliable. When something needs to get done, I am the one who figures it out.

Those are gifts.

But every strength has a shadow.

The same independence that has made me capable has also made me unreachable. When you’ve spent years convincing yourself that you don’t have anyone in your corner, you tend to accept love in more practical ways, as if “help” is so rare that you find more value in it than affection.

The Lord never asked me to do life alone. Strength is admirable, but isolation isn’t. Even Jesus surrounded Himself with people and accepted help. He shared meals. He asked His friends to pray with Him. And if the Son of God didn’t choose isolation, I am not sure why I sometimes believe I have to.

Independence is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. Eventually, it starts to convince you that needing people is failure. Or that there is something fundamentally wrong with you if people don’t offer to help. Or that people who cast me with all of the responsibility of solving a problem have somehow decided that I only exist to make their lives easier.

And that’s not love at all.

I will probably always be an independent person. It’s part of my story. It’s part of how I have survived.

But I am realizing that there is a difference between being capable and believing I have to do everything alone.

On this Independence Day, I am personally grateful for the resilience I’ve built. But I am equally grateful that God is teaching me that strength is not measured solely by what I can carry. Sometimes it’s measured by what I choose to intentionally set aside. Because there is freedom in independence, but there is also freedom in the realization that I don’t have to do it all.

Happy 4th from my family to yours.