Morning walks (or sometimes jogs) are habitual for me during our short Wyoming summers. I love and take advantage of the outdoors when the weather doesn’t feel like it’s trying to kill me – which is less than half the year around here. Recently, on one of those routine walks, I came across a perplexing sight. From a distance away, I could just make out a bird flapping wildly but getting nowhere. It looked like it was somehow stuck to a fence. As I got closer, I saw that its leg was trapped between two fence pickets. The leg was pinned several inches down from the top of the pickets and the poor thing was tearing its own foot off trying to get free. Nearly all the skin was off its leg and the broken foot lay dangling, stubbornly preventing the bird’s freedom.
The sight was jarring. Distressing. And even though I was flooded with compassion, I was honestly tempted to just move on. I didn’t have gloves or even an extra item of clothing to protect myself if it pecked me while I tried to help it. It was helpless and I felt useless, despite my strong desire to rescue it. I tried to walk past and pretend I didn’t see it. (Yes, as shameful as it is, that was my first response.) But I only got about 20 feet away before I turned around and went right back to the bird. I stood there panicking for a moment, entirely uncertain how to help. But I knew I couldn’t leave it. My gut told me it would likely die of exhaustion before it tore free. So, I went with the only idea that came to mind, I called reinforcements – my husband – and told him to bring gloves.
When he arrived, I apologized profusely for being a “silly girl,” because I needed help. (Why do we do that ladies?!) To which he assured me he understood, there was nothing to apologize for, and would do what he could to help. Turns out, it was a good thing I called him, because it actually took both of us pulling the pickets apart to get the bird free. James held the bird in one gloved hand and used his other to pull one picket while I pulled the other picket with both hands. We really had to wrench the pickets to get them open enough to slide the bird’s leg up and out.
Once free, James held the bird carefully for a moment, stroking its head and giving the little thing both affection and a chance to rest and recover. Eventually he set the bird down and it flew off – a broken foot but free.
The image of that trapped bird ingrained itself in my brain and for days it came to my mind. It was the kind of moment so profound that I knew God was speaking, trying to teach me something, and I needed to listen and pay attention.
Sometimes, we’re the person looking at a disaster and we know we should help. Yet we hesitate for fear of being useless, or even injured ourselves in the process. We question our ability to bring aid instead of allowing the compassion inside our hearts to motivate our behavior. If you need to call in reinforcements, then do it. Sometimes, oftentimes, they’re necessary. But then glove up and offer a helping hand. And remember, when injury and pain and fight are involved, rest is crucial and little affection goes a long way.
I think more often though, we are the bird in the situation, trapped and desperate. And no matter how strong our survival skills – even if we’re tough enough to tear our own foot off! – we won’t make it without help. I don’t know about you, but it can be really difficult for me to ask for help. I’ve gone through struggles in my life where I chose to allow parts of myself to die or become severely damaged rather than ask for help. The conviction that I am capable of doing it on my own (or perhaps the fear that people can’t be trusted to help … or both) has had me in some miserable survival situations where both the destruction and the recovery were unnecessarily difficult and long. Still, I believe the lie that it was worth it because, after all, I can pat myself on the back for doing it alone and I don’t have to face my fear that people don’t love me enough, don’t care enough, to give of themselves for my sake.
But what if the trap isn’t the painful circumstances or overwhelm or disappointment that I muscle my way through? What if the trap is self-sufficiency and the self-protect that comes from fear? A trap I cannot escape on my own, because freedom looks like vulnerability and faith and trust in someone other than myself. To be free, I have to yield. I have to surrender to the Hand that holds me, and those He sends to help wrench the fence apart. Yet I resist. I struggle to yield in that way, because yielding means I can be damaged as easily as helped. (The truth is, James could’ve ended the bird’s life more easily than the process it took to free it.) That is why we fear. That is why we self-protect. That is why we disconnect and choose self-sufficiency.
Sadly, self-protect, and the relational separation required to maintain it, guarantees its own version of injury to the soul. Humans are made, hard-wired in fact, for connection. In his recently published book, The Connection Codes, Dr. Glenn Hill discusses the human brain’s deep need for safe, healthy relational connections and, in contrast, the damage to both brain and body when a person lives in isolation. He writes that, “the negative consequences of not living connected” are “so significant” that they include “debilitating illnesses, including cancer” as well as “psychological disorders” (159-160). The dramatic mental and physical effects of isolation, like disease, are linked to lifestyle problems that plague the disconnected individual: higher cortisol levels (stress hormone), lack of physical touch, and lack of empathy and support when dealing with anxiety or other negative emotions. Dr. Hill explains that “Humans are the least likely species on the planet to survive independently … we are born needing relational connection to thrive, even to survive” (159). According to Dr. Hill, and many other psychologists and doctors like him, our ability to survive, stay healthy, and thrive in life directly depends on our ability to find and maintain healthy relationships.
My unalterable and deep-seated need for connection means that I must take the risk and lay down my fear and self-preservation tendencies. Yes, I might be disappointed or even hurt by someone else’s choices regarding me, but I might also be overjoyed at the empathy and love they willingly share. We cannot navigate hardships and pain entirely on our own. We need support. We need love. We need helping hands, listening ears and gentle hearts to walk side-by-side with us. We were not made to do this life alone, and if we’re really honest with ourselves, we don’t actually want to.
Connection, support and love are worth the risk; to give away and to receive.
Hill, Dr. Glenn. The Connection Codes:The Relational Blueprint & Tools for Creating the Relationships You Crave. 2021
I sometimes ponder how many people work so hard to avoid connection, only to eventually awaken to the reality that the life they’re pursuing actually depends on healthy connections. Great blog!