needy

I am needy.This is a confession of my heart to yours. A call to deeper confession to you. To us. To cease separating into "us" and "them." The ones who need and the ones who don't. As if there are ones who don't. We are all needy.This last week, I walked through a squatters village. A neighborhood of scraps pieced together. Houses, some homes...some not. Some shelters, some anything but... We gathered children we knew, and met new ones. Carrying a few while more cling to hands and clothing or bag straps...needing to hold, be held.Rain came in, falling quickly, filling the criss-crossing paths with drainage. Running off scrap metal roofs, washing the dirt of the days down hill paths...slipping into mud. Slipping. And I slipped right down the hill path too, bloody scrape on my shin.And those sweet children brushed me off, wiped my wound. I needed the ones who just a moment ago needed me. I needed the hands of the ones who had needed my hands. They got to help me. I got to be helped. I was needy.That afternoon, while serving at a ministry started 20 years ago by a man set apart by God to serve children in a community defined by "the business," I had another realization of just how much we really all just need Jesus. The children, maybe as many as half born to women who sell their bodies for a living, are left with such broken families. Our team shared a story of a family ripped apart through a drama and offered a time for us to pray for those with families torn. And many on our own team raised their hands.There was no "us" and "them"...no line between our team and the children there. Families torn on the exterior for very different reasons, but manifesting in children whose hearts are broken in the same ways. All just needing Jesus to intervene in the brokenness of their families, crying out to Him for help. Needing Him to be the only Perfect Father. Needing His protection, provision, safety, love, nurture. Crying out for Him to set free, heal, bind, redeem and restore.We all just need Jesus. So much.