The Devil Loves a Woman Who Needs Nobody:

Yesterday I wrote about the woman who needs to be needed, the one who becomes so woven into everyone else’s problems that usefulness begins to feel like identity.

There is another type of woman we have to be careful not to become— She has learned a different way of protecting herself.

Instead of needing to be needed, this woman needs no one .

At least that is what she has spent years telling herself.

Modern culture has been whispering this into the ears of young women for a long time now, and sometimes the whisper has become something closer to a cheer.

“Build your own life.”

“Make your own money.”

“Never depend too heavily upon a man.”

“Keep an exit plan.”

“Protect yourself.”

“If people become difficult, leave.”

“If someone disappoints you, cut them off.”

Somewhere in the middle of all that self-protection, independence begins sounding almost like the highest form of maturity a woman can achieve.

A woman who needs nobody appears strong.

She can pay her own bills, make her own decisions, solve her own problems, carry her own burdens, and keep moving when somebody lets her down.

There are good intentions hidden inside some of that.

A woman should possess competence.

She should grow in wisdom.

She should know how to work hard, make sound decisions, and function like an adult rather than expecting everyone around her to continually rescue her.

But there is a difference between becoming capable and becoming unreachable.

That line can be crossed so gradually that a woman does not realize how alone she has become until life finally places something in front of her that cannot be carried by one set of shoulders.

Scripture never presents complete human independence as the goal.

In fact, before sin ever entered the world, God looked upon Adam and said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” Genesis 2:18.

Think about that.

This was Eden.

There was no sin.

No dysfunction.

No abuse.

No fallen world making human relationships necessary because everything had gone wrong.

And still God said it was not good for man to be alone.

We were created for relationship.

We were created to need God, and within His design we were also created to live connected to other people.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow.”

There is an assumption in those verses that sooner or later somebody falls.

I have.

So have you.

And when that happens, there is mercy in having somebody close enough to notice.

A woman who needs no one may have learned her independence honestly.

Perhaps people failed her.

Maybe depending upon someone once left her humiliated, disappointed, abandoned, or carrying consequences she never wants to experience again.

She may have spent childhood watching a mother trapped in a literal abusive situation because she had no resources of her own, and somewhere inside decided that nobody would ever possess that much power over her.

Sometimes self-sufficiency begins as a wound dressing.

Eventually it hardens.

She becomes the woman everyone admires because she always handles things.

She rarely asks for help because she would rather stay up half the night figuring something out than admit she cannot manage it alone.

When somebody offers assistance, her first response is almost automatic.

“I’m fine.”

That sentence covers an enormous amount of loneliness.

I know women who will gladly serve everyone around them while becoming deeply uncomfortable when someone tries to serve them.

Receiving exposes need.

And need feels dangerous.

That posture eventually reaches marriage.

A woman can marry a good man and still hold part of herself outside the relationship because she has spent too many years learning that dependence equals vulnerability.

She may love her husband while making very certain he understands that she would be perfectly fine without him.

Perhaps she would.

That is hardly the point of marriage.

Marriage asks two people to build one life.

Genesis 2:24 says, “and they shall be one flesh.”

Oneness requires a kind of mutual vulnerability that independence resists.

You have to allow another person’s decisions to affect you.

You have to trust.

You have to receive.

You have to admit that another human being contributes something to your life that you could not simply replace without loss.

Those realities can feel frightening to someone who has built her safety around needing as little as possible from anyone.

Modern culture frequently celebrates the woman who can say, “I don’t need a man.”

I have always found that statement sadder than empowering.

A wife should never make her husband carry the impossible burden of becoming her entire source of identity, security, worth, or happiness.

Only God can fill those places.

Still, why would we boast that we do not need the person God gave us to share our life?

My husband brings things into my life that I do not possess on my own.

His perspective has steadied mine.

His strengths have covered weaknesses in me.

His presence has altered the shape of my life so thoroughly that pretending I have somehow remained a completely independent unit would deny the very nature of marriage.

Needing one another appropriately is part of the gift.

First Corinthians 12 speaks of the church as a body, and Paul says, “The eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee.” 1 Corinthians 12:21.

I think that verse reaches farther into our modern obsession with independence than we sometimes allow.

“I have no need of thee.”

How easily we say versions of that.

I do not need church.

I do not need older women speaking into my life.

I do not need accountability.

I do not need help.

I do not need anyone knowing that I am struggling.

Then we wonder why so many people are surrounded by communication and starving for fellowship.

You can have hundreds of contacts in your phone and nobody who knows when you are not okay.

You can receive messages all day and have no one you would call at two in the morning.

You can become so successful at protecting yourself from disappointment that you also protect yourself from being deeply known.

The devil loves that arrangement.

Isolation gives him room.

When nobody knows the truth about us, our thoughts can become very loud.

Fear grows without contradiction.

Bitterness has nobody close enough to challenge it.

Bad decisions become easier when the only counsel we consistently receive comes from ourselves.

Proverbs 18:1 says, “Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom.”

There is danger in separation because we lose the correction, encouragement, comfort, and perspective that God often sends through other people.

I think this is especially important for Christian women because Scripture repeatedly places us in relationships of mutual care.

Titus 2 assumes younger women need older women.

Galatians 6 tells us to bear one another’s burdens.

Romans 12 tells believers to be “kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love.”

The Christian life was never designed as a solitary climb where the strongest person reaches the top alone.

Even our Lord, who needed nothing in the way we do, lived among people.

He ate in homes.

He traveled with disciples.

He allowed women to minister unto Him of their substance.

In Gethsemane He brought Peter, James, and John farther into the garden and said, “tarry ye here, and watch with me.” Matthew 26:38.

There is no shame in wanting someone near.

That may be one of the things our culture has robbed women of.

We have confused dependence with helplessness so thoroughly that sometimes we feel embarrassed admitting ordinary human need.

Yet there will be seasons when we need somebody.

A baby comes and one woman cannot do everything.

A parent becomes ill.

A marriage goes through something hard.

Grief enters.

The body fails.

Eventually life finds the places where our carefully constructed independence is insufficient.

When that happens, the ability to receive becomes its own kind of humility.

I think some women need to learn how to say yes when someone offers help.

Let the meal come through the door.

Let your husband handle something without redoing it afterward.

Tell the trusted friend that you are struggling before you have already solved the problem.

Allow the older woman to speak wisdom into something you do not understand yet.

Needing others does require discernment, because people remain fallible and dependence can become unhealthy when we ask another person to occupy the place that belongs to God.

But complete independence carries its own danger.

It becomes pride wearing work boots.

“I can handle it.”

“I’ve got it.”

“I don’t need anyone.”

Eventually those words can become so central to a woman’s identity that even God is kept at arm’s length.

We may pray while still believing the outcome depends entirely upon us.

We ask Him for help after we have exhausted every strategy of our own.

We speak about trusting Him while living as though strength means never reaching the end of ourselves.

Yet Christianity begins with need.

We come to Christ because we cannot save ourselves.

We remain dependent upon Him because apart from Him we can do nothing.

Jesus said in John 15:5, “for without me ye can do nothing.”

That is a humbling foundation for any person who has made self-sufficiency a virtue.

And perhaps when we become comfortable admitting our dependence upon God, we also become less threatened by the appropriate ways He has designed us to depend upon one another.

Yesterday’s woman needs everyone to need her because dependence makes her feel important.

Today’s woman has built a life where she needs no one because dependence makes her feel unsafe.

Both need to loosen their grip.

There is maturity in knowing how to stand, and there is maturity in knowing when to reach for another hand.

We were never created to be our own little islands, emotionally self-contained and proud of how little anybody matters to us.

And sooner or later, every one of us discovers that being strong enough to need nobody is a very lonely kind of strength.

The devil would gladly leave a woman there.

I would rather have enough humility to admit that God has given me people because I was never supposed to do all of life without them.

And when my hand needs another hand, I want to be wise enough to reach for it.

Will you?

Biblical Womanhood

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