by Oluwafunke Allen
I have been sitting with a small, honest observation lately: so much of the frustration, and even the aggression, I feel in a hard moment does not actually come from the moment itself. It comes from a need underneath it that has gone unmet for far too long, quietly, without anyone — including me, sometimes — ever naming it out loud.
Name It, Don’t Wait for Someone Else to Notice
It is tempting to wait to be rescued — to hope that the people who love you will eventually notice what you need without you having to say it plainly. I understand that hope. I have lived inside it for years. But a need left unspoken does not disappear. It just changes shape, usually into something less patient than the original request would have been — frustration, short temper, a snap that seems to come from nowhere but was actually years in the making.
“You do not have, because you do not ask” — James 4:2 (NKJV). Needs are personal. That means, as uncomfortable as it is, they are mine to name and mine to lead with — not someone else’s job to divine from a distance.
Every Good and Perfect Gift
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” — James 1:17 (NKJV). Even the excellence I work so hard to produce — in my career, in my writing, in the ordinary effort of a hard day — is not ultimately a self-made thing. It is a gift moved toward me, on purpose, by a God who is genuinely interested in the details of my life. My effort matters. It is simply not the whole story.
There is a kind of rest in that. I do not have to manufacture excellence entirely out of my own striving, the same way I do not have to manufacture love and attention entirely out of my own silence and hoping. Both are meant to be asked for, received, and credited to where they actually came from.
The Honest Truth
The honest truth, plainly, is this: name the need before it turns into something harder to manage.
And remember, on the days you do get it right, that the excellence itself is still a gift, not a trophy you built entirely alone. Hallelujah.
