mama3girls-phnig

I told Kaytha today that I feel like I have been trying to thread a needle for so long that my body no longer remembers what it feels like to relax.

I don’t mean threading a literal needle. I mean that feeling of trying to navigate complex systems so carefully, so precisely, so intentionally, that one wrong move feels like everything gets crushed. One wrong word. One wrong assumption. One wrong handoff. One missed cue. And somebody vulnerable pays for it.

That is what complex systems feel like to me. Marriage can feel like that. Church can feel like that. The court system can feel like that. Court Appointed Special Advocates felt like that almost every single day.

I was telling Kaytha about CASA and about the child I represented. Before everything came to a head, I had prayed something very specific. I asked God to show me which system needed to be handed off to someone capable. CASA was not the system I was hoping for. My child has my name near the center of her trusted circle of people. Think attachment. Think a child with attachment trauma. Yeah. Not her.

That wording matters, because I do not know how to simply hand the things off, especially not children with whom I have advocated full of heart, pursuit of utmost integrity in my role and turned on full brain power for almost two years. I have a heart for children.

I have found a fierce mama Lion in me that really, really, really is not going to allow a child to be unendlessly exploited. When she outcried to me about a foster placement, I felt the need to thread the eye of many systems. By the time we got in front of the judge, he issued these words to the court: “Respectfully, Mrs. Attorney Ad Litem, we are not going to let an 11 year old run this court. I believe that she can be adopted. She needs a home to go to when she is 18. If this current placement isn’t willing to adopt, we will find a family who wants to.”

My God. The breath I took after that was large. That was a heavy testimony day. I was nervous going in to it. I was granted permission to testify. My supervisor cautioned my wording be precise and that I stay in my lane, only reporting what CASA has observed.

Having said that–

I pick children up with endeavoring to build them up. I never pick a child up endeavoring to put them down. I will pass them off–but never casually.

That distinction matters to me. If I am carrying something precious, I need to know someone else has their hands on it before I release.

So when my CASA supervisor texted me the next day and said they thought it would be best if I step down, I resisted. But if I’m honest, I didn’t resist very hard, because she wasn’t wrong. She used my own words back to me.

“Your body needs a break.”

She was right.

And still, I said the thing that hurt most.

“The only person who loses is the child.”

My supervisor responded with something simple and kind.

“Jennifer, I promise I will advocate for her, and I will advocate for her well.”

Then she told me to review the court report and turn in my badge. She promised that she will always be a solid reference for me. She did not confirm that I had taken the hit so that my child could be advocated for properly. She did testify using words that probably sounded something like this (if I paraphrase from our court report)

“Your honor. Placement has told CASA that the State of Texas will not tell her what to do in her house. Placement has also blocked access to CASA to come into her home.”

He will remember the State code that exists where access to a guardian ad litem is granted by court order, not placement preference. GAL carries weight in Texas–it just doesn’t always mean the system will choose you over the code.

I did not even need to log in. I felt devastated by the decision to “step down”–but I know what Judge Stuckey would rule according to the wisdom of my supervisor’s statements.

That’s what I mean by threading the needle. It’s not that the needle didn’t get threaded. It just didn’t get threaded by me. There was a damn camel in the way. My supervisor thread it for our child.

Grief. Joy. A day off where I slept straight through and dreamt of what Judge Stuckey was going to ask of the State, the foster placement and of CASA.

Sometimes threading the needle means admitting you missed. Sometimes it means accepting that your hands are shaking. Sometimes it means letting go of someone you desperately wanted to protect in a humiliating way. Usually always it comes with the realization, for me, that I got too close relationally to the wrong person. That I forgot I was the one with the power. I don’t feel comfortable with power. I over-friendly myself. Which gets me into hot water. I lost, once again.

So who wins then?

That question stayed with me.

Later, I asked Kaytha something I’ve been wrestling with for a long time: Why do people stay in unhealthy systems? Why do we stay in marriages, churches, families, institutions, jobs, philanthropic work and relational dynamics that are actively hurting us?

I know the pat answer in my brain is “love”.

She started answering.

“Some people thread a needle…”

I interrupted because my brain had already gone somewhere else.

“To stay alive?” I asked. “To stay connected?”

She said, no–I was going to say something different. She said some people stay because they don’t know how to make a change and don’t know how to recognize when harm exists that necessitates change. She also mentioned that exploiters or harmful relational people, thread the needle too. How they keep access to us, and how they know the next right thing to say –leaving us frozen with how to leave what has become toxic inside the person.

I sat with that.

Then something strange happened. A scripture surfaced in my mind before I could fully think it through.

I said, “Why am I thinking about a verse right now?”

Kaytha looked at me. “What verse?”

I said, “It’s easier for… no…”

And then I remembered.

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
— Bible Matthew 19:24

We both just sat there looking at each other.

Then Kaytha laughed.

I stared at her.

I didn’t get the joke.

Not yet.

Then it hit me—not gently, not poetically, but like a holy interruption.

I looked at her and said, “Oh my God.”

She said, “What?”

And I finally got the joke.

“I have a damn camel blocking the eye of my needle.”

There it was.

Or at least, there was part of the problem.

Because even as the words came out of my mouth, I knew the camel wasn’t the whole story.

The eye is tiny.

Threading a needle is hard even when all you’re holding is thread. It requires steadiness, precision, patience, good light, and a regulated nervous system. Sometimes the opening itself is painfully narrow. Sometimes the system allows almost no room for human error. Sometimes you are trying to thread a needle with shaking hands.

And sometimes you are trying to thread needles in the dark.

And yes—sometimes there is also a camel.

That is what made the metaphor land so hard.

It wasn’t one problem. It was all of them at once.

A tiny opening. Shaking hands. Incomplete visibility. Accumulated weight.

No wonder I’m tired.

I have spent years assuming the primary problem was my threading—my precision, my timing, my discernment, my ability to navigate impossible systems without hurting people.

I thought the question was always: How do I thread this needle better? How do I get steadier hands? How do I become more precise? How do I miss the mark less?

And maybe that was never the only question.

Because yes, the threading matters.

But so does the burden.

A camel does not fail to pass through the eye of a needle because it lacks discipline. A camel fails because it is carrying too much mass. Too much weight. Too much cargo. Too much accumulation. Too much to fit through something narrow enough to require surrender.

And that’s when the metaphor stopped being about money.

Because riches are not always financial.

Sometimes riches are the things we accumulate and become terrified to release.

Responsibility. Control. Hypervigilance. Competence. Being needed. Being right. Being the one who notices. Being the one who carries. Being the one who keeps watch while everyone else sleeps. Being the one who believes that if you stop carrying, something precious gets dropped.

CASA badges.

That one hurt.

Because somewhere along the way, letting go and abandoning became tangled up inside me.

But they are not the same thing.

Passing something off is not the same as dropping it. Releasing responsibility is not the same as refusing love. Rest is not neglect. Surrender is not indifference.

Maybe that is what Jesus was naming all along. Not that wealthy people are uniquely corrupt, but that accumulated power—whatever form it takes—makes surrender extraordinarily difficult.

The kingdom of heaven may be less about climbing higher and more about becoming small enough to pass through—small enough to trust, small enough to receive help, small enough to admit you were never meant to carry everything.

Threading the needle, it turns out, may not simply be about becoming more precise.

It may also be about becoming willing to put something down.

And if I’m honest, that is harder for me than almost anything, because I still carry this deep conviction that if I stop carrying, somebody loses.

A child.

A marriage.

A truth.

A story.

A system.

Someone vulnerable.

But perhaps grace asks a different question.

What if someone else can carry it from here?

What if God is not asking me to thread impossible needles while dragging entire caravans behind me?

What if the thing blocking passage is not failure, but excess? Too much burden. Too much responsibility. Too much identification with being the rescuer.

I think I understand the joke now.

Sometimes the miracle is not getting the camel through the needle. Sometimes the miracle is finally admitting there is a camel there at all.

And maybe the first act of grace is simply naming it.

I have a damn camel blocking the eye of my needle.

At least now I know what I’m dealing with.