You lift your arms because someone asks you to. A sleeve slides over one wrist, then the other. You wouldn't have chosen this shirt, but you say nothing. You needed help just to get it on.
For most of your life you dressed yourself half awake, without a thought. Now it takes another person's hands. Maybe a stroke did this. Maybe the years did it slowly.
So you apologise. You say sorry when someone helps you to the toilet, and sorry again when the spoon slips. Behind every apology sits a quiet fear that a person who needs this much help is worth less, to the people around you and perhaps to God.
On the night before the cross, Jesus "got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist" (John 13:4). He knelt with a basin and began to wash his friends' feet. When he reached Peter, Peter refused.
"'No,' said Peter, 'you shall never wash my feet.' Jesus answered, 'Unless I wash you, you have no part with me'" (John 13:8).
Peter's no looked humble. Underneath it, he wanted to stay the one who served and never become the one who needed.
Jesus would not accept it. He made receiving care a condition of belonging to him.
Needing help with your buttons does not make you any less his disciple.
A few weeks later, on a beach after the resurrection, Jesus told Peter how his life would end.
"'Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.' Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God" (John 21:18–19).
Jesus was describing Peter's death. Still, his words fit every loss of control: someone else dressing you, someone else choosing the way. Jesus softened none of it, and he still tied that loss to the glory of God.
In the same breath, he called Peter forward: "Then he said to him, 'Follow me!'" (John 21:19).
Jesus said "Follow me" to a man he had just told would be led where he did not want to go.
Following Jesus does not end when independence ends. Peter kept following while others led him. You can too. Today that may mean letting the aide finish your buttons without apologising. It may mean taking the arm someone offers on the way to the dining room.
You may still wish you could do it all yourself. That wish is honest, and you don't need to hide it.
Tomorrow someone will lift your arms again and slide a sleeve over your wrist. Those hands are doing what Jesus did with a towel and a basin. And you, arms raised and shirt half on, are doing what he asked of Peter. You are letting yourself be washed.
You still have a part with Him.
