It's Okay to Ask for Help

I don't like asking for help. At all. I'll go high and low to avoid it, even if the help would give me peace of mind or save me from hours of extra work or worry that could have been avoided.

Nope. I'm absolutely, most assuredly not going to ask. Besides, I know exactly what they're going to say. They're going to say something I don't like, and it's not just that. They'll probably say something that shows how little they know me. And it's just too tiring to tell them all the reasons they're wrong, and wait, you're not supposed to swat down brainstorming ideas so you just have to politely listen, all the while boiling up inside, because they assume a lot and you don't actually need this help anymore and the whole thing was a failure...and...and...

And sometimes I just feel like it's way too much work to ask for advice.

But you know what?

It's not this whole exhausting thing. At least it doesn't have to be as long as we don't toss our pearls to swine. It's easy to let these negative interactions leave a nasty taste in our mouths. To keep us from experiencing the good parts. In our minds, we reason away the work of admitting our vulnerability because we're all flawed humans and no one has it more together than any other and anyway we know everything ourselves. But sometimes we have scraped the bottom. We are not enough, and we are being suffocated by that very 'not enoughness'. There's absolutely nowhere to go, and we've put great big walls all around us, and we are isolate because we're supposed to be able to do this on our own, but you know what?

It's still okay to ask for help. It's never too late to ask for help.

Yes, we're all flawed humans, and we don't have everything together, and some of the most respected individuals have revealed over time their sin stains to us. But being helped up by someone who stands a little taller than you, whose feet are on a more solid rock, whose love speaks loudly, is how it's meant to be. God wants us to always be growing. To be lifting our younger brothers and sisters all the while being lifted ourselves. None of us will ever fully arrive.

If you need help, ask for it because...

1. We all get worn out and tired and discouraged.

And we lose our ability to see our problems clearly. We can't get far enough away to view the big picture. We're stuck in the valley, and sometimes it's good to have a watchman up on the top telling us what is waiting on the other side or which place is easier to climb because they've already done it.

2. Nobody knows everything, even if we mostly think we do.

There's always room for learning, and every single person you meet knows something you don't. I got this pride thing. It's really hard. I'd rather exhaust every ounce of me before showing I don't have it altogether. I don't want to be viewed as stupid because I should know this and this, even though I don't. I don't want to be viewed as lazy because I could have figured this out if I'd only give it time and energy. I don't want to be a bother. Yet, on the other hand, if someone thought I could help them, I would. Without hesitation, I would give their problem, their worries, all of my attention. I'd even wonder, "Why are they asking me? Why do they think I could have this wisdom?" I am humbled by someone asking me for help. 

3. I think it's something God wants. 

There aren't a whole lot of verses exactly on the idea of having mentors or counselors, but there is a lot about us sharpening each other, encouraging each other, mourning with one another, financially helping one another. Because of the way things are structured, I believe God had that kind of thing in mind. He made families. Fathers and mothers to guide us in the way we should go, but sometimes they just can't help or are not around. He placed church elders and pastors for guiders. Sometimes even paid counselors. God can use anyone to bless us, anyone to lift us up, dust us off, and send us on our way.


Is it hard for you to ask for help or is it just me? What has been your most helpful advice? Least helpful? How do you feel about giving advice? 

Recenter

Take a breath
And let it out.
Just let me breathe
In and out.
Slow this pulse.
Slow this pace.
Pull this heaviness
From off my chest.
Stop the chase.
I can run forever
But arrive nowhere, 
If you're not there.
Force the fear 
From all my veins.
Unclench these knotted fists
And give me something to grasp,
Something like grace.
Don't gaze on imperfections.
Let me pass before you now.
Don't only see my broken.
Don't let me only see 
What I haven't got
And what I might never achieve.
Let me breathe,
Just breathe,
And try to remember.
Try to recenter myself
On something other than myself.
Slow the clock's time.
Slow the world's spinning 
So I might catch my breath
And not be left behind.
My chest is a bomb
With a fuse ever shortening.
I am only myself,
And myself is not enough.
So reach out your hand,
Uncoil these springing clock's wires.
Reach out your hand.
Maybe your touch will remember 
What peace is actually like
Because there is no peace
And no breath, no relief, 
And no curable pain
Where it's just me and myself,
And so just let me breathe.
Just lift this pain from my heart.
Remind me, after another fresh breath,
There's always a brand new start.

(My apologies for not keeping up on answering comments and reading your blogs and commenting. It's been a stressful few weeks for my family, but I hope things will start winding down a bit, and I'll get back on top of everything.)

Snapshots of September

"If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God, you'll be at rest." - Corrie Ten Boom

I didn't take as many pictures in September as I normally do because of the valley being smoked in. You couldn't even see clouds (which is maybe why I went overboard with cloud/sunset pictures after the smoke moved on). The first picture is of the sun at about 6:50 pm in the beginning of the month. It was bad.  Did any of you have to deal with the smoke? How was your Summer? The highlight? Do you love Fall? Favorite parts of it?

My Loss of Words

-Tuesday-

Doctor's Office. Whispers in the hallway. For privacy, I know, and I try not to listen, but they're talking about her. I just know it. Emergency Room. This all should be familiar, and it is, but it isn't. I sit in the corner, out of the way, and I need to fight, but I can't. I can't fix anything with my feeble human love and a needle and thread.

-Wednesday-

Hospital after work till dark. Pneumonia, but it isn't cold. Pneumonia comes with the cold weather and sickness that won't go. I stumble through the dark at home. Finish chores by 10:30. I write.

-Thursday-

Doctor's Office with someone else. Trying to fill holes, carry the weight of her worries, but I can't fill all her spaces, not hers and mine. Work. She sends me a text, 'Pray.' Hospital. Her chest trembles with each fight for oxygen. Breathing shouldn't be so hard. She is sick. Not sick like all the other hospital stays. Sick. We pray. Sister cries. I don't. Not till I'm home and alone and stumbling through the dark. Do I trust God with the lives of those I love?

I don't. 

-Friday-

She says she is scared. I want to know the deepest parts of another human, but I don't want to know that. Don't tell me. My heart cries, and I work because I can't be there. And I pray. A procedure. A test. A new room in the CCU - Critical Care Unit. My heart stops as I read the sign. And I wait outside the doors. She is drowsy. Her face half-covered with a breathing machine. In and out. In and out. Filling her lungs with the freshest air she has breathed for a month and a half of smoke. She can't talk, but there's color in her face. She is better, yet worse? 

-Saturday-

Fever breaks. It isn't a fight to breath on her own. Out of CCU to somewhere else. I sneak her cut-up melon fresh from my garden and roast and vegetables I cook. She eats more than she has since last Saturday. And she smiles. And she almost laughs. 

-Sunday-

All afternoon we watch her drowse in and out of sleep. She is better but worn. They don't know when she'll get to go home. Home. She wants to go there. She apologizes for all of this, but why? I want to cry, but she does, and I try to pick up the pieces of my saddened heart and put together a smile. It will be alright, but I don't know when or how. She asks, 'Why?' I just don't know. She drags herself along, bruised and broken and worn, and her body fights, but it's tired. And I'm tired as I try to fill all the spaces, her spaces, with me. I can't fix anything with my feeble human love. 

This life is a messy life, and I think I've lost my words. 

P.S. My blog's 1st anniversary is this week. I was going to do a giveaway but life.