There have been occasions I have prayed for help. I’ve wanted nothing more than for someone to tell me everything will be fine and for that person to hold my hand while helping me make all the right decisions. Even Bill Withers said “we all need somebody to lean on.”
Help has revealed itself to me on several occasions as a deafening silence to stand up and help myself. You want to know where strength comes from? It comes from despair. Strength comes from calling out and receiving no answer. Strength comes from paralyzing fear and hurt feelings. Strength comes from having no choice but to get up and walk out in the light of day. The process does not feel good, but the outcome is absolutely liberating.
Sometimes help arrives, but not in the form desire. Help sometimes comes with the truth. In order to receive help, the truth needs to be acknowledged and dealt with. I know people who have opted to remain stuck than to have to face the truth and handle the accompanying discomfort. Acknowledging and facing the truth is brief because once the initial discomfort of the ugly truth is received, you have to do something about it. There is no time to wallow in self-pity. However, to consciously decide to not face the truth and unease of change is to be sentenced to a much longer suffering.
Help comes; it always does, but then change is close behind. Some of us do not like change.
Some people prefer the unpleasant state of stagnation to the temporary discomfort of growth. There is no right or wrong; there is simply choice. Everyone has the choice: be something or do something different to change a situation, or expend great amounts of energy resisting change to remain the same. There was a point in my life when I decided I would welcome discomfort, whenever it presented itself, as an opportunity for growth. I am often challenged to be kind, loving, forgiving and gracious when I do not want to be. There are times I step up to the challenge, and there are times I fail. I keep trying, and I keep growing.
Some people prefer the unpleasant state of stagnation to the temporary discomfort of growth. There is no right or wrong; there is simply choice. Everyone has the choice: be something or do something different to change a situation, or expend great amounts of energy resisting change to remain the same. There was a point in my life when I decided I would welcome discomfort, whenever it presented itself, as an opportunity for growth. I am often challenged to be kind, loving, forgiving and gracious when I do not want to be. There are times I step up to the challenge, and there are times I fail. I keep trying, and I keep growing.
The scariest outcome of receiving help is the ultimate price to pay which is being transformed. There are tall tales about people selling their souls, but when examined from a metaphysical point of view, it is true. A desire to be helped out of a situation requires the kind of change that is permanent. No one can remain the same person once his/her life is profoundly affected. There is a shift in soul perspective that has to take place to ascend and evolve. I can ask for $100 which might help me pay a bill; that is not profound change. To create the mindset and habits of a wealthy person, there are certainly spending habits and ideas about money that I will have to eliminate from my life forever in order to experience that kind of transformation. Whatever the desire is, the willingness to change has to be passionate.
The only thing constant in the universe is change...so let go.
Growing up I've always heard of the phrase "God helps those who help themselves". I never really understood it until I was grown up. Yet I never did anything to help myself. I always prayed for change for a better job, a better car. It was until I realized that i needed to change something within me to make things happen. I took the next step in my small career to take an extra exam to be certified. What happened next was that I got a job offer that needed a certified person. Now I feel the same way again so what did I do now I enrolled in college to get that better job once again. I really like what you said, "Strength comes from having no choice but to get up and walk out in the light of day. The process does not feel good, but the outcome is absolutely liberating". It is so true my journey has not been easy but at the end I will succeed and be in the place I've always wanted to be in . I have always been scared to do something new. I never went to college out of high school for the same reason i was scared. After my first week of college I felt liberated by that fear. What was I scared about?
ReplyDeleteIn paragraph 3 you mentioned how we ask for help but received it in a different form. The truth, yes i believe this is the way to get the best help. I've been told i am a very negative person. I have complained about many things in my life. One day I was just complaining and nagging as always. Until a family member asked me,"What have you done to change the situation"and of course I was told many other things. My response, "Nothing". but just like you said hearing the truth was something I needed to hear. To the point where I was not comfortable complaining about anything so I would not have to hear the same question again. So far it helped me so much because now i think to do help myself before asking for help.