You are my Helper

Complete terror takes over when I know I need to ask someone for help
that it cannot be avoided
that there is no other way

I would gladly suffer any deprivation
than to face the panic
vulnerability
and risk of hurt rejection
that comes with having to ask for help

Acts of service are a large part of my love language.
So when I have no one to help me with practical duties and needs
I feel very unloved


somehow I feel ashamed for being an inconvenience, a burden a nuisance
when I sense the weight of my life is leaning on someone else

"Cast your care on the Lord for he cares for you" I Peter 5:7

Yes, I believe you care for me
I believe I can let the weight of my life fall down onto you
You are not annoyed
you are not interrupted from something else more important that you are doing
you are glad to see me
you are glad to help me
you are strong and able
you are not overburdened

you are wise
you are never at a loss what to do
 you are never worn out, exhausted, depleted, out of resource
isaiah will not faint nor be discouraged

you will accomplish your purposes
you are excited to include me in what you are doing
I am not an annoyance to you
I am not an unwanted burden to you
you have time, love and affection for me

you earnestly long for me to come to you
unburden my heart to you
Hannah poured out her soul before the Lord
Ps 130 out of the depths I cried to you

I don't have to be ultra nervous that it must be said just right or
an explosion will occur
You want me to speak
Job I will speak in the anguish of my soul
you wrote down all of Jobs anguished speaking you recorded it
it is a longer book than any single gospel
even when I can do no better than the raw unadulterated pain aguish rage grief sorrow bitter and crushing disappointment that is within
Yes, respect you
but yes I can speak with you
and you are not annoyed at me for asking the hard and true questions that are on my heart
you welcome them
you smile when you see me coming
instead of grimace and turn away
your face lights up to see me
your arms open wide
there is love and compassion shining in your eyes
you know what I am feeling and facing
you understand me and what will help
you even explain to me what I am feeling and why

all you want is for me to come to you
you want to be with me in my day to day life
in the ordinary and the mundane
the trivial and even the banal
what is beyond anyone else's ability to even listen to
much less stay engaged with

I do not need to fear to come to you
you will be with me
you will help me

Yes, sometimes you do have to tell me things that I are painfully true
upsetting disturbing and that require me to change
But you are right there with me, loving me
staying the distance with me
committed, unswayed or deterred by the difficulty

You are my rock my high tower my shield my buckler
you will hold my hand and lead me through this
you will be with me
right here with me
deep down inside where no one else can go

Glory to you
what an amazing God you are
I love you because you have first loved me

"Herein is love, not that we loved God but he loved us and gave his son to be the propitiation for our sins." I John 4:10

I will not leave you all alone like orphans. I wil come back to you.
If you love me you will do the things I command. I will ask the Father and he will give you another Helper. He will give you this Helper to be with you forever. The Helper is the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it does not see him or know him. But you know him. He lives with you and he wil be in you.
John 14:18, 15-17

Matthew 11: 28-30
²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

the fight to remain vulnerable

The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self–to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it.
Barbara Brown Taylor

"I don't need to give you a shot of novicaine because the tooth is already dead"
announced the dentist today as he proceeded to turn on his drill.

Such a strange sensation to know and hear him drilling on my tooth 
and yet I could not feel anything except the vibration and my own apprehension.

Although it was pretty cool to not need a shot in the tender and sensitive area of my mouth,
it was unnerving to know something once living is now lifeless and dead.

no longer sensitive to either hot or cold, pain or pleasure
indifferent
apathetic
removed from what makes us human, alive

a powerful metaphor to my soul as I find through the years, 
I wish to try to shield myself from the 'thousand natural shocks that flesh is err to."
Hamlet   by William Shakespeare

like thick fat blubber insulating my soul
little by little
layer by layer
year after year
day after day
hurt after hurt

I become encased in layer after layer of bouncy rubber
coated in teflon
nothing sticks anymore
nothing penetrates 
very little gets through 
neither love nor hurt
neither blessing nor anguish
I remain distant, removed
isolated

cocooned
safe, cozy
enveloped in my own self-absorbed soul
a swollen, bloated, empty, rubber balloon 

but vacant and isolated
so empty and numb
indifferent
apathetic

in conversation 
I can feel myself tense up
panic slowly building
I want to run fast and far away
climb into my personal bunker and slam the door shut behind me
shut everyone and everything out
including you

Help me to run to you instead
help me to run to your embrace
to your waiting smile
your open arms
your lap that waits for me to crawl up into it
your loving grin of pleasure as you see me
listen to me tell all
wrapped with your loving embrace

a place to tell you all my fears
all my stress, panic, my fears and all that overwhelms

you will listen
you will comfort
you will calm
you will help me remain human
open vulnerable
honest truthful
only you can do this
I cannot
I can only cry to you for help not to barracade myself in my bunker
but to pour out my soul to you
keep takling
keep praying
keep my soul exposed and running to you

If I stop, I will freeze
slowly but surely
lose sensation
go numb
mindless
motionless
dead

In "To Build A Fire" by Jack London,  the man thought he didn't need anybody else, that he could do it alone.
But it was colder than he realized and when he needed help, it was too far away.

also ("Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost  - such a great poem)

Let the passion and pain keep me alive by pouring it out to you!
Even anger can be a good thing when it helps me open up my soul to you. 

Pain teaches a most counterintuitive thing—that we must go down before we even know what up is. It is first an ordinary wound before it can become a sacred wound. Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to destabilize our arrogance and our ignorance. I would define suffering very simply as “whenever you are not in control.”
All healthy religion shows you what to do with your pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. If your religion is not showing you how to transform your pain, it is junk religion. It is no surprise that a crucified man became the central symbol of Christianity.
If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably become negative or bitter—because we will be wounded. That is a given. All suffering is potentially redemptive, all wounds are potentially sacred wounds. It depends on what you do with them. Can you find God in them or not?
If there isn’t some way to find some deeper meaning to our suffering, to find that God is somehow in it, and can even use it for good, we will normally close up and close down, and the second half of our lives will, quite frankly, be small and silly." Friar Rohr

Oh, Lord, may you get transformation instead of isolation in me through this
empathy and compassion rather than coldness and hardness
transparency and vulnerability rather than hiding and shutting out and obscurity
keep my open to you 
to receive your love right here and now where I am 
to receive you
to let your love fill
soothe, cool, calm
revive, enliven

Give it all to you, 
the pain, the blessings, the confusion
whatever you are giving 
give it back to you
stay with you
you are with me
here and now

I would like to share the following stories that were to me, triumphant examples of how Jesus is able to transform and enable love where there were great differences. A wonderful lived out example of learning to speak the truth in love, which is so incredibly difficult and of God's ability to create loving community among those who could never come together with out him. This so meaningful to me because I long to be in this kind of community, in my home, and larger spheres because it is not about any specific behavior but about the needed change we all need no matter what it is we struggle with or who. 

http://sarahbessey.com/in-which-i-will-become-more-undignified/

http://www.worldmag.com/2013/03/journey_of_grace/page1

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/homeschoolchronicles/2013/03/on-the-way-to-easter-mourning-with-jesus/

Tree of Life

" Hope deferred makes the heart sick
but a desire fulfilled
is a tree of life"
Proverbs 13:12 ESV

When God does grant a deep desire of the heart...
He wants to make me a beautiful,
life giving, constantly renewing
beautiful tree

like a lovely jacaranda tree
with profuse lavender blooms
that fill the air with sweet perfume
and cascade down to carpet with softness
and stunning beauty

But how easily my heart drifts from you when you bless me so
and how insidiously fear creeps in
How can my heart be kept
when all I have earnestly longed for
is before me?

Suffering draws me out of myself like the warmth and light of the sun 

 causing the petals on a flower to open and expand outward

need of you draws me out of myself

soaking in your life giving rays

bringing life and beauty
 providing nector to others

right here where I am

But when what I really really want does actually happen, 

 I feel myself closing, folding inward

wanting to withdraw again 

deep into myself

to grasp onto 

what has brought joy,
 pleasure,
love,
 affection,
calm.

But in that 

instinctive impulse

I lose you

and become unwilling to be vulnerable again

to take a risk

to extend myself in fragility with you

I want to take my treasure and go bury it away in a deep dark hole

where no one can ever take it away from me again

The sunlight fades

the beauty dies

there is no longer nourishment in me to give out
I become shriveled
withered
dying

Oh how I need you
 when I know that I need you

when I feel so desperately that I need you

Oh how I still need you even more when I no longer feel desperate, alone

forsaken and overwhelmed

I need you but might not seek you

might try to seek life apart from you

How you want to give, to bless, to love

to enjoy fellowship and communion with us

How easily we forget about you

don't make time for you

ignore your words

take you for granted

treat you in a careless flippant, disposable way

You want a relationship that had moved beyond what you can do for me

You want to know and be known 

Not for what you offer

or what you give

or what you can do 

but for who you are

21 "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things".  

Romans 1:21-23 KJV

25' Who changed the truth of God into a lie, 
and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator,
 who is blessed for ever. Amen".  
Romans 1:25 KJV

To glorify you

To thank you

to give you the proper place of God in my life

you are God

you are God

I am not god 

I am not

to offer praise and thanksgiving for each and every blessing that you give

acknowledges that it is your gift

your blessing 

your love

you are the source

you are the Sun 

from which all life depends

I cannot live without you

no matter how blessed you have made me

Oh Lord, give me a grateful heart to acknowledge you are everything

and everything you give is but a gift

give me clarity to see that whether gifts come or go

you always remain

you are the same

you are all

"He said, "Naked I came from my mother;s womb, 
and naked shall I return there;
 the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;

blessed be the name of the Lord"
Job 1:21 NRSV

the one healed leper who returned to give you thanks
acknowledging you and your wonder 

it is a fight to remain vulnerable

^"11 I am not saying this because I am in need, 

for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.

¹² I know what it is to be in need,

 and I know what it is to have plenty.

 I have learned the secret of being content

 in any and every situation, 

whether well fed or hungry,

 whether living in plenty or in want.

 ¹³ I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

¹⁴ Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles."

Philippians 4:11-14

to be content with you
in difficult deprivation,
devastating disappointment or
bountiful blessing

to trust you to keep my heart in blessing
and to keep my heart in suffering

only you can help me hold You the source
of all I truly need
you, the Sun

only you can help me stay open
as a fragile flower
vulnerable
flexible 
feeling
caring 
engaged
connected
human
alive
nourished and
nourishing

To receive whatever you give 
to give it back to you
to hang on to you
soaking in your awe
wonder and love

You are beautiful
you make your beauty
shine in me


Bless you for this post from Ann Voskamp

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2013/08/when-you-are-broken-the-now-traumatic-disorder-of-everyday-life/