"Do you want to know the "right" answer?"
Me: "I want to hear what you think the right answer is, but I want to hear your answer."
Friend: "Well, the "right" answer, 'Jesus died for our sins & we're redeemed' - but me? I have no idea."
This followed with a little more conversation in which I mentioned that I think scripture says our worth is based on us being created in God's image-not necessarily the redemption.
I also shared that when I was in a similar spiral I prayed for God to help me to feel what I knew. I also probably kept him longer than was good for either of us.
All during that conversation, I was trying to remember when I felt the same way.
Once I did. It's been such a long time though, I don't feel that way any longer and haven't for quite a while. I don't want to forget though.
It's one thing to repeat the "right" answers, or to correct someone's "right" answers, but until you've gotten inside someone's anguish and tried to really understand the problem, I've found that people (others have done this to me and I've done it-God forgive me-to others) tend to shoot over the heads of the people they're trying to help, and after blowing the smoke from their barrels with a satisfied smile, they get irritated that their patient can't see that their problem has been neatly solved. Maybe they'll reload and try again. Maybe they'll blame the patient's obstinacy. Maybe they'll blame the patient for something else.
But maybe, just maybe, there is a God in heaven,
A God who hears prayer and does, really does, something about these things.
I have a regimen of praying - or trying to pray.
Oh God, help me to stop just talking to the ceiling & beg you with something like reality for the things only you can do.
