I Don't Want to Help People

Confession: I don't really want to help people. That's not my mission or life goal.

I want to be in a position where I can be part of the celebration of people.
At my old job, we had these called "hope stories". At the beginning of every formal/informal meeting, someone shared a hope story and we had to constantly send them in. And for whatever reason, I hated them. I like hope, I like stories, yet I hated these hope stories. As I thought more, I realized it's because they weren't told in a way that highlighted the strength of the persons who came, but rather said, "look at this broken person who came to us and we helped them". All the hope stories did was elevate us as better than those who came to us for help. And that's when I started to realize I didn't want to help people in the normal sense of the phrase.

I'm not a social worker to help people. I'm not doing my job to help people. I'm here because I believe in people. I believe in the strength and resiliency and dignity of people. I can "help" people in realizing that. But the individuals I work with help themselves. Below is one of my favorite posters. All I'm doing is handing out sticks. My job is to know the people I work with and hand them sticks, provide resources. They're doing all the hard work. People don't usually need help. They need someone to care and give them a stick.

When  I was in grad school, I was conflicted because I did believe in the phrase pull yourself up by your bootstraps, yet it seemed like my new role was to believe the opposite of that and I struggled with that cognitive dissonance. I had to figure out how to meld the two viewpoints together. And while I still believe in that phrase, I also believe that there are so many other steps before that and that's where my role is. 

Before you can "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" you have to know/have the following things:

1. What bootstraps are
2. How to use bootstraps
3. Have boots on
4. Know that you have boots
5. Find/buy your boots if you don't have them
6. Use your boots and move once you've "pulled yourself up"

With some individuals, they need support with all 6. Some just 1-2 of them. And that's my role. To identify which one(s) they need. Or maybe they just want to go barefoot or with another pair of footwear and figure out how we're going to do that.

It's not about me. It's about them. I don't think people need help. I think people need to know someone cares about them, believes in them, unconditionally supports them, advocates for them, is willing to meet them where they are at and sit in the discomfort, and cares enough to not let them stay where they are.

That's what I believe is my role and that's how I do my job. 

Matthew

I spent most of my day reading the book of Matthew, from the Bible. Here are a few things I got from it:

• Jesus raises the standard (Matt. 5:21-24)
• Serve others and do more than they expect (Matt. 5:38-42)
• Love more than expected. Include people. Get out of your own comfort zone and greet and engage with various people, who aren't like you. The world is big, be part of it. (Matt. 5:43-48)
• Take time for people, without losing sight of your mission. (Matt. 9:18-26)
• He doesn't need us, but he wants us. He desires for us to be part of His mission. (Matt. 10:1-17)
• Jesus respects other cultures/customs (Matt. 17:24-27) 
• When earnest questions are asked, He responds (Matt. 13:36-37)
• We are all invited to the Kingdom, and we all have a choice if we want to accept or not. If we choose yes and go, we have to know the cost. And we have to be prepared for that cost. (Matt. 22: 9-14)

To Be Known

The kind of person I want to be known as:

• Someone who takes time to really see and know people
• Someone who believes people are worthy of love and belonging
• Someone who is willing to take time for others
• Someone who adores and worships Christ, the Messiah
• Someone who spends money to better the world, other people, self

Head Injury Thoughts

For whatever reason, I've started thinking about my past head injury a lot lately. I've been thinking about how much it impacted me, then and now. And how much it just...kind of wrecked my life, to be honest. Sometimes I joke that it ruined my life. And it didn't, I don't know why I feel that way, but I do.

I'm looking back at my blog entries (begin in July 2013) to see my chronicles from the time. It's amazing the detail I put into it. It's evident of when I was doing better and when I wasn't. As I'm reading through them, I'm getting tears in my eyes because it's so clear that the girl who wrote those was seriously struggling. And I can see more and more when I look in hindsight as to why people were so concerned. I'm concerned about the girl who wrote those! You can just see the struggle and the emotional roller coaster of that time. There were so many posts that I would say, "I'm finally doing better!" And then the next post is, "Nope, not doing well." And then I realized, I just kind of suddenly stopped writing about it. Oye to the poodles!

Weirdly, after reading those entries, it has calmed me down a lot and helped me better process. This type of journaling has been really helpful for me. Thanks for being part of it. 

Brokenness Aside

The first time I heard this song, I wasn't a huge fan. But now, I'm hooked. It's called "Brokenness Aside" Will your grace run out if I let you down? Will you call me child when I tell you lies?

You take brokenness aside and make it beautiful. 

Something I struggle a lot with is jealousy. It's one of those struggles that's on the "inside" so it's something I can hide. It's one of those that can be disguised as good, because it can push me to do more and be more and attain more. It's something that can encourage me to work harder. It's also something that eats me up and swallows me. It's something that I have always struggled with. And some days I do better with than others.

Here lately, I've been losing the battle. Typically, I'm genuinely excited and happy for other people and their lives and accomplishments and such. But there are times when...not so much. And the not so much part comes from a lot of my own insecurities, the root one being that I'm not good enough. Which is something that has been woven throughout the writings here, something I've been able to start to verbalize or write and wrestle through. Again, some days I do better than others. Most days, I do better than before I could talk about it. And I do even better since I was able to identify it.

And what I just so love about Christ is that I can be comforted in that I am enough. And more than that, He is enough. A lot of Christianity is about how people sin and screw up and really, about how we aren't good enough on our own. But that's the just the first part. If you only look at that part, Christianity is kind of mean. But it's so beautiful because Christianity is also about this God who loves people so much, despite everything, and he came in the flesh and met us in our brokenness. And he said I love you, I love all of you. He takes my brokenness and makes it beautiful.

There is another fantastic song by Shane and Shane called "Embracing Accusation".
The father of  lies...All of my hopes of being good enough, I hear him saying cursed are the ones who can't abide. He's right. Alleluia, he's right. The devil is preaching the song of the redeemed, that I am cursed and gone astray, I cannot gain salvation. 

It then goes on to say...
The devil is singing over me an age old song. That I am cursed and gone astray. Singing the first verse so conveniently over me. He's forgotten the refrain...Jesus saves! 

We so often forget the refrain when looking at brokenness and sin. Yeah, it's there. But that's part of the beauty of Christ. Jesus saves. And alleluia, that is beautiful.

I struggle with jealousy. I let people down. I lie to myself and sometimes to others. And yet, I'm still loved, I'm still forgiven, I'm still redeemed.  

Role Clarity

I'm wide awake, draw me close, stirred by grace
All fear removed, I breathe you in and lean into your love

I'm not always good about extending grace to people. I like labels, I like boxes, I like role clarity. This past week, I've been really focused on role clarity. I was feeling off and my supervisor asked if I felt supported and I sat and thought and said, you know...I don't actually. And we talked about what I wasn't getting and they've responded really well.

One of my issues was role clarity. I was unclear of my role when it seemed to overlap with others. Our job descriptions started to bleed into each other and I was unsure. I needed role clarity, I needed to know what my job was, what was expected of me, what was not expected of me, and to clearly know what parts are actually unclear.

I have also realized that this extends to my personal life, not just my professional life. I need role clarity. I need to know my role in other people's lives. I want to know if I'm just another person, a friend, a good friend, a confidant, a best friend, a sister, a student, a daughter, an acquaintance. I am, for the most part, fine once I know my role. Even if I don't like my role. But I need to know my role and I struggle when I don't know who I am to someone.

But life is messy and relationships are messy and I can't always get role clarity and a label and a box like I want. And I get frustrated and lack grace. Because I'm messy, too.

But I can be confident, right now, in my role with Jesus. That right now, I can just lean into his love. And I can breathe here. And I can be sure in that. And that's enough. 

Jesus Feminist

I've read about 4 books in the past 2 weeks, one of them was called Jesus Feminist.

In college, I took a history of women and gender studies class and I hated it. Nearly every person in that class were those who would truly embrace the word feminist and I didn't want to be that. I'm not sure how long the reclaiming of the word has been (I really hated that class) but over these past few years I've been noticing a shift in a lot of words and reclaiming of them. And I've since realized that actually, I am a feminist.

Not in the way that my classmates were in college, but in the way of believing that women are people and women are worthy. Just as worthy as men. And to be honest, I'm not even sure if I've totally believed that my whole life and just didn't put a name to it. I have had a lot of questions regarding the Church and women, I just didn't know what my questions were. And I didn't know how to ask or who to ask.

A lot of this "blog" is me processing through my questions. Because I have so many and so much of my life was to not ask questions. If you have questions, you're stupid. I don't know where I got that from, because my parents are awesome and I had pretty solid schooling, but somehow that statement was ingrained into me. And as such, I didn't ask a lot of questions, K-12. I sat in class, or sat in church, took notes, and tried to figure things out on my own.

Anyways, back to questions regarding womanhood, feminism, and Christ. And I saw this book in two bookstores and decided to buy it.  (That links to Amazon.) I didn't know how to correlate my passions for education and career and work with the Church and ministry. I didn't know how to be a woman wholly in love with Jesus. I didn't think I was allowed to be a warrior, in any sense of the word. I didn't know how to say,

I'm a woman and that's beautiful and my Jesus loves me and I can be part of His mission. 

Sarah Bessey, author of Jesus Feminist, makes the statement,"patriarchy is not God's dream for humanity" (p. 14) and that resonated with me a lot. Because, doesn't it feel like that's what the Church says sometimes? 

After years of reading the Gospels and the full canon of Scriptures, here is, very simply, what I learned about Jesus and the ladies: he loves us. He loves us. On our own terms. He treats us equals to the  men around him; he listens; he does not belittle; he honors us; he challenges us; he teaches us; he includes--calls us beloved...Jesus loves us...In a time when women were almost silent or invisible in literature, Scripture affirms and celebrates women. (p.16-17)

There is so much more, each chapter is strong and pieces of it resonated with me. And I may continue to process here. There were discussion questions at the end too. Overall, I loved that it was a book that said, hey there are different points of view and that's awesome. It wasn't a book that said this is how it is, but rather a book that said, hey, here's what I'm getting. What do you think? Let's wrestle together. 

Another part I loved was this (I hope I'm not breaking copyright laws!):

Stay there in the questions, in the doubts, in the wonderings and loneliness, the tension of living in the Now and the Not Yet of the Kingdom of God, your wounds and hurts and aches, until you are satisfied that Abba is there too. You will not find your answers by ignoring the cry of your heart or by living a life of intellectual or spiritual dishonesty. Your fear will try to hold you back, your tension will increase, the pain will become intense, and it will be tempting to keep clinging tight to the old life; the cycle is true. So be gentle with yourself. Be gentle when you first release. Talk to people you trust. Pray. Lean into the pain. Stay there. And the release will come. 

I know you have questions, and they're much bigger than the whole church-women-feminism-equality issues. I know. Me, too. Still. So I'll carry you in my heart. Stay as long as you'd like; I'm in no rush. Hurry wounds a questioning soul.

--pg 52. 

I have more to write, more to process, more to share. I was able to gain some good insight from the book, not because it gave specific answers, but because of what was on page 52. Particularly the parts bolded and underlined. Bessey reminds us to ask the questions and wrestle with them. And overall, what I started realizing as I was reading is what's up above in pink. 

To be a woman isn't to be lesser than. I can work alongside my brothers and I am just as loved and just as valued.