Desperation.

This week I was listening to a self-help audiobook on my drive back from Pittsburgh. I think I’ve completely slipped down the audiobook slippery slope. Soon I’m going to be listening to Christian talk radio and chanting whenever I get in the car (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Anyway, as my first foray into self-help audiobook land, I think I picked a winner. The book was collection of stories from a woman who grew up with a father as a pastor, married a pastor and herself serves as a youth group advisor at her husband’s church. She’s a motivational speaker; she’s a believer; she’s a writer; she’s a child of Jesus. You might think she’s one of those holy examples that wakes at 6 a.m. to pray before dawn, pause for a blessing before her lunch and does the church prayer chain every night before bed. Or at least that’s what I thought. However, I quickly realized after just a few minutes of hearing her self-read book, she’s just the opposite. She’s a real person. She’s confused and challenged and witty and searching…just like the rest of us. She’s a real person! Thank you, God!

Anyway, the book was a collection of moments in the writer’s life that made her think about God, made her challenge her beliefs and made her grow as a person. I related instantly to many of her trials. In the first chapter of the book she says, “This year has been the hardest year I’ve known.” She goes on to say that because it’s been her hardest year, she’s been downtrodden, depressed, angry and felt like an ugly person. I immediately knew how she felt. Without knowing it, I think this has been the hardest year I’ve known as well, for many reasons. I instantly felt like a kindred spirit with this woman, and I needed to hear more.

One of the last chapters in her book was particularly thought-provoking for me (not that the others didn’t get me thinking, too). She said that as a pastor’s wife (and a church woman herself) she thought that she should be called to prayer daily. On good days, she should be rejoycing with God; on bad days she should find consolation in God. She should ask for help when she needs it and thank God for giving her strength when she has it. But she said she actually felt quite the opposite. It wasn’t until she was truly in a state of desperation, beyond repair, beyond hope that she frequently turned to God. It wasn’t until the bleakest moments that she laid it all out before Him and asked for His help. Instead, she believes that her own conviction and actions and persistence will enable her to resolve everything that’s going on in her life and that God is just a peripheral part of this plan because it’s really HER plan, right?

So many times I have felt like this. I have waited until I am at the very bottom believing that I control my own destiny. I don’t ask for help, from God or anyone else. I struggle and work late and lose sleep with a pounding heart and head because sometimes I’m just too ashamed to ask for help. But why do we wait until we’re clinging to the frayed edges of hope to ask for guidance, especially God’s guidance? Why do we let ourselves get so bogged down that by the time we ask for help, we’ve created a mountain out of a molehill? Why can’t we be in constant conversation with God, allowing him to give us guidance where we need it?

Because it’s not easy. We go and go and go all day long. We don’t stop for air or to see the sunshine or to smell the roses. We all need moments of peace and tranquility, and we’re all too busy to make time for them. But I think we need to try. I need to try. I need to wake up earlier to clear my mind before the day. I need to close my eyes and say a prayer before bed to reflect and prepare. I need to pause when I’m getting too stressed out and think about the big picture. Because everything has a big picture that’s framed by God. We just need to let ourselves see it.

To eliminating desperation,

Lia