Friday, May 30, 2014

{Five Minute Friday} Nothing

Every Friday, over at LisaJoBaker.com, she posts a prompt. The idea is to write for five minutes, unscripted, unedited, real. Then post it. Then, on Twitter and on her blog, all participants gather together and share what we wrote. We encourage each other.

Today's post was admittedly a little dark for me. I've just been weighed down in my life lately by all of the hurt in the world. There's a lot. This isn't necessarily addressed to anyone in particular, but rather a conglomerate of what I feel when people dear to me are hurting. Sorry if it's a little dark for a Friday morning. This is just what's on my heart.

{Start}

There is nothing that I can do for you.

Feeling helpless often frustrates us to no end. What can I do to ease your suffering, your pain, erase past hurts and heal raw wounds? What can I say, what can I do?

Often it feels like nothing.

My hands are empty and usually the best that I can do is offer a hug, a heart aching in sympathy with yours, heavy beats thudding in empathy, feeling your pain.

Is that enough? Is my fellow hurting alongside your suffering helping you at all?

I suppose that the Christian in me says that I can bring our brokenness to God, that I can ask Him to prop you up and hold you but I feel as if there ought to be more that I can do.

But how can hands reach across hundreds of miles when bank accounts scrape bottom?

Meals help but they are only Band-aids; they fill the body but not the soul. They don't assauge the pains that you're going through; they don't fill the gaping hole left by loved ones lost, by innocence lost or memories and what can I do but offer you my empty hands and my empty heart and try to love you in my imperfect way?

What can I do when I myself am teetering on the edge, when my heart is already so full of all the pain that is in the world?

You come to me with your hurts and your pains, all of you, with your loneliness and your past and I am powerless to offer anything more than empathy, than a heart aching with you and all the hurt in the world.

But what, ultimately, can I do to help you?

Nothing.

{Stop}

Have a good weekend.

Carry on,
 
        {SarahBeth}

Friday, May 23, 2014

Opening a door-just open it!



It seems like there is so much buzz on blogs, in classrooms, in conversation, and in the news about the way people desire to be treated.

There is intense debate concerning gender roles - should doors be opened and seats given up? Should a certain race dominate a workforce or educational category?

People cry out to be treated with respect regardless of the color of their skin, their religion, and other differences and beliefs that often seem to separate us as individuals.

Honestly, this ongoing controversy becomes wearisome to me. In the pursuit of “equal” treatment I find that the searching group from whatever perspective often becomes abrasive to the opposing side, disrupting unity, and even disrespecting those in opposition - and doesn't this destroy the original mission?

I find that most people desire to be treated with respect and to courtesy and at the end of the day be understood.

Instead of focusing on whether or not a door “should” be opened for a woman or whether or not a certain race seems to dominate a career field or workforce, perhaps we should focus more on respecting and serving others around us - regardless of the external factors - because they are a person.

Perhaps less emphasis in our spheres of influence and our culture should be placed on analyzing other’s external appearances and more on their circumstances.

For me, this can be hard and can involve overriding “natural," instinctive behavior.

Think of a person that causes your posture to instantly improve, your words to be thought of more closely, and your focus narrowed more to their presence and less on the buzz of your cell phone and the list of the things you want to accomplish before the day is over.

I find that it's often second nature for me to respond to certain individuals who hold something I respond to, someone close to me or something that signifies a certain career or shared belief. But when I really get to the heart of it, I have respect for others because they are people.

I desire to show interest, courtesy, and respect to all others as this second nature response.

Older person, younger person, a person who seems prestigious, a person who doesn't seem to have much clout, a person who might have differing views, it doesn't matter who - just open the door.