If No One is with You…Get People with You!
I don’t know about you, but there are times in my life when I feel as though I am the only one struggling with making a decision. Feeling like I am the only one in the current position that I am in. Sometimes this can be true, you really are the only person trying to manage a team, or the only one struggling with yourself image. You feel so alone. Loneliness is a huge struggle that most of us have. It’s always following us around and creeping into our minds.
When I was in fourth grade struggling with my dyslexia, I truly felt alone. I believed that NO one else was struggling with me and that not even God was within reach. I felt alone, lost and forgotten. The truth of the situation was I was not alone, my mom was standing by my side to get me the best help. My father spent hours with me, teaching and reteaching math to me over and over again. I had other students in my class with me who were struggling with something similar. Last but certainly not least, God was always within reach. He was just a conversation away.
I am glad I had the help then, but now is different is a different story. I am and adult and my mom can’t follow me around my work, helping me spell and type. My dad can’t balance my checkbook (I mean he could... but then he would see how much I spend at Starbucks). I am not constantly surrounded by people struggling with the same things I am. So instead, I built an army, my own little posy of others that are dealing with their own struggles.
When we are struggling with something, we tend not to share it, because we don’t want anyone to know we are having a hard time, and that is a terrible feeling. One of the first things I told my boss when I started at my church was that I was dyslexic and ADHD and that I needed her help. I told her I would work my butt off in everything I did, but when it came to writing or reading, I would need her support. I told my soon-to-be husband at the time that I would need help at times reading over my papers as I finished college. I got a core group of girlfriends who knew “my little secret”, who would be there to keep encouraging me.
You see, when you grow older, your natural born “cheerleaders” dissipate. They don’t exactly disappear, but kind of fall into the background and aren’t always close. As an adult, you need to stand up for you, you need to surround yourself with people who will cheer you on and who will push you.
But it starts with you because you are your own advocate.
No one can help you if they don’t know you need help.Take the leap of faith, reach out, and trust those who God has put in your life.
“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
