Your Go-To
Who is your go-to-person for sage input and needed perspective? How about when you need help with something more general? Think about them for a minute…
Asking for help is a vast topic but I find myself pondering it today as I reflect on my relationship with my father. Bert “Roy” Ronning is his name. His life was cut short at 47 years, but he loved his family well and I enjoy special memories of him. Yesterday, May 18th, was his birthday. 42 years now I have remembered him and his passing, his absence still achy for me, the deposits he made in my life are still paying dividends. I still miss him and have a rather long list of things I would ask him. He was a go-to dad.
Many of you did not have the rich gift of a good father. I actually hold a tender spot in my heart about that fact. Some wounds go deeper than we have words and this is one of them - a parent wound. On the other side of the coin, the blessings we give one another (our children especially) go deeper still and produce impactful fruit for generations.
The old saying “One bad apple spoils the whole bunch” is a warning for attentive folks. You leave a ‘bad apple’ in the bunch, it’ll hasten the process of things you don’t want. Set a bruised apple in bowl with other apples on your countertop at home and watch as the decaying fruit spreads through the bowl…it’s like watching nature make applesauce on autopilot. Put the same bowl in the refrigerator and you’ll slow the process. Take the bruised apple out, wash the remaining fruit and the process stops.
What if that ‘bad apple’ is a thought or a memory we have…what if that thought even came from way back and we’ve just never known how to get it out? This is a very deep matter for many folks. No matter how strong a person thinks they are - people are far more fragile than they want to admit, even though they are also more resilient than they could understand or imagine.
Today you and I will walk around, work around, and live around lots of people. Every one, including us, is both fragile and resilient - at the same time. That doesn’t make us an oxy-morornic paradox. It’s what makes us human. Add to that the fact that all those people around us have an opinion (about just about everything) as to how others should live and where they should focus their attention - it’s a perfect storm for a whole lot of ineffective things OR it’s an opportunity for our light to shine.
The most helpful people we ever meet are the ones who, like a blind beggar who simply helps walk others to the place they found some food, walk us to the source of life, the place of comfort and rest, the pool of healing where showers of truth fall on people like soft rain in the springtime.
Encouraging you today in two ways.
Be a light. Rise above the opinionated folks who have an opinion about how people should be more resilient and get in there and help. Tough love and conversations are okay when the heart is in the right place and the commitment is unquestionable.
Be humble - ask for help. You’re not a bad apple, even if there’s a bruise here or there. The humble get help. Help is nearer than you’d imagined - same as the fact that you are more resilient than you thought.
Call your go-to people, even if only to check in and appreciate them. Grow into a go-to person along the way.
Let your light so shine before others that they see your good work…
Peace~
Craig
