Note from Heather: In the past several weeks, my pastor has taught on love. Not the romantic love of novels and movies, but the Agape love of the Father. The love that acts. The love that, as Janelle so simply states in today’s guest post, helps. I hope you’ll take the time to read this post and reflect on the beauty that flows from flawed individuals (us) when we lean on the strength of the Lord. It is then that His glory and agape love shines through us.
Our hearts break for Paris.
Not long ago, during a brutal school shooting, I first heard an inspirational Mister Roger’s saying that goes like this: “Look for the heroes.”
As I heard the story then, Mister Roger’s mother had once told him that during times of terrible duress, do not look at the circumstances. Look at the heroes who begin to use their hands and hearts and talents to reignite something good into the seemingly impenetrable bad.
Look for the heroes.
I thought something then, and the heartbreaking photos of France brought it to mind again this weekend.
I am no hero.
I decided to Google that Mister Roger’s saying. I wanted to know more about his mom, more context, more anything so I could cling to the hope of the message rather than the crushing blow of my inadequacy and the inadequacy of a whole world that seems short on heroes.
Turns out, I misquoted. I heard it wrong, or read it wrong. I had the quote wrong. The real quote is, “Look for the helpers.”
Look for the helpers.
Helpers? I see helpers every day.
They’re flawed, but…
They help.
I see people stand up for programs in the community, for children who have less, for parents who need a hand.
I saw a Starbuck’s worker spot a little kid a quarter so he could get a treat and not feel embarrassed in front of his other friends in line.
I have a friend whose 9-month-old son is soldiering on through confusing health issues, and she still volunteers weekly for a “Girls on the Run” group that gets underprivileged kiddos exercising, bonding, experiencing community and health and fun and love.
I can help.
It is flawed, but…
Even when I feel particularly weak, emotionally unstable, especially hopeless, I can still help. In fact, sometimes it’s the only thing that recalibrates me off the brink. When I cannot be kind to myself, I can still be kind to someone else.
I just didn’t think of it as, well, all that helpful.
I was wrong.
Thank you, Mrs. Mister Rogers.
Helping is not an ending or an arrival or a becoming, like a hero. Helping is a start.
It may be flawed, but…
Helping tries. Helping by its very nature is optimistic. It is an action verb. It does not write the outcome. It shows up for the plot, ugly though it may be, and carries on.
I have a feeling Heather’s audience is an audience of helpers. I wonder if you know how helpful your helper-ness is. I wonder if you know how penetrating it is that you help.
That made me consider: what is the most helpful thing that has helped me most in my entire life?
I’m surprised by the answer.
I have had close, kind, generous rations of help in my years. That is true of my family as well. Just this weekend, my husband and I were talking to our 12- and 10-year-old kiddos about what a gift it is to have someone have your back.
We were looking at the story of the two brothers – the prodigal son and the elder brother.
As the story goes, the younger brother takes off to live a life of debauchery then comes to his senses, repents, and comes home. The younger brother’s father? Thrilled.
His big brother? Not so much.
The story goes on about the big brother and father having a dialogue about, well, love. Actually, about love v. stuff. The father offered the big brother his love. The big brother wanted the father’s stuff. He thought he’d earned it. He thought his little brother hadn’t. He thought his father was not handling the situation (or all the stuff) fairly.
Mrs. Mister Rogers would not be proud.
Our main point to our kiddos was this: you have a Brother who did not respond this way when the Father welcomed you home. You have a Brother who was willing to sacrifice all his rights, all he had – for you. You are welcomed home because your Brother covered the cost of all that comes when you act out little brother-ness.
You are flawed, but…
You are safe to be a flawed helper, because there was One, immaculately unflawed, who gave all He had to compensate for your flaws.
Let that free you to try. Let that spur you on to…help.
I know that is the greatest gift, and yet. I thought about why my Brother would do such a thing. Love. Of course, yes. A thousand “Amen!” and yeses to that.
But in the context of that story, I thought about it a new way. My Brother could do such a thing because He knew the Father. He knew exactly what He would lose, but knew likewise what He would not lose because He knew His Father. He knew what was His and could be ours, and it wasn’t the stuff that the big brother in the parable thought. It was more beautiful than that big brother could have possibly imagined.
The greatest gift I ever received is that Jesus believed His Father. Everything He did after that takes my breath away. Because He believed, now I can too.
Flawed, but…
In light of world disasters, I must work, and do, and help. Hard work matters.
But thoughts matter too.
I am going to believe that Father. I am going to believe that He is what He says, and that what He feels about me is true. If it’s true for me, it can be true for a whole world.
In honor of Mrs. Mister Rogers, I will discipline myself to think on this: there is evidence of bad, but there is also evidence of helpers. A world rather chock full of helpers.
Flawed, but…with a Brother and a Father, who bring to bear flawless beauty if we give Him the chance.
He wishes we would.
