How Can You Help Others...

...When you can't help yourself?

I like to think of myself as empathetic and caring and I want to help others. At least most of the time, anyway. If there my friends or not. I mean, some books and movies make me cry. I try to help and listen to what people have to say. I listen more than I talk, I always have. My mom used to say God gave us one mouth and two ears for a reason and I truly believe it. Sometimes though, it feels like I can't even help myself. But even if it takes away from what I am doing for myself I always try to put others first. Once, I ended up staying up past 3 AM just because a friend had some things she wanted to get off of her chest. And there are times when I don't eat because I have friends who need food. People always need what I have more than I need it myself so why not share it.

But, I don't like people asking for things from me. If I don't offer it, don't expect me to give you the shirt off my back in the middle of a lightning storm. Am I wrong for that? Am I wrong for wanting to take care of myself from time to time? Because I do. A lady I met once told me that guilt and obligation are not of God and that people will try to use me for what I have without offering anything in return and that is exactly how I feel about most of the people I call "friend". People ask me to do things for them but sometimes it feels like no one is there when I need support and I've gotten so used to that that when people do want to help, it feels weird. It feels weird when someone asks me to talk about my feelings or a situation I am going through because no one has ever cared before. And then when I don't open up people think it is because there's something wrong with me. I don't think that anything is wrong with me. Am I the only one who feels this way? It's hard to speak when you haven't had a voice for a long time. 

So I decided to stop letting people use me.I'm not Bill Withers, you can't use me 'til you use me up. Not anymore. I'm taking a stand and so should all of you out there who never felt like you had a voice. If you don't have a voice, eventually you begin to lose yourself. I know I did and, more importantly, if you don't know who you are someone is going to tell you and you're going to go along with it because you don't know any different. Someone is going to tell you you're ugly, or fat, or useless and you are going to sop it up like hot water cornbread. How can you help others when you can't even help yourself? Ask yourselves that and think on it for a good ling while. Don't just let people call you out of your name, don't let anyone deride you or make fun of you. Take all those images that got put in your head by someone else and cross them out. Even if you have to do it physically. In fact, that gives me an idea. This is a video that made me see things a lot clearer than I had before. Maybe you should watch it. Imago by Trevor Wentt unlike normal, this isn't a music video. It's a little video about insecurities and I had a whole lot of insecurities. I couldn't list them all off if I tried and I had to take all those things and blot them out.

This quote reminded me a lot of a scripture that made me feel some type of way: Jeremiah 3:1. We only turn to God when we need something. And that's everybody so it mad me see how small my problems were and brought me back down to earth which we all need sometimes. But that is exactly how I feel sometimes. People only talk to me when they want something and I sometimes only talk to God when I have problems. Why am I treating God that way if I hate being treated that way? And He's done more for me than I could ever do for someone else and when it comes down to it, I treat Him like garbage. But, I don't want to live in a pity party forever so I'm going to get off my butt and do something. Are you?