Hopefully Helpless

Helpless.

The feeling you get when you cannot make something better or easier; or you just don’t know what to do or say to change the situation… mostly because you can’t.

Like when your friend tells you that his mother has Alzheimer’s disease.

Helpless.

You want to help, but you don’t know what to say. You want to ask questions… lots of questions, but you’re not sure at what stage of dealing with it he’s at. You can’t risk it. You’re not sure where the line is. And this would be a really horrible time to cross it. This would be the worst time possible to stretch boundaries.

So you ask gentle un-intrusive questions. How is she? Is she on meds? You don’t push. You let him tell you what he wants to tell you, while all through you have more questions to ask. But this is not about you, so you let it be. And you remain.

Helpless.

He says he’s grateful that she has had quite a number of good days. You hear the unspoken words. And you want to cry.

You pick up your phone, call your mum and tell her that you love her. Then you talk about nothing for 20 minutes, all the time treasuring the sound of her voice and knowing there is absolutely no reason why you get to have an Alzheimer’s-free mum and he doesn’t. Then you rush to the bathroom and have a good cry.

You want to help, but again, don’t know how. You tell him that you’re sorry in your most sympathetic voice. But maybe sympathy is not what he wants.

Plus sorry is so inadequate. Sorry will not make his mother better. Sorry will do nothing to change the situation. It sounds like an apology. Why are you apologising? You don’t know. You say sorry again. Then realise this is not going well.

You change the subject…fast. Then feel guilty. Maybe you should have given him more time and space to talk. Maybe he needs someone to listen, or maybe you need to find the perfect words to tell him. So you turn to Dr. Google. “What to say to your friend whose mum has Alzheimer’s”. Google is full of ideas. Most of them require a different sort of friendship dynamic to the one you have with him and some are downright unrealistic… at least in black Africa!

Helpless.

Then the small still voice – He is your refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Not google. Jesus. He calls you to approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that you may receive mercy and find grace to help you in time of need.

Hope.

Ever-present help. There, every time, all the time. In hard conversations and unspoken words. In seemingly impossible situations.

Hope.

You turn away from google, to your refuge and strength. To your help. You lay it all before him knowing there is nobody else in the entire world who can change a helpless situation into a hopeful one. You pour out your inadequacies to help. Your failure to say the right thing or anything at all.

Then He reminds you.

He has searched your friend’s mum and He knows her. He knows when she sits and when she rises. He perceives her thoughts from afar. He discerns her going out and her lying down. He is familiar with all her ways and before a word is on her tongue He knows it completely. He hems her in behind and before and lays His hand upon her. He reminds you how precious and vast His thoughts of her are and that were one to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. (Psalm 135: 1 – 5, 17 – 18)

Hope.

And you smile. You smile because you know it’ll be okay. You don’t know how or when, but you know it will be okay. That Jesus will keep loving your friend’s mum and your friend. That he will keep knowing her in ways that no one ever could or will. And that He will keep being her refuge and strength; her ever-present help. In the good days and the bad.

S, I don’t know what to say or what to do to help you, besides being here for you in any way you need me. But I can help you in the best way I know how – on my knees. Praying for tons of better days leading to complete healing for your mum. Praying that Jesus will remind you that He’s there, even on the bad days. May you never lose sight of that and may He never let you, because in Him, is all the hope you’ll ever need.