When I was a sophomore in college, I spent a semester in Guatemala.
One of my most vivid memories from this semester is a trip we took to the general cemetery in Guatemala City. I can still picture it: the pastel-colored homes of the dead, wilted flowers on dusty ground, a tattered doll caked with dried mud, two skinny dogs digging through a trash barrel and fighting over a bag of half-eaten potato chips. Rain started to fall on our group as we walked, and we huddled beneath umbrellas.
It was a cemetery. And it wouldn’t stand out so much in my mind if it weren’t for the family we saw huddled under a sheet of metal between the gravesites for haphazard shelter from the rain.
“They live here,” our teacher explained. “They are the caretakers of this cemetery.”
No one said a word. I think we all would’ve had questions, but it was hard to believe. How could an entire family build their lives among the graves of the dead?
I wanted to talk to the family. I wanted to help. I wanted to scream out to everyone I knew back home, “Do you see this? Do you know what’s happening, as we sit and watch Netflix and eat ice cream?”
But we just kept walking.
And I felt completely and utterly helpless.
I remember sitting in my room that night at my host family’s house and pouring my feelings onto the pages of my journal. I remember praying to God to fix it. To do something. To show me what to do.
But the overwhelming feeling of helplessness paralyzed me. And you don’t have to go far from home to see people living in poverty and grief and hopeless conditions.
Fast forward six years, and God has given me a new ministry for this season of my life. My mission now is to love my kindergarteners to the best of my ability (while still trying to get through the curriculum and all that good stuff, too). But life is still filled with things that make us feel helpless.
Fathers leave home and kids don’t know why. Grandmothers pass away and kids aren’t sure if heaven is real. Sisters say they don’t believe in Jesus and kids wonder what’s going to happen to her if she doesn’t change her mind.
Pandemics come, schools shut down, and kids don’t understand why they can’t be in the classroom with their friends.
I wish life didn’t have to be this way, but it’s the reality of the broken world we live in. Little children deal with big hurts. Just like the rest of us.
And it’s so easy to fall back into that paralyzing pit of helplessness.
But sometimes, all we can do is keep showing up.
Sometimes God isn’t calling us to solve world hunger or erase poverty or eradicate pandemics or stop all fathers from leaving their children. Sometimes God is just calling us to take one step forward instead of backing away. Sometimes all God asks of us is to keep showing up. And He’ll take care of the rest.
I love the words of Micah 6:8: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
I recently discovered the Message version of this verse, and it goes like this: “But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously—take God seriously.”
We often take ourselves too seriously.
We want to solve all the pain we see in the world. We want to fix all the broken things. And when we see too much brokenness, we shut down. We stop moving forward. We let our feelings of helplessness consume us, and we turn around and walk in the opposite direction.
What if, instead of putting this heaping pressure on ourselves, we took God’s power and sovereignty seriously? What if we let God be God, and we just lived like He told us to live? We act justly. We do what is fair and right. We show mercy and compassion and loyalty. We take our lives one day at a time, showing love however we can. What if we practiced those things and didn’t worry so much about healing all the brokenness in this fallen world?
Maybe then our sense of helplessness wouldn’t consume us. Maybe then we could follow Jesus, be his hands and feet, and focus on doing the next right thing.
And never forget… you are onederfully created.
Love,
Becca
Note: I believe helplessness is a feeling many of us struggle with. But I do NOT believe we are actually helpless – not with the Creator of the universe on our side. Not with Him as our shelter and defender and savior. We always have the power of prayer. We always have the power to take action, no matter how small or insignificant it may feel.
Feelings of helplessness may paralyze us, but when we trade in that lie that we are helpless and surrender to the help of our God, we can experience freedom.
