Latest / Neighbourly: Real Stories of Care and Community / Messy Advice... | Stepping Up Or Stepping Aside?

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Messy Advice... | Stepping Up Or Stepping Aside? · Neighbourly: Real Stories of Care and Community

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  Here's one for anyone who's ever looked at a situation and thought,
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  someone should really do something, and then realized with
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  mild horror that someone might be them. Let's be
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  honest, there's a special kind of dread that sets in when you spot a
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  need, feel a nudge, and immediately start looking around for
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  someone more qualified, less tired,
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  just a bit more them. You?
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  You're standing there holding your keys, your conscience, and
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  a vague sense of defeat. This is messy advice for people who
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  care, for folks who feel deeply called to help
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  as long as someone else gets there first. This is Johan on the edge of
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  being helpful, offering wisdom I possibly need to
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  hear more than you do. A need gets shared
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  in a church group chat. Someone's sick,
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  needs meals. There's that familiar moment of
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  hesitation where everyone sees it, but no one responds.
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  You hover over the reply button. I mean, I could,
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  but then come the doubts. What if someone else knows them
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  better? What if I overlap? What if
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  my help just makes things more awkward? So you
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  wait, and the moment slips by. And that's
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  where today's question comes in from someone who wants to be
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  helpful, but often feels like maybe they're not the one who should be stepping
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  in. I often feel like I'm not the right person to help,
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  like someone else would do it better. How do I know when to step
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  in and when to step back? Hey.
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  If you've ever second guessed your way out of caring, this
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  one's for you, and that probably means this one's for all of
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  us. According to Mental Health Research Canada, in
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  2022, '40 '1 percent of Canadians reported
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  not feeling confident in how to support someone experiencing
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  emotional distress. Now that's not a lack of compassion.
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  It's a fear of messing up. We don't need more hearts.
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  We need a little more courage to trust the ones that we've got.
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  So, yeah, wanting to help and knowing how aren't always the same
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  thing. But maybe the better question is, do you really need to
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  be qualified to care? Now if you're in the care impact
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  circles, maybe you're trauma care informed, but the
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  reality is most of us aren't trained in trauma response.
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  We're just trying to figure out if dropping off banana bread counts as ministry.
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  Spoiler alert, it does. Think about this scenario.
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  You hear that someone at church just got some heavy news, a
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  diagnosis, a loss, something hard.
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  So you start to reach out, and then you second guess yourself.
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  Do I know them well enough? What if I say the wrong thing?
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  What if they have lots of people helping them already? What if my awkwardness turns
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  a moment of care into a weird memory they carry forever?
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  So you wait, then someone else steps in, and you're left
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  wondering if you missed your moment. Now let's consider
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  this. Let's get biblical. Biblical.
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  Looking at the story of Moses in Exodus three and four, god appears to
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  Moses in a burning bush, a literal miracle, and
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  calls him to go to Pharaoh to lead his people out of Egypt. Pretty
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  big job. And Moses's response, basically,
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  hard pass. He doesn't say, I'm honored.
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  He says, who am I? And then he spends the next
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  chapter trying to convince God that he's the wrong guy. He says he's
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  not persuasive, not articulate, not qualified,
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  that he has no authority. He even asked God to send literally
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  anyone else. And here's what's wild. God doesn't
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  reassure Moses with a pep talk. He doesn't say, no. No. You're
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  amazing. You're you totally got this. He says,
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  I will be with you. God doesn't validate Moses by
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  listing his skills. He validates him with presence.
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  He shifts the focus away from Moses' readiness to God's
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  sufficiency. And later, when Moses still won't
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  budge, God sends him a teammate, Aaron, not
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  because Moses is weak, but because God meets us where we're
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  at, even when our confidence is hiding under a rock.
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  Maybe being the right person to help has less to do with your credentials
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  and more to do with your willingness to show up and trust the one who
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  has called you. God's not asking for spiritual resumes,
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  just availability. Okay. Here's my takeaway. You
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  don't have to be the best person. You just have to be the present
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  one. If you've noticed the need, that might
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  be the only credential you need. Because most of the time,
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  god doesn't recruit the polished, just the willing. So if
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  you've been holding back, waiting for a sign that you're qualified,
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  this might be it. Your heart's tug is already a good
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  start. And if you got a question about caregiving
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  boundaries, spiritual exhaustion, or just wanna be part of a conversation
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  with like minded people, head over to the Care Impact podcast group on our Facebook
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  page. We want to hear from you, even if your help comes
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  with a side of uncertainty. Until next time, keep loving,
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  keep laughing, and if you're waiting for someone more qualified,
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  tag, you're it, And hey, if it gets awkward,
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  that just means that you're doing it sincerely and always
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  remember to stay curious.