One of the first lessons I have learned on this renewal leave: just because you think you are helping doesn’t mean you actually are.
You have to ask.
You have to find out what they really need.
You have to probe beyond their own discomfort and go a little deeper.
You have to listen.
For over a year, my spouse has had an ankle injury that has gone untreated. Like previous sprains or twists, he had followed the tried and true instructions of RICE – rest, ice, compression, elevation. It got better. But then it didn’t.
And for a year, I’ve been trying to figure out how I can help.
Offering to do things that would reduce time on his ankle.
Compromising and not going on the hikes or walks that I’ve wanted to take with him.
Gently encouraging him to see a doctor.
Nagging him to see a doctor.
Asking how it was feeling.
But what I never asked was: what kind of help do you need from me?
I took on his problem as if it were my own and tackled it in a thousand ways, but I never actually asked him what would be beneficial to him as he worked out solving the problem.
I ended up in the ER in mid-December with what turned out to be heartburn. But at the time it felt like I was dying and it wasn’t getting any better and while I sat on the bathroom floor in tears, he sat next to me and asked – “what do you need?”
And what I needed was to know that I was going to be okay and the only way to do that, after googling symptoms and having these red boxes keep appearing that said “go to the ER”, was to go get it checked out.
We had different plans for that morning: Christmas shopping followed by lunch out together. Instead, we spent the morning there, with him right by my side, and me feeling more than a little foolish when the GI cocktail worked to relieve my pain.
A couple weeks later, that trip to the hospital came up again. But he was frustrated and upset and it wasn’t about the time or the money. It was because he felt like I hadn’t done the same for him.
I realized that I had never sat down with him, really listening to his fears. I hadn’t taken the time to ask him what he needed. His fears about what could be wrong, anxiety about navigating the scheduling, it had in some ways paralyzed him from taking the one step he needed to take. What he needed, the only thing he really needed, was for me to call and schedule an appointment.
Crap.
Do you know how many times I had thought about doing that? How many times I was frustrated with him for not doing so? How often I wanted to force him to go… but then backed away from that idea because I thought he would find it to be over bearing or insulting.
What if I had just asked?
What if instead of trying to fix his problems on my own, I had sat down with him and listened to what he needed and what I could do.
What if I had bypassed the assumptions and set aside all of the drama and stress and distraction in my life and had just asked:
“What do you need?”
How many times in ministry do we encounter similar problems? Someone walks into our office with a personal crisis. A staff member is having difficulty accomplishing a task. A committee is paralyzed by lack of involvement.
How often do we jump to problem-solving and offering solutions and doing the work for them? How many times have I taken on the burden of their situation and have wrestled with a thousand ways to help?
What do they actually need?
Maybe the answer is far simpler than we imagine.
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