Voices....

Well meaning advice….

I’m full of it, really I am. Growing up with a mother who turned to me since I was about 8 years old to solve her problems made me a natural born therapist. Now, whether my advice is good or not is another subject but the fact of the matter is if you got a problem I can talk my way through it.

But the older I get the more I am realizing advice is just that… an added vice. A crutch to lean on so we don’t have to use our own legs.

It’s handed to us or we hand it to others when we are not sure they are strong enough to stand on their own decisions, and make their own choices.

I have a friend going through a lot right now and I dish her out advice hand over fist…. My list is filled with should’s and would’s and when I was fluent in speaking Christianese then I threw in words like faith and trust and testing to spice it up a bit.

But I had a realization about my friend the other day…. The woman is brilliant and strong and as smart as they come. It’s why she is my friend. I trust her with the deepest secrets of my life…. and I heave upon her weighty matters because I know she has shoulders that can handle them….

So why is it that I do not trust her to make her own decisions? Why do I think if even for a moment she needs my well meaning advice? It’s funny to me to think that suddenly because she is surrounded by a problem she is incapable of listening to that heart of hers that I go to so often with my own dilemmas.

What I have realized is that the greatest gift I can give to her is my trust. Trust that I believe in her enough to make the best decision for herself. And more than well meaning advice or my own thoughts on matters that only her heart knows the entirety of, perhaps my greatest gift as a friend is one where stop telling her my thoughts on how she should handle something and instead remind her of all the things she already knows about herself and may have forgotten in the midst of this

Like she is smart

And brave

And has a heart that already holds every answer she needs

That she is loved

And strong

And absolutely able to handle whatever road she goes down.

Because in the midst of a trial, or problem, or worry the truth is most of the time we are less concerned with how to handle the problem that surrounds us and more concerned with just trusting ourselves to make the right decisions. Our faith waivers internally much more than externally with our surroundings.

Here is the truth for me…. I screw up… a lot. I make horrible decisions that people balk at and can’t understand. I trust more than I should, I jump faster than I should, I linger longer than I should, I decide to undecide. I am a freaking moronic mess most of the time.

And nine times out of ten I will hear what someone says but rarely listen to them when it comes to decisions in my life. It’s how I have always been because I have learned that if I don’t listen to that voice inside of me it will scratch and claw it’s way up until it is heard.

And I don’t think I am alone in that. Most of the time people tend to do what they want to do….what they feel led to do. And some may follow advice but eventually it backfires because you can’ t live someone elses version of your life. We learn that the hard way… and eventually cave and do the thing inside ourselves we thought we should do in the first place.

We all have a voice inside of ourselves…. A voice that is always telling us exactly what we should do….

But time and bad decisions and pain and fear of judgment make it hard to listen to that voice sometimes.

But , when I can somehow listen to that voice regardless of what the world around me thinks or says or feels it’s weird, it feels like it’s just me and God right there in that moment…. Like we have some sort of partnership and he’s the only one that knows the same thing I know right in that second … and when I feel that I know that regardless of anything… every little thing is gonna be alright.

Some people have told me that voice can’t be God

Some people have told me that voice goes against God

What I believe is that voice is God….

Aat the end of the day that voice is my only companion… and it holds every ounce of faith I have. It has been the only thing that has guided me since I was little…. Really little. It is what told me to move in with my father when I did and to move back out when I did…. It told me to move to New York, it has led me to bad relationships that taught me good things and good relationships that taught me hard things, it led me to a baptismal font, and to an alter, it led me to my family and away from them, it has led me from the east to the west and from the north and to the south and when I listen to it regardless of what happens along the way I am able to look myself in the eye and know I have been as true as I can be to it and to God. He and I do not have a perfect relationship but we have an honest one and it is because of that voice.

That is our meeting place

And it is my hope that it will be my friends meeting place also. That she will hear it and follow it wherever it leads her.

But if I keep yappin my jaw I make it harder for her to do that

And so I am going to try to keep all my well meaning advice to myself…. And trade it in for some arms…. In case she needs a hug

And a couple of ears in case she needs to talk

And an incredible belief in her and her absolute ability to listen to her own heart above all other voices.