"Help Me"

There would be no counterfeit if there was not a genuine reality, just as there are no counterfeit three dollar bills because there are no real ones. - Rick Joyner

     The enemy has used faces to haunt me.  Faces of my abusers and people who have said hurtful things will pop in my head as a reminder of the pain.  Why does he do this?  To torment me and keep me in a place of pain rather than a place of healing.  Though this doesn't happen as often as it used to, it still happens.  More often than not though, when I am haunted by a face now, it is the Lord speaking to me.
     The last couple days I have had the face of a little boy I adore, who will be three years old in a few days, haunting me constantly.  This little guy broke his arm and repeatedly I see his little face streaked with tears looking at his arm with this expression of "Hey guys, something isn't right here."  It was an obvious break as his arm was twisted into an "L" shape.  I asked God this morning why I can't get his little face off my mind.  Instead of taking it away, the Lord showed me many other faces that have haunted me recently. 
     A week or so ago, I was sitting in a fast food line waiting, while I watched a man in black slacks and dress shoes, who I assumed was walking to a nearby store to return to his job.  I was surprised when the man stopped at the trash can and began to dig through it.  Time stopped.  The only two people who didn't seem to be affected by God's pressing the pause button were me and this man.  I could not take my eyes off him.  He didn't look like somebody who would be scrounging for food.  Did he lose something earlier when he ate at this restaurant?  This morning God showed me a picture of people stopping to help him when it appeared he had lost something, but when it appeared he was hungry they drove on by. 
     Often times when I see photos of people, I want to draw little bubbles over their heads and fill them with words I see on the person's face.  The faces that haunt me recently are all saying the same thing in their little bubbles, "Help me."  Why do these faces haunt me.  My whole life has been full of "Help me" faces.  From the abused little girl I could not help, to friends who couldn't stop drinking or drugging, to people who have been devastated by loss.  "Help me" faces are my calling.  I can't sit still while people's faces cry out for help. 
     I never know who it's going to be or why they are wearing "the face" but it's like a bolt of lightning flashes from their eyes and penetrates my heart.  This is the reason, hiding under my bed was the easier solution.  I have always had an issue with anger and as I have peeled away the layers of my pain onion, I am realizing that it mostly stems from nobody helping.  This "help me" face hurts so bad because I wore it for many years and nobody reacted to it with assistance, only judgment.  The "help me" face when not attended to will transform into a "Bite me" face.
     When a little boy stood looking at his broken arm with 5 mothers in the room, people moved and they moved fast.  Two mom's comforted him and began to pray for peace, healing and a freedom from pain.  His mom scurried around to get together what she needed to get him to a hospital, while mom number four took on the responsibility of driving and began gathering what she needed to fulfill that role.  I stood there trying not to look at his arm, broken by his "Help me" face.  I mustered up the courage to touch his hair and say a quick prayer.  I don't do well with blood or broken bones.  Only after being asked did I move to grab a blanket to wrap him in.  I was more of an observer, amazed by the way everyone else handled the situation, as though they had practiced this a hundred times. 
     Then we go back to the well dressed man digging through the garbage can.  So the urgency of a broken bone was not there, but why didn't anyone help him?  Why did I only observe that day?  Sometimes it seems God moves me to a place of observation for a teaching and other times He tells me to move on it.  I believe this was a teaching day.  It's natural to judge a situation before we act, obviously with a measure of time we feel is appropriate for the urgency in the situation.  What if God had said "Move"?  I would have.  I wait to hear Him.
     I love the way God teaches me.  A seemingly unrelated string of events will suddenly be tied together for a powerful lesson or message from Him.  So, we go back to Monday, April 1st, 2013.  Four of us women are praying together.  I was led to pray for an abundance of courage for all of us, when the Holy Spirit confirmed the prayer was heard through another of the women there.  Holy Spirit confirmation can come in different ways and through this woman it is usually an uncontrolled jolt through her body or a yell.  This brought both.  I wondered for a few minutes, what that was about.
     That night I listened to a speaker talk about courage and he had my full attention because of the Holy Spirit confirmation that afternoon.  He spoke about Jonathan and his armor bearer in 1 Samuel 14. 

1 Samuel 14

New International Version (NIV)


14 1 One day Jonathan son of Saul said to his young armor-bearer, “Come, let’s go over to the Philistine outpost on the other side.” But he did not tell his father.

2 Saul was staying on the outskirts of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree in Migron. With him were about six hundred men, 3 among whom was Ahijah, who was wearing an ephod. He was a son of Ichabod’s brother Ahitub son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the Lord’s priest in Shiloh. No one was aware that Jonathan had left.

4 On each side of the pass that Jonathan intended to cross to reach the Philistine outpost was a cliff; one was called Bozez and the other Seneh. 5 One cliff stood to the north toward Mikmash, the other to the south toward Geba.

6 Jonathan said to his young armor-bearer, “Come, let’s go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised men. Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.”

7 “Do all that you have in mind,” his armor-bearer said. “Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul.”

8 Jonathan said, “Come on, then; we will cross over toward them and let them see us. 9 If they say to us, ‘Wait there until we come to you,’ we will stay where we are and not go up to them. 10 But if they say, ‘Come up to us,’ we will climb up, because that will be our sign that the Lord has given them into our hands.”

11 So both of them showed themselves to the Philistine outpost. “Look!” said the Philistines. “The Hebrews are crawling out of the holes they were hiding in.” 12 The men of the outpost shouted to Jonathan and his armor-bearer, “Come up to us and we’ll teach you a lesson.”

So Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, “Climb up after me; the Lord has given them into the hand of Israel.”

13 Jonathan climbed up, using his hands and feet, with his armor-bearer right behind him. The Philistines fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer followed and killed behind him. 14 In that first attack Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed some twenty men in an area of about half an acre.
Israel Routs the Philistines

15 Then panic struck the whole army—those in the camp and field, and those in the outposts and raiding parties—and the ground shook. It was a panic sent by God.[a]

16 Saul’s lookouts at Gibeah in Benjamin saw the army melting away in all directions. 17 Then Saul said to the men who were with him, “Muster the forces and see who has left us.” When they did, it was Jonathan and his armor-bearer who were not there.

18 Saul said to Ahijah, “Bring the ark of God.” (At that time it was with the Israelites.)[b] 19 While Saul was talking to the priest, the tumult in the Philistine camp increased more and more. So Saul said to the priest, “Withdraw your hand.”

20 Then Saul and all his men assembled and went to the battle. They found the Philistines in total confusion, striking each other with their swords. 21 Those Hebrews who had previously been with the Philistines and had gone up with them to their camp went over to the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan. 22 When all the Israelites who had hidden in the hill country of Ephraim heard that the Philistines were on the run, they joined the battle in hot pursuit. 23 So on that day the Lord saved Israel, and the battle moved on beyond Beth Aven.


    Jonathan and the armor bearer show us what courage can do.  Two of them against all these men, with no fear?  Fear is faith in the devil.  Courage is faith in God.  I am not a bible scholar so I have to depend on others knowledge at times.  The speaker said that the Philistines are the unbelievers and the Hebrews are the backsliders.  When Jonathan in all his courage stepped out in faith, it was his courage that caught the attention of the Hebrews, or backsliders.  This really spoke to me.  He spoke about backsliders being those who had joined the unbelievers because of their "Church Hurt"  We all want something we can believe in to a degree that we would be willing to give our lives for it.  But many of us sit in church and see gossip, politics, religious rules, etc etc and we walk away.  This is where I was when I saw Dave speak about his failure as a pastor.  I was blown away by his courage. 
     The speaker said that when a backslider sees a believer step out in courage, they not only want to return to a life of following Christ, but are often times catapulted to the front lines.  I see this in my own story.  Courage is contagious.  Verse 21 above says - Those Hebrew who had previously been with the Philistines and had gone up with them to their camp went over to the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan.   The thing that comes to my mind here is that backsliders who have been hurt by the church, some how let down, often times go back to hanging with unbelievers.  When they see a believer with courage and then step up, unbelievers will see this.
    
     How does this all tie together?  What has God been showing me this week?  About six months ago when I was beginning to step out of the intense pain of healing, God spoke to me about my healing.  He said the enemy wants to keep us in our pain so we don't reach out to help someone else.  Dave explained it to me once in a way that made too much sense, "If you are in a plane that's going down, you are instructed to put on your own oxygen mask, before you help your children or others to put on theirs."  God really used this with me.  This morning He gave me a picture of a group of starving people.  They were all sitting around and complaining, but nobody was doing anything.  Finally, two men stepped up and went out hunting for the food to feed the group.  This totally reminded me of many churches.  How many people say, "I'm willing to step out and feed the hungry"?  We are all called to minister.
     In a discussion last night, we talked about how the enemy keeps us in bondage.  We fear the pain of healing.  All healing, whether it is physical, emotional, or spiritual hurts.  Our testimonies are basically saying the hurt of healing was worth it.  Where I am, on the other side of it, was worth walking through the pain to get here.  
     There are thousands of "Help me" faces out there in this world.  Somebody has to step up and do the dirty work of healing so they can feed the others.  The more we choose to ignore our hurts and act like everything is okay, the less likely we are going to be able to help the next person.  
     Three people are in a pit.  One says, "I want out of here, but I don't know how."   One person says, "I'm not really in this pit.  I am fine.  I'm not affected by my past hurts."  A third says, "It might hurt to crawl out of here."  They all keep looking at each other with "Help Me" faces.  Somebody has to start climbing.  Somebody has to have the courage to start digging into the side of that pit and make a way out.  Jesus isn't up top waiting to throw down a rope so you can crawl out yourself.  He is in the pit.  He is waiting to carve steps into the side of the pit so He can stay along side of you while you climb out together.  You don't even have to take many steps before you can begin instructing the others where to place their feet for the climb.  
     The further up the wall of the pit you climb, the more it hurts to look at those standing there with "Help Me" faces.  I could not have even begun the climb out the deep pit I was in without a friend who had already carved out some of the steps.  It took a friend on one side of me and Jesus on the other pointing out each step, how to place my foot in it and when to push the weight of my body upwards.  Some of us are so injured and so blinded by pain that at times it takes an ex-pit dweller to physically take hold of our foot and place it where it needs to go.   The deeper the pit and the harder the climb out, the bigger the joy of leaving it behind and the bigger the desire to see others follow. 
     Also though, there is an anger.  As we were discussing the fear of reaching out to help another, it became clear to me that not only is courage contagious, but hurt is too.  Last night I used the example of a women being raped in an alley and how people will walk on by, not wanting to get involved.  I believe this fear is from our own hurt.  Hurt is like being wrapped in duct tape.  Our arms are bound to our sides.  It is impossible for us to reach out to another until we are cut free from our own bondage.  But when we don't reach out because of our own pain, it feeds the pain of the person being ignored.  I see this in families.  Parent's who do not heal automatically and unintentionally hurt their children.  We just keep passing around the role of duct tape and wrapping it around ourselves and each other. 
     What if we would have patted the boy on the head and said, "Your arm is fine" and went about our business?  What if we would have given him a glass of vodka to mask his pain?  What if we would have all claimed to see nothing wrong?  We could have broken off a piece of a broom handle and duct taped his arm to it the best we could.  Sounds abusive doesn't it?  Almost makes me sick to my stomach to think about treating a child this way.  What kind of additional trauma would we have been adding to this already trauma filled incident? 
     What if it was me?  What if I was the broken one?  I was.  The little guy and I both could see there was something wrong.  Neither of us understood what exactly happened?  How to fix it?  We both just pasted on a "Help Me" face and walked around in shock waiting for someone to do something.  What was the difference?  It was his arm, it was my heart.
     We have to reach out.  We are called to reach out.  We will be helped out to turn around and reach out to others.  Or we can climb under our beds and cover our heads and let the pain of the brokenness consume us the rest of our lives.  How many people can you pull out of a pit with a broken arm?  Heal your brokenness, take up your cross daily and follow Him.