...for the Rescuer

Sometimes I wish I could rescue the world.

I wish I had enough power to determine what could and could not happen.

I wish I could stop rain from causing car accidents and adultery from causing broken homes.

But since I have none of the power or the abilities to stop any of this from happening, I only wish one thing.

I wish I could rescue those I love. I wish I had all the answers.

It is so hard for me to sit back and listen to every hardship going on in people's lives and not be able to form the right words. That is truly something I fear and I desperately try to reword and rephrase and preplan and prescript until I know the right answer. I get so lost in the right answer that I forget that there doesn't always need to be a right answer.

I have a hard time listening and not intervening. When I hear pain and when I hear a sense of being lost in the words of those I'm listening to, I want to be able to say

"It's alright, everything will be just fine. Just breathe."

And be able to rattle off this to-do list of how to make it better.

Unfortunately, there is more to fixing problems than breathing. I can't prevent that rain from making you slip but I just wish I could stand there with an umbrella, ready to rescue you from the cold.

I was recently told that to be a good friend and a strong support system, I have to let others figure out their problems on their own. Not finish sentences for them or reword their thoughts so it is easier to comprehend to the general group of people, but to just sit. To just sit and listen and identify internally with their feelings and emotions.

That is all I am allowed to do and I want to be able to have the ability to do just that.

I may have the abilities to lead and to teach, but I so easily let those consume my actions and decisions. I never allow myself to sit and think and not have the answer, because for some odd reason I feel that without an answer, without a response, the time spent talking to me was a waste.

I want to be able to rescue those I love and have every right answer.

But, I don't.

And I shouldn't be able to have that power.

I just want to be able to have the power to sit and listen, to be vulnerable and supportive.

What will you do?

Constantly be carrying the umbrella in hopes of preventing a storm, or will you set that aside and dance in the rain, accepting that the right answers may come without any words at all.