I hate the lessons that are not easily learned.

I hate when I have to really search situation and soul before finally learning the lesson He is teaching me.

I preach "You're ready" all the time but then shrink back, scared and questioning, when it's my time. My turn to show someone the way.

I want so badly to reach out to women who have long ago stopped reaching out for me but maybe that's the lesson in itself. I have to start being ok with the silence that circles in my living room when I desperately ask "How do I help? What do I do?"  Because I know He's not being silent to hurt me. He's showing me, in time, how to do this. How to be the saving grace for someone else the way so many have been for me.

This has been such a long time coming. I know how to help with the young women who are in college. That territory seems familiar and safe. I know what to do, what to say, how to help but now I feel out of my league. These are marriages. These are families. Babies and Holy unions and family members passing and careers altered that I want to rush into and just snap my fingers and make all of the hard stuff go away for them.

But that silence that I'm sitting in. The one that I loathe instead of embrace. Maybe that's the lesson. Be silent and don't rush in. Be there and offer your ear instead of your mouth. Carry the burdens. Fight for them in prayer. Listen. Don't speak just yet.

And if you must speak then whisper scripture and soft pleas to the God who saw this coming before it ever came. Because He also sees when it will come to pass. When it will all be a distant memory, a testimony for them.

So, for now, until the testimonies come. Be silent.