So, Help Me God

On Friday, there was a worship night at the church Scott and I visit.  The music was powerful and I felt surrounded by love, singing with my friends for our God.

Before it ended, there came a moment for prayer.  Feeling called, I timidly approached Rebecca and cried as I asked her to pray for me.  Feeling my heart, my desire to seek God, she offered a verse:

I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me…I said, ‘Here am I, here am I’ (Isaiah 65:1).

When I was younger, there were two things I prayed for from God:

One, I wanted Him to bring my Polly Pocket doll to life, so I could have a friend, a small confidante I could protect and love – someone to love me.

And two, I wanted Him to end my life.

This sounds like an unusual request, but from fourth grade through sophomore year of high school, I begged God to let me die.

In my youngest years, I can’t remember anyone introducing me to God, but somehow I knew He was magical.  But instead of knowing Him, I thought He was a genie, His only purpose being to serve me.  Prayer became synonymous with wishing on a star.  I believed God granted wishes.  And so I prayed.  I cried.  I pleaded.

I remember bowing down on my knees like I saw others do on TV, clasping my hands together: Please, God, don’t make me go back.  Please just kill me!  If you want to help, you’ll kill me!

I tried reasoning with Him.  I would crawl into bed, hoping He would see it my way, and let me be with Him – because whoever, whatever, wherever He was, it was definitely better than where I was.

I pray for children growing up in Stockton, California.  If ever there were a dog-eat-dog world, this is it.  San Joaquin County, where the crime rates are high and the moral code low.  As a kid, the stakes are not in your favor if you are white, poor, timid, fat – or in possession of any physical attribute that could single you out from the group.

I was an easy target.

And for seven years, kids took advantage of that.  The worst experiences of my life were bus rides home – trapped in a small space with 60 bullies.  Every day from 6:35 to 7:02 and then 2:04 to 2:40, I struggled to survive.  Imagine being weak.  Imagine hoping for suicide as a child.  Imagine being hated for everything you are – and not the tolerable hate that comes in forms of dirty looks and disgusted whispers, but the shove-you-down, kick-you-in-the-stomach, spit-in-your-hair, verbally-cut-you-down-till-your-soul-dies type.

I had no real idea of who God was, but I knew He wasn’t answering my prayers.  He never let me die, and so He let me down.  I gave up on him.  How great was God if He couldn’t grant the one wish I so desperately wanted? 

One of my only escapes then was TV, losing myself to the stories on screen.  I remember watching The Beatles battle the islanders in their movie, Help!.  I loved to sing along.

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody’s help in any way,
But now these days are gone, I’m not so self-assured,
Now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors.

Now, at 25, I reread these lyrics to find they have never before been so appropriate.  The last few years God has been working in my life, caressing my wounds.  This is the closest I have ever let myself be with God.  I gave up on Him as a child and a teenager, thinking He was incapable.  I thought He had forsaken me.  I was determined to live my own life, to survive on my own.

And now my life has changed in oh so many ways,
My independence seems to vanish in the haze,
But every now and then I feel so insecure,
I know that I just need you like I’ve never done before.

How much strength He has given me, how much hope, how much love – how much heart He has bestowed upon me.  How far I have come on God’s path!  From resenting Him to having a casual relationship with Him and now possessing a desire not only to know Him, but to love Him – and, more magnificently, to let Him love me!

As a child, I asked my-version-of-God for a solution that never came, because it couldn’t.  Now, I thank Him for His grace, and ask for what I should’ve been asking for all along.  Help.

Help me if you can, I’m feeling down
And I do appreciate you being ‘round
Help me get my feet back on the ground
Won’t you please, please help me?

And He answers, “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13).