Can a Fallen Self Help Itself??

I was visited by someone new on my blog today, which led me back to her blog (http://notjustlaura.blogspot.com) and she had an interesting point to make on self help. It reminded me of something I'd written on my testimony blog (http://eirenemaker.blogspot.com/) a couple of years ago, and so I thought I'd transpose it here.......



"The counsellor at the crisis center started me off on a journey of "self help". Now, in looking back, I suspect it only delayed my healing. But that's the grand deception isn't it? That we humans don't need anyone but ourselves to make our lives work? Looking out for No 1 started in the garden, and has morphed into a billion dollar industry that culminates in millions of isolated, unauthentic, hurting, wounded, sinfilled people doing "self help", being their own little gods, working at making their lives manageable, even if it only looks that way to their watchers.





Self help also leads to self indulgence. Reading some psychologist's book explaining why I had so much rage only served to give it an excuse. Following formulas for anger control, or chanting affirmations to gain esteem just touched the surface. I had a picture once, when I was thinking on this very thing years later. It was of an iceburg. I was on top of it, on my hands and knees, scratching at the ice with my nail. I'd managed to gouge out a tiny crevice, completely ignorant as to the immensity of all that lay under the water. That's self help. Only God can empty, break, change, heal, fill the heart, though we humans, who instinctively know that, do everything in our own power to avoid that truth. Just let me do it my way is our mantra. And God lets us.





So began my self help years. I read everything and all there was on "toxic parents", "adult survivors", "dysfunctional family of origin issues", "abandonment syndrome" and "post tramautic stress disorder". I had a label for each of my behaviors, and a neat and tidy, packaged explanation as to why I did what I did, and didn't do what I couldn't, and couldn't do what I wanted, and wouldn't do what I should. When I became "expert" enough...read...able to remember the jargon.... I was even helpful to others, in their own journeys into "growth" and "holistic wellness". I became a "lay" counsellor of sorts, "empowering" other women to "know, forgive and love their inner child". All very schmultzy and all very new age, and none of it very effective. Well, I shouldn't say that....it was somewhat effective in teaching me anger management, and very effective in showing me how to numb out. Because there came a point after all those years of "self help" that I got the sense that I either had to "crap or get off the pot". There is only so much "inner improvement" that one can do before you realize it really isn't working. Sure, I got enlightenment...that explains it....but now what? How to fix it? "



No man - or woman - is an island. So, aside from the fact that we are fallen, and even with a good smattering of self awareness, are still our own best self deceivers, it remains that true healing always and only comes in community. Christ in you sees the hurt or the need or the pain and yes, the sin, in me and has words of life to meet it, or heal it, or transform it, or correct it. Christ in me sees what you can't....let's pretend I've taken the broom handle out of my eye so now I clearly see the piece of lint in your's ...but the piece of lint in your eye is making your eyes water, the mascara is running, you're having a Tammy Faye moment.....too much?.....anyway, you can't get it....Christ in me can pluck it out, gently, lovingly, helpfully. Imagine, we each and all of us, become people who, instead of doing self help, do other help...if we're all doing it, then we get help where we need it most, co-ordinated, and appointed, and orchestrated by our gracious Father who knows what each of us needs. Can't you just hear the music of that wonderfilled orchestra, hitting all the notes just enough, just in time, just right, just like Christ would have done if He were still here.....wait a minute....He is still here....in you and me.