HELP! I've fallen...

One of the most critical lessons I'm trying to master is that of asking for help.  For years I've smiled almost smugly, when the commercial comes on that depicts the older woman who has fallen and cries,  "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!" Rarely did I give it serious attention. hat was before I realized many people no matter the age, live alone, and not always by choice.  I won't point a finger at the Internet because this phenomenon, this isolation, occurred long before the first computers (ones that filled a room), entered our lives.  However, I do believe computer technology and social media merged (melded?) to initiate cataclysmic changes in our lives.  Either we just didn't realize what was happening, or we skidded down a slippery slope into some kind of terminal denial.

If you're not living alone the first time you hear the commercial, or you think you just love being alone, you haven't lived long enough.  That's what my Mom would warn, "Just wait, Missy, until you've lived a little bit longer!" As with the majority of her pronouncements, she hit the bull's eye! I marvel each time I drive by a construction site, especially one with pictures that show a massive apartment complex "coming soon." Hundreds of one and two-bedroom apartments are being built, usually for "Singles."  Living in one of them, I believe, is tantamount to working in cubicles, just more expensive. I don't live alone but I am not surrounded by family at all times, either.

What would happen if I fell while walking down the stairs? And only Kai, my loyal Dachshund, and Lexie, the Teacup Maltese diva,  were there? Hmm. I could star in that commercial, for sure.

It goes much deeper than that, though, to an examination of why  I'm so reluctant to ask for help.  Stubbornness may blossom on the plant, but it's not the root! Nor is timidity.  Pride? Risk-averseness? Feeling unsafe? Fear of  hearing "no?"  All four fit me depending on the day, in varying measure and more. No telling! But that's just me.  Not asking for help may be more complex, even complicated, than that for many of us.

Contrast "Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18).  with "Ask and it shall be given, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7).  Quite a contrast, you think? Well, that's what I've begun doing. Looking inward for as long as it takes. Then, taking tentative baby steps through the door marked "Ask."  I'm welcoming this challenge of self-discovery.  Keep you posted.

Readers, I welcome your responses.  I'm on Facebook now as well as email, ordainedelder@aol.com, or here.