Just Show Up By Kara TippettsSample

"Your Unique Way of Showing Up"

“So many people offer to help. They say, let me know if you need anything, but that offer is easily dismissed because it’s too broad.”

JILL:

For many of us, the desire to help is strong. We feel that tug, the prompting from the Holy Spirit. We long to do something concrete that takes stress away, even if it’s a small something.

The beauty in offering a specific help instead of a broad one is that we get to help within our gifting.

This concept makes me a little giddy because taking people a meal stresses me out. Yet I’ve always struggled to do it anyway. The idea that I can listen to the Holy Spirit and then offer within the gifts He’s given me is freeing.

Sometimes a meal is the only way to help, and in those instances I’ve come up with a plan to take away my panic. I have a go-to meal. Something already planned out that I can do every time and that’s comfortable for me. It can even be premade. For me, it’s usually an entrée from the deli at Costco. Add a bag of salad, and that’s about as gourmet as it gets around here.

Maybe you don’t even have that in you. Perhaps a gift card is your go-to dinner. I wouldn’t complain if that were the case. Would you?

Sometimes we just have to accept our gifting. Or lack of gifting.

And there is freedom in knowing that God made us just the way we are for a reason. That maybe the thing we do well is exactly what our friend or loved one needs. We put so much pressure on ourselves to do everything right that many of us decide it’s too hard to even attempt entering into someone else’s suffering.

The beauty in showing up, in choosing to enter the dance even though you might not know the steps, is that God creates something beautiful from our attempts.

The more you do something, the easier it gets. Showing up is the same. And after you decide to attend the party, your moves will get better and your decisions will feel more natural.