Better to Give Than to Receive?

For several years our church has been providing a free dinner each month for folks in the community. It has grown into a meaningful ministry. Most appreciate a good “church-made” meal but equally important has been the opportunity for fellowship amongst members and the community at large. Obviously while we were under stay-at-home orders, the dinner was temporarily canceled. However within a short time the team transitioned to delivering the meals to the homes of anyone who called in and requested one.

Photo by Haydn Golden on Unsplash.com

I called an older neighbor who lives alone to check on him to make sure he was weathering the quarantine alright. I explained what our church was doing and asked if I could drop a meal off for him. He quickly declined, stating that he isn’t a member of any church and doesn’t buy into all this “God stuff” anyway! I explained that the free meal had nothing to do with church membership or any specific belief.

He then assured me that he had taken care of himself for over 80 years and is still quite able to do that. “I have plenty of canned soup and oatmeal, and my one daughter stops by every two weeks when she goes grocery shopping and picks up what other few things I need,” he told me.

I then shifted my pitch to how good of a cook the lady is who makes the meals. I thought I was making some progress when he cut me off abruptly, saying, “I’m sure she is a good cook and thanks for calling.“ The next thing I knew, the line clicked off!

After I hung up, I shared my frustrations at his unwillingness to except any help with Rita. She got very quiet and eventually said, “Sounds like someone I have been living with for the past 48 years!”

“Who might that be?” I asked innocently.

Smiling, Rita said, “Think about how many times you’ve heard me say ‘please allow me to do this one thing for you!’”

She was right. Just the night before, after I spent a long day of working in the yard, she asked if she could finish the dishes so I could get to bed. My response was, “Thanks but it won’t take me long to finish up here.”

This insistence is certainly a pattern for me, not just in minor matters but major ones as well. A few years ago one of my grandsons was seriously ill with a condition that baffled the doctors, it hit me harder than anything I’ve ever dealt with before. But, even after relentlessly telling others that seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness, I found it difficult to reach out for support myself despite the fact I needed it badly. As the most senior family member and a mental health professional besides I felt like I needed to be the one supporting everyone else.

Why do I have such a hard time accepting help? I expect it mainly stems from the messages I got growing up in the coal region of Pennsylvania. My father was a hard-working coal miner, shifting jobs based on where work was available and we struggled financially just like many of the families in that small rural community.

The messages I heard on a regular basis were: work hard and pull your own weight, don’t depend on anyone else, pull yourself up by the bootstraps (that was always confusing for me since I could not remember any footwear I had or ever saw that had anything resembling bootstraps!) and don’t ask anyone else for help, most folks have more than they can handle on their own plate.

All of those messages and my swallowing them also made for fertile ground for judging folks who were willing to accept “handouts” or even—gasp!—ask for help at times! Even though giving to the poor and helping the less fortunate was encouraged in church, at the very same time, folks getting any type of assistance were often looked down upon and labeled as lazy or “freeloaders.” While giving was seen as “Christian” and virtuous, receiving was not.

This entire dynamic has worked its way into how I see myself and how I see and respond to the world around me. It was years before I began to question what my attitude toward receiving help—whether practical or emotional—actually means. If I give to someone while at the same time judging them negatively for needing my help to start with, is that really the kind of giving God wants me to offer? Is God’s highest wish for us all to be independent and self-sufficient, or might it be part of God’s hopes for us that we respond to the times of hardship and need that we all experience throughout our lives by reaching out and supporting one another?

The last several years I began to realize how my struggle to accept help from others, let alone ask for it, has stifled my existing relationships and negated many potential new ones. By always needing to be the giver and never the receiver, I always have to be in the upper-hand position and unintentionally keep people at arm’s length. As Brené Braun says in her powerful TED talk, vulnerability is an absolutely necessary component of intimacy. And nothing makes you more vulnerable than admitting you need help and asking for it.

By refusing to accept help, I also deprive others of the joy of giving and being needed. Good relationships require give AND take.

When I consistently refuse help from friends and family, aren’t I subtly suggesting that there is something wrong with accepting help and inadvertently encourage them to do the same? What unknown gifts might they have shared if only I had been willing to ask? I will never know the toll that my unwillingness to accept help has taken on the depth of relationship I might have experienced.

It has been a lifelong struggle to combat those early messages that are now hard-wired into my operating system. At times I feel I’m making some progress and then I catch myself slipping right back to my default position. Until I can easily and unashamedly accept and even ask for help, I haven’t really, truly let go of the stigma around it. I’m not there yet. But I’m still trying. I could use some help!

QUESTIONS FOR DEEPENING THE JOURNEY

1. What blatant or subtle messages did you receive around accepting or asking for help? Are you comfortable with these messages or are you trying to rewrite them?
2. How do you feel toward people who need help? When you help others, do you do this joyously and non-judgmentally or with reservations? Are you happy with your attitude?
3. Are you able to accept or ask for help when you need it? Alternatively, do you ever ask for help when you don’t need it, taking advantage of others’ generosity? Do you have a healthy balance between give and take?
4. We tend to think of people as givers or takers. What impact would it have if we thought everyone was—and should be—both a giver and taker?
5. How has your ability to receive help affected the quality of your relationships? Has the desire to be strong and self-sufficient ever gotten in the way of vulnerability and intimacy? If so, how could you have done things differently and what might the result have been?
6. How have your present attitudes toward these issues affected your response to the challenging issues we are faced with today as a society?
7. What kind of world would this be if everyone was completely independent? Would it be preferable to what we have? What would be lost in such a world?

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