“Somebody help me”

Have you ever asked for a little help?

Right now I’m reading Billy Coffey’s Snow Day. He tells the story about an elderly man in a crowded store shouting out, “Help me. Somebody help me.” 

People cautiously began to venture over to see his need.  An EMT rushed over, thinking medical emergency. A store manager was quickly on the scene, fearing lawsuit.

When he had a growing audience, he yelled again. “I need help. How much is this skillet?”

Relief washed over the crowd. Then they had a little anger at being duped.

Coffey writes:

“There was no doubt in my mind that the shoppers and employees who had answered the shouter’s calls for help thought he was a lunatic – or a jerk. All that commotion over a skillet? What a waste of time. How embarrassing.”

But the narrator of the story thought differently.

“I didn’t see his actions as foolish. I see them as gutsy. It takes some people a lot of effort to ask for a little help. And to even think of standing in the middle of a crowded Super Mart and scream for it? No way. That’s crazy.”

In the novel he writes of various people in town who had suffered in silence – the alcoholic who took secret sips in the dark; the girl from the nice family who slipped into drug addiction; the man who had suffered from so much loss that he took his life. All of them suffered in silence. None of them shouted, “Help me. Someone help me.” And that’s Coffey’s point when he thinks that man shouting the story isn’t as nuts as he seems.

“Maybe. But maybe it’s less crazy than not shouting for help when a disease cuts your life too short. Or when depression grips you to the point where you think you cannot possible go on. Or when addiction claims you and you keep saying yes when all of your being is shouting no. Silence may sometimes be golden. But it can sometimes be deadly, too.”

I’ve needed help. But by my silence, I’ve stolen the joy away from those who could have provided it. Content to look for the skillet alone, I selfishly walk the path by myself.

You might have stumbled on this blog, typing in the words, “Someone help me,” in your search bar, hoping that out there in cyber-space someone would listen, someone would care.

You might have got here by accident, but before you click away know this: There is a God who cares. There is a God who can help. 

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