Listen To Me .........Please !

When I ask you to listen to me

and you start giving me advice,

you have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen to me

and you begin to tell me why

I shouldn’t feel that way,

you are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me

and you feel you have to do something

to solve my problem, you have failed me,

strange as that may seem.

Listen! All I ask is that you listen.

Don’t talk or do-just hear me.

Advice is cheap; 20 cents will get

you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same newspaper.

And I can do for myself; I am not helpless.

Maybe discouraged and faltering,

but not helpless.

When you do something for me that

I need to do for myself,

you contribute to my fear and inadequacy.

But when you accept as a simple fact

that I feel what I feel,

no matter how irrational,

then I can stop tying to convince you

and get a bout this business of

understanding what’s behind

this irrational feeling.

And when that’s clear,

the answers are obvious

and I don’t need advice.

Irrational feelings make sense

when we understand what’s behind them.

Perhaps that’s why prayer works,

sometimes, for some people -

because God is mute, and

he doesn’t give advice or try to fix things.

God just listens and

lets you work it out for yourself.

So please listen,

and just hear me.

And if you want to talk,

wait a minute for your turn-

and I will listen to you.