Dear Dan,
Sometimes Mom's don't always do or say the right things,but I guess you already know that.
I felt so bad this morning after I left and I told you I was disappointed in you. I felt a need to make you understand that its not YOU that I'm disappointed in, its your ACTIONS. The way you treat people in general.
You also know I'm a strange kind of bird,but i do believe in prayer and I do believe in messages from God.
This morning when I checked my mail
the following *letter* was there.
It was as if YOU wrote it to ME and it jumped out of the page and hit me in the face. I wanted to share it with you so you can see I really DO understand, even if you don't think I do.
Please Listen
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 can
and 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 trying to
convince
you and get about 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.
by Author Unknown
from Chicken Soup for the
Teenage Soul
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ANGELSDO
12/29/98
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