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When I ask you to
listen to me;
And you start giving 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're trampling on my feelings.
When I ask you to
listen to me;
And you feel you have to do something to solve my problems,
You have failed me, strange as that may seem.
Listen!
All I ask is that you listen, not talk or do;
Just hear me.
Advice is cheap:
25 cents will get you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same
newspaper.
And I can do that for myself;
I am not helpless.
Maybe discouraged and
faltering;
Maybe lonely and isolated and grieving and searching;
But not helpless.
When you do something
for me that I can do and need to do for myself,
You contribute to my fear and to my weakness.
But when you accept, as a simple fact, that I do feel what I feel,
No matter how irrational;
Then I can quit trying
to convince you
And you can get about
the business of understanding
What's behind this irrational feeling.
And when that's clear, the answers are obvious
and I
don't need advice.
Perhaps that's why
prayer works, sometimes, for people;
Because God is mute and doesn't try to give advice or try to fix
things.
He 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'll listen to you.
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