WHY NOT YOU?

I was sitting at my desk when an employee walked into my office and shut the door. As an HR Manager, my office tends to get a lot of walk in traffic so it's quite common to get pop in visitors throughout the day. But when an employee enters and immediately closes the door behind them, it's generally a sign that the conversation will be pretty serious. This day would be no different.

The employee sat down, face red, and began shaking as she shared that there had been a fire in her apartment complex and she had lost everything. To make things worse, the employee had a little boy whose toys and clothes were all destroyed in the fire as well. She sat there, tears pouring down her face as she talked about not even having any money to buy her child underwear. The employee asked if the company offered any type of financial assistance, anything that could help her purchase some basic essentials for her and her child. You can imagine how it felt as I was forced to give this employee news she didn't want to hear - that the company offered no such benefit.

I sat there unsure of what to say next as the employee continued to cry, trying ever so hard to keep the tears from falling. She struggled as she tried to talk but the emotion had gotten the best of her and she was nearly out of breath. I felt helpless in that moment. I couldn't even imagine what she was going through. The only thing I knew to do was to pray for her - which is always a risky play at work. As an HR Manager, it's a line that I need to tread lightly but in this situation, I really didn't have anything else to offer her. So I asked if she would be ok with me praying for her. Through the tears and sniffling, she nodded her head so I bowed my head slightly and began to speak to God. I said all the typical "prayer" type things like "God please help her", "supernaturally provide a miracle" and on and on until I had exhausted all the clichéd prayers I could come up with. As I was coming to the conclusion of my prayer, I finished with "God, she's in a tough situation and needs help. Please send someone who can help her." As soon as I said that, the Holy Spirit gently said, "Why not you"?

I immediately looked up, startled by how clearly the Holy Spirit had spoken to me. It was almost as if it was an audible voice which is not something I often experience with God. The employee, completely unaware of what was going on, still had her head bowed low. There were several seconds of silence which caused the employee to look up from the floor and toward me. Unsure of what to do or say, I told the employee I'd keep praying for her and then sent her back to her cubicle.

I sat there for several minutes thinking about what had just transpired and contemplated my next steps. I was sure that the Holy Spirit had spoken but I didn't know what options I could come up with to help her. You see, I was looking at the solution from the perspective of what the company could offer her. But then I realized the Holy Spirit was not referring to the company. He was wanting me to help her. I got a little uncomfortable. As I mentioned earlier, I'm an HR Manager and the facility I work in has 450+ employees so it's not a best practice to get too intimately involved in helping individual employees outside of company policies, benefits, etc. I shut my office door and began to pray. "God, I don't know if I should really be getting involved in the affairs of the employees but, if the voice was in fact you, please give me confirmation and I'll do whatever you ask of me". Immediately the Holy Spirit spoke again....

"1 John 3:17-18"

I immediately typed that into a Google search and here is what that scripture says:

"What if a person has enough money to live on and sees his brother in need of food and clothing? If he does not help him, how can the love of God be in him? My children, let us not love with words or in talk only. Let us love by what we do and in truth".

God had spoken. I immediately left work and went to the ATM to pull out money. When I returned to work, I wrote out 1 John 3:17-18 on a piece of paper and put both the paper and the money in an envelope. A few minutes later, I was standing at the employee's cubicle. She was on a call talking to a patient so I slid the envelope in her desk drawer and returned back to my office. About an hour later, the employee was back in my office. She stood there and said, "I don't know if this is appropriate, but can I give you a hug"? I got up from my desk and accepted her hug. We didn't need to exchange any words and a few seconds later, she exited my office.

Prayer is certainly a great first step but it shouldn't be the only step. I'm not criticizing my immediate impulse to pray for the employee as we should certainly seek God's guidance first. But I learned something valuable that day. We shouldn't be so focused on praying for someone's needs that we miss out on being the answer for that person's needs.

† let the light in †