Isabella had been brought up...
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Isabella had been brought up to stand on her own two feet; asking for help was about as foreign to her as breathing carbon dioxide. That made her present circumstance just about unbearable -- for she needed help, and she knew it -- and the only way she was going to get it was to ask. She thought of the many times she had made herself available to help others, sometimes by their request, sometimes anticipating their needs before they found it necessary to ask. Two realizations emerged from her introspection: 1) she found it much easier to give than to receive, and 2) she tended to second-guess people, to try to figure out what was needed in a given situation before anyone had to ask. Isabella knew this had to be a reaction to her own discomfort with seeking assistance; she wanted to meet the need before someone else had to experience a similarly uncomfortable sense of dependency. Which was why this business of God saying, "Whom shall I send," just about blew her away. This was GOD, for heaven's sake! God ALMIGHTY, actually. If God was so almighty, what business did God have asking for assistance? As she wrestled with this question an answer slowly began to form in her thoughts, that God's asking had something to do with God's desire to be loved by choice. It was the issue of invitation versus coercion. If God did not empower the human creature with choice, then what meaning would loving God have? And because humans do have the freedom to choose, God must ask when God wants us to help. That thought gave an entirely new perspective to Isabella about the need to ask for assistance. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all .... -- Fannin
