The Help

‘The Help’ is a film about African American house maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s. These women were trusted to raise white children, but not to polish the household silver or use the household toilet.

This drama has a good mixture of laughter and tears and you may even catch yourself cheering out loud. Skeeter, a young, naïve, southern society girl aspiring to be a writer decides to write a series of interviews with the local maids who have spent their lives raising white children.

In today’s world you feel uncomfortable about the discriminations of that day but I found myself asking, 'How did they keep working each day with such self composure and grace in the midst of unreasonable expectations, rudeness, verbal and emotional abuse, distrust and racial prejudice?' Even when they shared their stories they did it in such a way as to protect their abusers. How were they able to laugh and enjoy their own lives, when they had nothing because of unfair pay? 

The housemaids inner contentment had nothing to do with their surroundings at work or at home. Where did their ‘help’ come from? If you have seen this film or read the book, then you will have seen the answer - their faith. They are an extroverted, exuberant, enthusiastic and expressive people when, as a community of believers, they come together in praise and worship to God. They built each other up, their faith was fed from the word of God, their hearts were healed, their strength renewed, and grace found to go on into another day and another week. ‘The Help’ knew ‘The Helper’. How sad that the employers missed seeing Jesus ‘in service’ in their homes.

When life gets tough, when life’s happenings cause us such sadness, when life is unfair, when you just have to get on with it, where does your ‘help’ come from? 

Our Heavenly Father, made a provision for us through Jesus' death & Resurrection:

‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit (The Helper) comes on you; and you will be my witnesses’  Acts 1:8    

Are you experiencing His provision for you?

'Come as the promised Helper to our day, oh Lord.'

By Major Joanne Jellyman.