After my mini-nervous breakdown last week when I just realized I can't do everything on my plate, and I needed to take some time to concentrate on getting things done that I had let slide, I realized something else, too.
Not only had I put too much on my plate; I had also tried to do it all myself.
It's time to start asking for help.
As some of my long-time readers may know, I often feel like I take care of my whole extended family. I'm sort of the rock that holds both sides together.
But that's not the fault of the other people; it's also my fault, because when I need help I don't ask for it. Part of it is because I don't know if the others have time to help me, and they have their own problems. But another part is that I think I have this image of myself as the saviour of everyone, and that's not right.
So last week I started asking for help. Someone else is now going to drive the kids to hockey and skating every week, which gives me an extra 2 1/2 hours to get some work done.
I'm starting to enforce, once again, the kids' chores, so that they're responsible for the dishes and a lot of the laundry. Not all of it, because my 13-year-old just can't master how to fold a T-shirt. But a lot of it!
And I've started asking my mother to chauffeur to youth group activities a little bit more.
It's a start.
I do have family members that are here that can help me, but I often don't ask. Or I don't mind chauffeuring other people's kids around, if I'm going that way anyway, but I rarely ask others to take mine.
There are times when we just need to speak up, and I am at one of those times. I can't do everything alone, and yet I feel called to four very important things: being a wife & mom; my speaking and writing ministry; homeschooling my kids; and homeschooling my nephew. I know God is behind all of these opportunities for me, so He will give me the resources.
But I mistakenly thought that all of those resources were going to be mine. They're not. Sometimes He'll send others to help me. But I have to speak up and ask. So I am.
It's wonderful to realize you're not all-powerful! It's liberating! I suggest you try it, too!
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Labels: nesting, parenting |
Stumble It!
One of the first things I learned after BC (breast cancer) was ....I need to ask for help. It was not something I knew how to do do much less wanted to do...but God showed me I must, it is part of the plan.
It's still really hard and I have noticed the most stressful times in my life now are when I have passed up opportunities of help.