Yesterday was not a fun day...in fact I am still feeling a little bit of the after-affects this morning. I got sick yesterday. Really sick. With a stomach bug. I came home from work and spent pretty much the entire afternoon in the bathroom. And as it got closer and closer to 5pm, I started crying. A little bit because I was so sick of being sick, but even more because I was extremely worried about how I was going to manage to take care of my children for the evening if this kept up. How do you single moms do it? I am amazed by you. I didn't realize how tenuous a thread I was holding on by until now.
I called Brent crying, but knowing that he couldn't do anything. He is 2.5 hours away. He did tell me that I should go ask our neighbors for help. And I was so broken down by this point, that I didn't resist the idea at all. Samantha, Jacob and I all walked down the block, and as I almost started crying again, I asked Kathy to come help me with Samantha. She immediately said yes, she would be down to our house in just a few minutes.
So she came, and stayed for more than an hour and a half. She helped Samantha eat her dinner and get cleaned up. She held Jacob when he was crying and I had to run to the bathroom yet again. She paid attention to the water boiling on the stove to make bullion for me, so that I could have something more than water in my stomach. She got Samantha dressed in her jammies while I changed Jacob's diaper and she held Samantha and read stories to her while I was otherwise occupied again. Then before she left, she told me that if I need anything else, to be sure to call her, because that is why they are here.
Normally I feel humbled when I have to ask for help. Not so much yesterday. I just felt desperate...and grateful and relieved.
I wonder why we have to get to that point to ask for help? Are we so independent that we think we have to do everything ourselves? Or are we so arrogant that we think we are above receiving help, that getting help is for the weak? It is kind of humbling to think about. We are willing to give help, but not to receive it.
I tell my kids at work, almost daily, that they should ask for help. That it is actually a strength to be able to admit that you need help and ask for it. Yet, I struggle with doing so myself.
No person (or family) is an island. We are given friends and fellowship to share our joy and help with our troubles. So why are we so reluctant to use these gifts and to allow someone else the opportunity to be needed and to help?
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4 comments:
Awe, I'm so sorry you're not feeling well. If I lived closer I'd bring you some chicken noodle soup, a crossword puzzle book, and a daisy to brighten your day.
Hoping today is better!
"Are we so independent that we think we have to do everything ourselves? Or are we so arrogant that we think we are above receiving help, that getting help is for the weak?"
I've recently been thinking a lot about this myself. I think the American culture as a whole has a serious problem with this. (Of course there's a whole subculture that has a totally different problem with it, insisting on help as a right, but that's a whole other sack of knots)
Because I've been thinking about the matter in terms of leaning on God's help, my thinkings have brought me to consider this, arguably destructive, "independence" as a Submission problem.
Until *very* recently I deliberately sang the words wrong in a "Devo" song that I know you also know " ... to you alone *does* my spirit yield .... " -- 'does' instead of 'may' -- how arrogant is that? I mean, the lyrics are straight out of Psalms, and for years, decades, I've been changing them to suit my own, self-important delusions of self-determination, instead of what they really are and should be: a plea to God to grant that my spirit not submit to any other than Him.
I haven't really reached any conclusions yet (other than that I'm, still, an arrogant knothead sometimes -- yes, I know you're shocked), but I'm coming to see that the only way I can really overcome some of the things I struggle with may be to admit that I can't, and stop trying to stand on my own strength which has repeatedly proven so patently insufficient.
I think you've put your finger on it: getting help *is* for the week, and we are, every one of us, weak, but we *can't* get help unless and until we admit that small but overwhelming truth.
I do hope that you get to feeling better quickly, I know how nasty stomach bugs can be.
You can get through this -- you're too stubborn yourself to do anything else -- stubborn isn't necessarily a bad thing, if you're stubborn about the *right* things.
Manda, thank you for stopping by my blog, and for your well-wishes.
Nathan - I am so glad you read my blog and make comments like this. And I'm so glad to know I'm not the only person who feels like this. So when are you going to start your own blog? ;)
Ha! Not any time soon, I'm afraid, Chris -- I was ... very active in a forum for several years, and I've pretty badly burned out on carefully putting words together.
It was (and still is) a great forum, and the folks there are actually civil to one another, for the most part. Trouble was, as a moderator, I was one of the folks who broke up the "fights" that did occur, and it got to the point that that was *all* I was doing. It's a pretty draining thing to manage using only text and emote-icons.
The occasional pithy comment is one thing, but right now the thought of any sort of formalized arrangement is actively repulsive to me. Besides, I don't have pithy thoughts of my own all that often, so it'd probably be a pretty sparse blog. (shrug)
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