Month: January 2019

I’m a parent! My job is to take care of you, not me!

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Retrieved from: https://www.reddit.com/r/QuotesPorn/comments/2tu02v/i_used_to_say_if_you_will_take_care_of_me_i_will/

The last 4 months have been a whirlwind. Learning to balance single parenting, a full-time teaching career, volunteering at church, and taking care of me has been a steep learning curve. At the end of September, I hit a wall. There wasn’t any margin in my life. I was skimping on sleep. I was skimping on taking the time to prepare healthy food for myself. I was skimping on the things I knew I needed to be doing.

“God!?! How do I fix this mess,” I think was my actual prayer. The answer wasn’t an easy one to swallow.

“Take a break.”

“I don’t need to take a break!” I retorted. “I’m doing just fine. Besides, I’m doing all this stuff…this good stuff…and…what are they going to do without me?”

I see the folly of my thinking now, but at the time, I was sure I had to convince God I was doing so much for the Kingdom, for His Kingdom, and “Who would do it if I weren’t doing it?” What a shot to the ego, right? How dare God ask me to step down from things I loved doing?!? How dare He tell me to stop doing things for Him?!?

If you’ve never argued with God, you should try it – just to say that you’ve experienced it and can then understand those of us with thicker skulls.

God began to show me where my over-commitment was hurting more than helping. I was Sleepy. I was Grumpy. And it didn’t look like I’d ever be Happy. My students were driving me nuts. Why? Because they were acting like typical 6th graders. I mean, how dare they?!? My friends were asking, “What’s wrong?” more often than I thought was normal. And my kids, the sweet ones God gave Amy and me to raise, were wondering if I actually lived at home anymore. They never saw me. And when they did, I was mimicking one of the 7 Dwarves, and not the fun ones. When I realized just how impactful my absence at home had been, I made an appointment for the very next day to take a break. It was hard to look into the eyes of a very close friend and tell him I had to stop volunteering under his ministry for a time. It was excruciating to look my youngest in the face and ask for his forgiveness.

“I haven’t been taking care of me,” I said one night. He was a bit surprised, having expected a rant to come out of me. “I used to get on your mom a lot to take care of herself. She was so good with her diabetes while she was pregnant. Then after each pregnancy, things would slip and she’d get busy and she’d forget to take care of herself.”

After she was diagnosed with kidney failure, Amy said to me, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize that taking care of you and the kids meant taking care of me.” Sitting in front of my 14-year-old, choking on that realization was humbling.

I spent 2 1/2 months in hiatus from my volunteer positions at church (both of them). I resigned a tutoring job I’d taken “to help make ends meet” – a tutoring job for a student who really needed the help. And I signed up for a Bible study focused on being healthy in a non-healthy world. Each decision was extremely difficult. However, I’ve spent more time with my kids. I’ve been there for my kids when they needed me. I’ve even been there for my kids when they wanted me to be there.

I was reminded this week, in the midst of a very dark set of circumstances (none of my doing, but none that confidentiality will let me explain), that it is very important I continue to take care of me. Why? Because I can’t take care of my 3 boys if I don’t have the energy, time, and space to take care of them. And to get that energy, time, and space…I have to say “No” sometimes, even to “good things”. A wise Couples Bible Study leader once taught me that. I’d forgotten. Here’s to getting sleep, eating well, and laughing much!

Hands

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My left hand.

You can learn a lot just by looking at someone’s hands.

For instance, you can tell if someone works in an office or in manual labor. You can tell if they’ve been painting or cooking recently. You can also see signs of sickness and age.

A hand is the first contact most people will make with another person. Are the hands rough? Smooth? Cold? Nervous? Sweaty? Slender? Massive?

When you look at someone’s hands, there are many other things you can learn as well:

  1. Has life been good to this person?
  2. Do they place importance on taking care of themselves?
  3. Have they battled anxiety, gnawing and picking at their nails until there’s no quick, just a slight change between soft fingertip to hard nail, marked by dried blood droplets?
  4. Have they found love?

Sometimes hands can show the excitement of a new beginning or the grief of an end.

With our hands, we cook, give directions, and help our fellow man.

Some people gesticulate wildly while talking and you might have to duck a wild hand…especially if they dab (which I honestly believe should never be done by anyone).

Parents and teachers use their hands to teach, direct, and discipline the lives of the next generation.

Children play patty-cake, peek-a-boo, and create special clapping rhythms amongst friends while on the playground. Some children create secret hand-shakes and give each other high fives as a standard of approval. Some of these childish hand behaviors follow on into adulthood, and if they haven’t, they often should.

Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it (Mark 12:15).

With our hands, we sometimes massage painful muscles and joints at the end of the day – sometimes our own painful muscles, sometimes muscles belonging to someone else. Our hands are used to caress a lover, and make lifelong commitments (’till death do we part).

The next time you meet someone new, re-connect with a long lost friend, or simply have coffee with your best friend, take a moment to read the stories their hands can tell you.

Hands show the world more than many realize.