Asking for Help
Five years ago, we added our fifth child, Anna, to our family. It was the beginning of the Christmas season, she slept through the night the first week, and her siblings ADORED her. My memories of that time are precious and happy and glowing – except for one thing. In addition to this new baby, I also had four other kids who were old enough to be involved in things like swim team, basketball practice, piano lessons, and dance classes. My husband worked a side job at night, which meant that I spent several hours each evening taxiing kids back and forth to various practices and lessons. Which also meant that I had a screaming baby in the back seat who just wanted to nurse for more than five minutes at a time.
It seems silly, but those few months stick out as some of my most stressful in eighteen years of parenting. The vicious cycle of trying to get the baby fed and into her car seat in a certain number of minutes, or waking the baby so that we could deliver someone to basketball practice, or showing up late to pick up a kid from dance just about did me in.
As I look back on all of this five years later, I realize I should have done one of two things (hindsight is so awesome, isn’t it?).
- Quit some of those activities –
- Ask for help!
For some reason, I did neither of those things. I stayed on that hamster wheel and just kept running. Here’s what I wish, though. I wish I had reached out to friends and family and said, “I need help.” If I had simply asked, I know they would have been happy to pick a kid up from swimming now and then or drop one off at piano lessons. And I think I have one or two friends who would not have considered it a hardship to come over and hold the baby for an hour while I ran around town doing what needed to be done.
Friends, can I encourage you today to ask for help if you need it? You might not have a baby crying in the back seat. Instead, you might be emotionally fragile during this season. Or maybe you can’t figure out how to fix a decent dinner. Perhaps you need someone to help you be accountable in some area of your life.
Asking for help is hard for me because I don’t want to admit that I don’t have it all together, and I hate to inconvenience other people. Ironically, though, I love it when my friends are honest about their specific needs and allow me to help them. It’s a beautiful privilege to pick up the slack for a friend who is struggling. It’s just as beautiful, though, to humble ourselves and accept help from others. But first we have to ask. If you’re struggling today, allow a friend to pray for your marriage, to teach you how to keep a budget, or maybe just come over and hold the baby.
“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.” Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
Blessings,
April Huard
Loved this! Thank you for sharing the true reality all of us mothers face in the daily grind of life!
Thank you, Melissa! You’re right – much of life and motherhood is the daily grind. It can be amazing and rewarding, but it can also be hard and tiring! Encouraging each other through it can be so helpful.
I have learned that I will have that “baby” for the rest of my life caring for my son with special needs! I don’t know what I would do without those who have helped with my other child!!! Not just carpooling, but listening to her, caring for her, and helping her grow in her faith!
Praying for you today, Amy. Praise Jesus for faithful friends who are walking with you!
I have always been a person who doesnt like to ask for help and would do almost anything to not have to ask for it. But then I just couldnt handle it any more. I have 4 children, my husband was gone with the military and I was homeschooling and although I wasnt diagnosed with it I believe I was depressed. I reached out to a home schooling mom who I felt would help, her walk with the Lord was more mature than mine, her children were older, she had been in my shoes. I told her how I felt and that I didnt know what to do. She said she knew it was hard and she’d pray for me. THAT. WAS. IT.
So, like I always had, I just pushed through, did what I had to do. It wasnt pretty or fun. It was hard.
Fast forward 8 years and again I was desperately needing help. I reached out to another more mature godly lady who also had many children and home schooled. She suggested we do a Bible study. And that was it. A suggestion. Never happened because when a person needs help and asks for it they really are on the bottom of the barrel. That was all I had in me was to ask her to help. I needed her to come to me and sit with me, send me an encouraging card or two. Watch the kids, make a meal, make suggestions, ask where I was struggling and offer ideas to solve it. But again, like usual I had to do it alone.
Now, as I type this I am there again needing help. On top of just the pressures of having a large family and home schooling i have some health issues causing be daily pain and now unpredictable emotions and energy. I dont dare ask for help again. I cant take the pain of the calloused responses from people i reached out to. I’ve decided, as sad as it is, that I will need to pay for an encouraging “friend” to help me deal with my discouragement. A life coach might help.
Ladies, please, if someone does ask you for help. HELP THEM! They asked you specifically because they trusted their weakness with you, their vulnerability with hope that you’d pour into their weary soul. Ask what you can do, reach out often, offer solutions and ideas.
I pray I would never turn a blind eye to someone who needs help from me.
Amanda, I’m praying with you for a friend to encourage and help you right now! It can be very difficult to enter in to another’s pain and struggle. I’m praying for someone who is willing and eager to do just that!
Thank you. I enjoyed reading this article.
Thank you, Clara!