Difficult Seasons

Dad in the Kitchen

During difficult seasons, we do need help from others.

Most of us pride ourselves in being able to handle things ourselves, to take care of what we need on our own.  When an event then shows up that rocks our world, and we are physically unable to do what we normally can on our own, it’s hard to accept help, much less ask for it.  It’s an admission that things are not right, that we are dependent.

I just watched my dad go through this due to his recent hernia surgery.  In fact, he made elaborate plans to make sure he had food and other necessities after the surgery so he wouldn’t have to ask for help.  He did accept a couple of offers to bring his food up to him for a couple of days, but he also had his refrigerator stocked with enough stuff he could just heat up to last for a week.  He didn’t want to feel dependent, to put other people out.  And he wanted to feel in control.

But he did figure out during this that letting people help is a good thing.  He actually was feeling better than he expected, and was able to go down and eat in the dining room as normal, but he let the people who had volunteered to bring his food do it anyway.  He recognized that getting to help him was good for them, that it made them feel good.

There’s an important lesson there for all of us.  While it is hard to ask for help, doing so provides a blessing for those that are allowed to provide the help.  They get to feel useful.  They get to express in a concrete way that they care.  They get that warm feeling that goes with doing something for someone else.

So ask for help, and be specific.  Give others the blessing that comes from being neighborly, from being sisterly, from being brotherly, from being family.

Tags: Help

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 10:31 am and is filed under Illness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.