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Is it hard for you to say ‘no’? I’d have to say that is one of my problems. I love to do things; I love to be involved; and I don’t like to disappoint people. But if we don’t learn where to draw the lines in our lives, we will end up exhausted, burned out, stressed out and ineffective for Jesus. Our friend, Fran, is relearning that lesson. She is overly tired from trying to do too much for too many people, and her body is rebelling.
All week she’s been trying to catch up on sleep, but when you work all day and have two kids and a house to care for at night, it doesn’t leave a lot of time for yourself. This Saturday she does sleep in a little bit extra, but then it’s time to face the unending chores of a working woman’s Saturday.
She says to the kids, “Let’s get the shopping done early today before the crowds,” and she hustles them out about 9:00. They get home around 11:00 with a trunk full of groceries and stuff. Fran starts carrying everything in by herself when Jesus says to her, “Why don’t you ask Drew to help you?”
“Well,” she replies, “he’s just a kid, Lord, and he needs to have some fun time, too.”
“Fran,” Jesus says, “he needs to learn responsibility and to be considerate about you. He can help you.”
“Well,” Fran says again, “these bags are kinda heavy and he might drop one. . .”
“You have trouble delegating, don’t you Fran?” Jesus remarks. “Let Drew help you.”
She stops at the door as she heads back out to the car and realizes that the reason she doesn’t ask the kids to help more is, one, she feels guilty about being a working mom and tries to compensate by making life easy for the kids. And two, she really doesn’t think they’ll do it the way she wants it done. Instinctively she recognizes how wrong both of those are—false guilt and pride.
“Drew,” she calls, “would you help me please? Would you bring in the other bags in the car?”
Drew comes into the kitchen looking astonished. “You want me to bring in the groceries?”
“Sure,” Fran says, “you’re the man in this house now and I need your help. You can do that, can’t you?”
“Yeah, sure, Mom,” Drew says with a grin, and runs out to the car. Fran holds her breath as she watches him bring in the bags, but he makes it fine.
“Thank you so much, Drew; that’s a big help,” she smiles at him.
“What can I do, Mommie?” Alice asks.
“Well,” Fran tries to think, “you could bring the clothes down from the hamper upstairs and help me do the wash.”
“Okay, I’ll do that,” she says and runs upstairs.
“See, Fran,” Jesus says, “you can let your kids help you. It’s good for all of you to share the workload. You need to do that more and more.”
Fran realizes the truth of what Jesus has just taught her, and determines to get better at sharing the chores.
Do you need to learn that lesson, too? It will help you to avoid burnout and fatigue.