Actually, I could do with some help...

Asking for help?! I'm not very good at this. At work I've been learning how to ask people for help - I mean seriously! When I realise that actually I'm going to be stuck, the whole thing is going to be stuck if I don't ask for help I'm asking for help. Success!! Asking for help is actually a good thing. The truth is, I like to be asked for help by other people, it means I get to make a positive contribution to what's going on around me. In fact I get mad sometimes when people don't ask for help, they try to juggle everything like they are a circus act. I think 'that's just silly, them running round like a headless chicken when it's plainly obvious that I'm waiting for something to do before such and such...' Hmmm...

So what made me bring this up tonight? On my way home from work, through the driving rain that happened to be the weather God sent us today (actually it's so lovely and fresh and green as I see the effects of it in the trees outside! ) I was listening to a talk on 'Loving the Teenager: Understanding the teenagers world' by Dave Fenton from a conference called Word Alive. One point that he made that I was totally on board with was that as a church we have a tendency to be a bit pants at involving 11's to 15's in the life of the church, often with groups that end at 11 and start at 15, with kids/teenagers struggling between these ages with a lack of group identity. One thing, Dave said, we could do better would be to involve the kids in the tasks at church, something that teenagers would actually be ideal candidates for. It was a shocking revelation - I actually said 'yes! Why aren't we doing that?!'. Dave also went on about how as a family we are key to growing faith in our kids, church youth groups are just 'the icing on the cake'. 'Yeah, too right!' I thought. 'Brilliant'

Then I got home and I realised, that same stuff that just struck me on the journey was exactly the stuff I don't do in the home!! I am skilled at taking the path of least resistance. I am tuned to thinking that they won't like me anymore if I ask the kids to do a certain task. I am rubbish even at asking my husband to do a particular task. So tonight, I prepped the salad and baked the dinner and when everyone got home I asked each person to do something. It was a simple plan. I asked my husband 'Would you serve the dinner up?' and my older step-son 'Could you make everybody a drink?', and my younger one 'Could you get everybody a knife and fork please?' and I fetched the plates.

Simple? Yes! Successful? Very! And did anybody keel over and die? No. There was even space for the older to make an exotic drink mix which ended up tasting like Watermelon - yum!

Why is this a good thing? Am I just being lazy? Actually I am being lazy when I don't bother. There's lots of good research out there that suggests we are not helping our children when we do not include them in family teamwork.

The truth is, it's much easier not to rock the boat...

From: http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/importance-teamwork-families-13445.html

Praying that I ask for the grace of my family's help on a daily basis, and that we grow together as a result. Praying that you do the same!

Grace and peace