When I was a new mom, my own mom repeatedly said, “Get good help”. The lingering adolescent in me (mind you I was in my early 20‟s) was like “yeah, yeah, yeah what do you know?”

Now I‟m in my 40‟s, with four children and I‟m finally mature enough to accept the wisdom of my mother and I regret the years I rejected it.

I was twenty-four years old and a powerhouse of energy when I came home from the hospital with my first son. My mother kept telling me how she used to get the neighborhood young girls to come over and serve as mother‟s helpers.

"I don‟t need help‟ was the thought that constantly came to mind. "I can do this, all by myself.‟

Seventeen months later, I brought home my second son. The same scenario repeated itself; she told me to get help and I (prideful and resentful of the suggestion) insisted I could do it all by myself. This time I was secretly crying for the first six weeks of my second son‟s life. It was harder than it had been the first time, I was exhausted, strung out and lonely but come hell or high-water I was not going to get help!

“Take a nap when the babies do”, everyone would say. The truth is that‟s the only time I had to myself or that I could actually be productive. I most certainly didn‟t want my house to look like I needed help.

Less than two years later, we moved halfway across the country and our third son arrived. Unlike the first two he had medical issues and among other things he often needed breathing help every three hours, day and night. With the move came a new job, for my husband, and the new job took him from the public sector to the private sector and that included travel.

So here I was, not quite thirty years old, with three baby boys, one that was ill, a husband that traveled and I continued to insist I can do it alone. We had no family nearby so I was literally at it alone.

You can imagine three babies under four, a husband that traveled, a child who needed breathing help around the clock and a young mother so resistant to taking advice that she‟d rather deteriorate than submit to suggestions of those around her.

Truth be told, I about had a nervous breakdown. I was deliriously tired. I shudder to admit this but I remember driving around with thoughts of, „If I had a car accident I would have to go to the hospital and I could sleep there‟. I was desperate for sleep, I was no-doubt a nightmare wife and mom, but I was doing it “by myself”.
Oh the pride it must have taken to let my life disintegrate around me just so I didn‟t have to surrender to the need for help or the advice of others.

Now it was during my 3rd pregnancy that I got saved; meaning I was rescued from myself by God. (My testimony as aired on the 700 Club) That was the beginning to the change, but God is so patient and gracious He would never reveal all our inadequacies (sins) at once. So while I was on the road to a new heart, it would be several years before I recognized what a buffoon I was insisting on doing things my way.

After years of trying and failing I began to better understand my complete dependence on God. I began to have eyes for how ridiculous I was by trying to look „altogether‟ by doing it all by myself when in reality it was exhausting creating a façade to disguise the nightmare which I didn‟t want anyone to really see.

My husband wanted me to get a nanny. Oh how offensive! I didn‟t work outside of the house, how could he suggest such a thing?

 

I started bible study and I began sharing with my leader. She responded lovingly to my life. She recognized that my husband was trying to lead me (to still water frankly) and I was being defiant, prideful and foolish. She put it this way:
“God didn‟t intend for us to do it alone. Even the poorest women in the bible had maidservants.”

 

She was right, God didn‟t intend for us to do it alone.

 

I realized that I was doing things the way the world had laid them out for me, I was out of my mind; but when I sought to do things God‟s way (which is vastly different) I began to feel joy and peace. I began to not worry what others thought and got more focused on God‟s opinion.

I got a nanny; it was like releasing some air out a tire that was so overfilled, it was going to literally explode if one more thing put pressure on it. I began to feel like a person again, dare I say I began to even feel like a woman. I was no doubt more attractive to my husband and better with my kids. I was so sorry I had waited so long to get to that place but I was there and the relief was so satisfying.

Some years later the fourth son came around. I no longer needed a nanny because my older children were in full day school. I went from feeling compelled to be everything in my own strength and proving I could do it all, to lying around the house and enjoying my baby. I remember snuggling on the couch, looking out the window, with him in my arms and thinking how relieved I was that I had come to a place where I didn‟t feel I had to be „super mom‟.

I didn‟t volunteer for anything, I realized I was a „new mom‟ and it was not the season for me to be everything to everyone in the world. I began to understand that if God wanted it done He‟d provide but He can handle his own issues, He didn‟t need me to go around doing things I thought He‟d like. Eventually when I was ready He called me to do things for Him and I was ready, I hadn‟t wasted my energy on my ideas of what God would like to have done.

I hired a homeschooler to help me around the house. She was able to accomplish what I was not. As the years progressed I began to surrender more and more to the joy of having help. Now I have a sickening amount of help, but as my mother said fifteen years ago, “It was the best money I could ever spend”.