Do I Really Need Help

OK, today I want to talk about a subject that has been a problem area for me over the years.  What do I do when I need help?

Before I can answer that question I have to answer another one that can be much more difficult for me.  Do I need help?  I can already hear all of my friends and family describing in great detail how much help I need.  And yes for just a minute it does make me laugh.

But for me it is a very serious question.  See I have always believed where there was a me there was a way.  What does that mean?  Well it means that I can handle any problem that comes up.  If you have a problem, together we can find the solution.  This is a very good attitude and it has served me very well in school and then in my business and in life generally.  But unfortunately, I took it a little too far.  I got to the point that I began to think I didn't need any one's help.  I knew that I needed God's help with a few things.  Obviously, I could not get to Heaven without Jesus.  I knew that and there were certain other areas that I needed His help as well.  But outside of that I didn't think I needed any help.  I remember telling my ex-wife once that I only needed her for one thing and I only needed her for that because my covenant with her wouldn't let me get it any other place.

So that was a good thing right.  I mean, I did learn to be very self reliant, right.  Well what I told her that day was an incredibly wrong thing to say.  Unfortunately, I was just too ignorant to realize how much help I really needed.

To start with, I needed God's help in so many more areas than I was letting him help me.  I guess I figured, I only needed his help when it came to miracles.  I had no idea how to rely on him like I do now.  Now I am no expert by any stretch of the imagination but I am learning more and more everyday how to rely on him and let him help me in every area of my life.  Here is something you might find interesting.  I enjoy doing little things for people from making coffee to buying dinner.  It isn't a big deal but it does help and bless them.  Now guess what, God loves doing those same little things for me.  It's such a humbling thought to think that the creator of the universe is interested in the little things in my life but it's true.

Now if I wouldn't let God help me with anything, I wouldn't let anyone else either.  I can remember times when I was carrying a whole bunch of stuff up to my apartment and someone would ask to help.  My response was always, "No thank you.  I can handle it."  That was probably true with the groceries to my apartment but I began to realize that there were other areas of my life where I couldn't handle things all the time by myself.  Just take my company for example.  I have several people that work for my company because I am not capable of doing everything myself.  That seems pretty obvious but what about carrying the burden of a failed marriage or how about carrying the burden of some other type of broken relationship?  How about getting help losing weight or changing my financial situation?  I couldn't do these things on my own and guess what, neither can you.  See we all have areas in our life where we need help and not only is that OK but it's very normal.  In fact, it's the way we were designed.  Do you know what the most important thing to God is?  He didn't send Jesus to reclaim the gold or the silver or any other "thing" on the earth.  That wasn't significant to him.  He wasn't concerned about that part of his creation.  He sent Jesus to get the most precious part of his creation back - you.

OK, so now that I have decided to admit that I need help, what should I do?  This is a pretty complex question with a really complex answer.  Are you ready?  I have to ask someone for help.  Pretty deep theological stuff right?  Well for me that can be very difficult to do.  I have learned about asking for help from D.  D is an amazing woman and I am truly grateful for her.  There have been a few times in our relationship that she has asked me for something.  She doesn't apologize for asking.  She just asks knowing that I want to help and it makes me happy to help her.

So one day I asked her to pick up my dry cleaning from a cleaners that is near her house.  I was going to her house later and the cleaners was out of my way.  It would have been a little hard for me to get there before they closed and there was an item that I wanted to wear that weekend.  Guess what, I needed her help and when I asked her, she was glad to do it.  It's a little shocking for me to operate that way.  Now obviously I could have figured out how to get the dry cleaning on my own but her help was certainly a blessing.  D, if you read this, thank you again for your help.  I really appreciate it.

So let me sum it up by saying this.  We all have areas and times in our lives when we need help.  It's not only inevitable, it's the way God made us.  But we have to admit to ourselves first that we need help and then we have to take the courage to ask someone else for help where it is appropriate.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Friends vs. Family Part 3

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me say thank you to my sister-in-law, CO for her contribution to the Minion.  Here is the last part of her opinion on Friends vs. Family.

CO-
Now I will set the blood tie aside to discuss families that we have through marriage. (The In-laws) Just because we have married into a family does not mean this new family will love or accept us, but it is a blessing when we can become a part of a family in that way. When we marry we then start to build on the relationships we have with our new in-laws. Many people start this process before marriage but not all of us have had that premarital advantage to do so. (I recommend getting to know the family before marrying into it.) I tell my children all the time that apples tend not to fall far from the tree so if they do not like their potential in laws, they might want to study and get to know their potential spouse a little better before making a decision on marriage. If the family is too difficult to deal with because of any number of issues, then it would be beneficial to have those issues worked out with your spouse and his/or her family before they marry. I hope my children do not make that mistake when they marry. I believe some of my issues with the family would not exist now if we would have had the time to get comfortable with each other first.

The irony of my viewpoint is that friendships that become so close to us that we claim them as family are purely accepted and loved. However, family that we were born into and married into do not receive the same acceptance as a good friend. Families bring to many demands and idealisms to the table that get in the way of our being accepted or loved and that makes a family relationship less successful. This does not mean that we love our families any less, but it does cause a lot of strife and it does make the family much harder to enjoy.

My conclusion, based on my own life experiences is that friendships tend to be more successful than family relationships because friends are enjoyable, less judgmental, of like mind, and the feeling is mutual between the two people. Families can be highly successful and similar to friendships. However, a family member would have to approach the relationship the same way that they approach a friendship, having respect for the individual and an equalization of the relationship rather than a warped hierarchy of status and titles.  We as parents have to learn to let go when it is time to do so, and become a friend and just love our families. This does not mean that we can't offer advice or let them know that they may be making a mistake, but we have to leave the judgments and the unachievable expectations behind. To be clear I am not including the relationship between a parent and child that is under an adult age. Children are to be taught by their elders to know the way they should go in life. I am merely speaking of adults in a family environment.

To cap things off I would like to add that my opinion is not all a doom and gloom. I am also not saying that these things apply to every person in my life or anyone else's. I am a firm believer in the exception to the rule and no two families are alike. However, most families share some common characteristics. This article is based solely on my own experience and is my observant opinion.

The Minion