While I am recovering from surgery, guest bloggers are stepping up to the plate to provide great food for thought to my followers. This week’s guest blogger is near and dear to my heart. My daughter, Kelly Efurd Lawson, is an inspiration to me and many others. Read on and you’ll learn why …
Today is the first anniversary of me going back to work full-time for the first time in several years. I started my new full-time job on the first day my oldest daughter started kindergarten, and 10 days after my youngest turned one. My oldest and I took the traditional “First Day” photo together. Her sign read “First Day of Kindergarten”. Mine read, “First Day of Work”. We were adorable, if I do say so myself.
It was a difficult decision to take a full-time job outside of the home; I knew that it would come at a cost to my family. I was not seeking out a full-time job. And there was no other reason for applying for the job other than that it was a position for which I seemed uniquely qualified and gifted. God was very much in the entire process. I had an opportunity to utilize the sum of my life experiences, education, and work experience in one job, for a ministry that does important work in the lives of at-risk children and youth. Taking this position would also allow us to make significant headway in becoming a debt-free family. Icing on the cake.
We are one year in to our new normal. I have found my work to be very life-giving, and I’m good at it. I enjoy it. And, for now, I know that I am exactly where God wants me to be. But I am away from home a lot more than any of us was accustomed to. I have a rockstar husband, who also works full-time outside of the home, and does an outstanding job keeping this house going when I’m not physically present.
It has been a year of big transition for us: new job, new school, new childcare arrangements. My husband and I have had to find better ways of communicating with one another so that each of us knows what we need to do and where our children need to be. I’ve had to get better at meal-planning and grocery-shopping, so that we know dinner will make it to the table every evening. Every 3 months we have a dedicated conversation that involves weighing the costs of this new normal against the benefits and we ask the question, “Is this still working? Is it still worth it?”
It has been a crazy and good year. But the hardest thing I’ve had to learn is this:
It’s okay to say ‘no’. Not only is it okay, but often it is what is right and good and in the best interest of everyone in our family.
I am an extreme extrovert. I love it when my house is full of people. I attend all of the family birthday parties and anniversary parties. I’ve been known to often traipse my family across Texas, visiting grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends. I LOVE my family! We actively serve in leadership in our church, spend time with our neighbors, cook for others, and watch our friends’ kids. If someone needs something, I usually give an enthusiastic ‘yes’! Partly because of my extrovert tendencies, partly because I enjoy serving others, but the heart of it is that I am, by nature, a people-pleaser. That’s a giant can of worms that I can’t really open in one short post.
And it worked okay a year ago. But living the same very full life (to that extent) now that I am working full-time is not doable. I ran myself ragged trying to be all things to all people (never a good idea), and I ran myself ragged trying to keep the same exact commitments, but with much less time in the day to honor those commitments. I very quickly became a person that overcommitted and underperformed. Because it’s just not possible to do it all.
I’ve had these words from Galatians ringing in my ears these past few months:
Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ (Galatians 1:10).
Yes, Paul, who wrote those words, wrote to a very specific people in a very specific context, and that context reminds me of just how trivial my daily struggles really are. But these words still speak to me. They are God’s truth and God’s voice in my mind and heart.
So for today, these words remind me to ask for God’s guidance in saying ‘yes’ to the things to which he would have me commit. For today, I ask God to give me the courage to say ‘no’ – which is so totally against my natural tendencies! And for today, and all days, I ask God for his calm reassurance that no matter what, I am His, and that my self-worth isn’t found in anything other than Him.
Kelly lives in Waco, TX where she works in Development for Methodist Children’s Home, a ministry that offers hope to more than 1,400 at-risk children and youth. She has been married to her husband Billy for 10 years, and they have two daughters, Eisley (6) and Jubilee (2). Kelly enjoys baking, reading, and cheering for the Dallas Mavericks.
Tagged: marriage, scripture, words matter
