It is my fervent desire that my husband makes it home from work at a reasonable hour tonight. Yesterday, when it was past time for him to be home and he hadn’t called to say he was on the way yet, I called and reminded him that I really wanted to go for a run. Before midnight. He called an hour later and insisted that I get ready to go out the minute he came in the door. And he, wonderful man, didn’t even complain that he had to hold the baby for the whole half hour and therefore didn’t get to eat his dinner until 8 pm. This is the sort of support and encouragement that I require of him, but he usually forgets to provide. Of course, since he spends 12 hours in the office most days, I suppose I should be more understanding if his brain is a little fried and he has trouble remembering my long list of demands including being home for dinner and providing an opportunity for me to exercise.

I’ve been watching my friend’s children for a few hours on thursdays to give her a break since her husband is deployed. She watched my kids on Tuesday for that FRG meeting and is insisting that she could do that every week. The baby is high-maintenance, but I’d keep him. The rest of the kids are pretty easy to please and require very little adult-directed entertainment. In other words, the older 4 kids know how to go play, as long as they have each other, and generally only need an adult around to provide food and drink and occasionally arbitrate. And if they are in an environment with toys they are not accustomed to, they could disappear for hours and maybe only pop up looking for the bathroom.

But I hate to ask her to watch the kids. I’m supposed to be helping HER. I know my kids aren’t much trouble, but that’s not the point. And, I KNOW, having been there, what’s going on. It is VERY difficult for strong, independent women to accept help. On the one hand, having me watch her kids for a few hours provides her with a much needed break. I am sure that over the next few months, there will be times that those few hours are all she has to help her keep her sanity. But on the other hand, she can’t help but feel that all those hours of help are adding up and that she OWES me so much.

This is, of course, not the case. It rarely is. Most of the time, people offer aid out of the goodness of their heart. A woman makes a meal for a friend or neighbor who is sick or has had a baby and does not expect a meal in return once health is restored. A neighbor who watches your kids for an hour while you take a feverish baby to the doctor is not looking at her calendar while you’re gone and planning a time when you can watch her kids.

And I think most of us can accept the occasional assistance like that. The problem comes when there is a long-term situation that has one person “on the take” frequently and rarely able to reciprocate: for example, a serious illness. A woman who is herself sick or who is caring for a child, spouse or parent who is very sick probably isn’t going to be able to help anyone else for quite some time, but may need the help of the community in the form of meals, child care or whatever someone could offer for months. Accepting help for months is a difficult thing to do. We want to be strong and having your church bring you meals twice a week for three months is not what a strong women does.

But, yes, it is. A truly strong woman can be humble. A truly strong woman knows she CAN do it all, and DOES do it all, but she knows that sometimes her prayers to God for strength are answered, not just with the spiritual stamina that she knows she needs, but also with a very tangible, very real strength in numbers as others help her.

I had much practice at the virtue of humility when Bill was deployed. I had to suck it up and ask for help many, many times. And sometimes the answer was no, and I had to ask someone else. It was horrible. I distinctly remember when I was very pregnant and the gutters on my roof were clogged with oak leaves. We were having heavy rains and the water wasn’t able to drain away from the house so it was getting into the basement. I really didn’t think it was prudent for me to climb up and clear the gutters myself: not only did my swollen belly keep me off balance, I had three little kids to keep an eye on too. I called four or five people before I found someone willing to come out and clean my gutters for me. Isn’t that ridiculous? Who wouldn’t help a pregnant woman with a deployed husband clean out her gutters? Can you imagine saying no?

Looking back, I don’t even remember what the excuses were. I don’t even remember who told me no. I just know that I had to ask for help for a basic need not once, but repeatedly. I guess God felt I needed to prostrate myself and beg, which is very humiliating and exactly how I felt. But I’m stronger because of it.

And so, back to my husband who can’t get home at a good hour and my friend who wants to watch my kids. It would be nice to take an hour once a week to go for a run. I wouldn’t be so mad at my husband for coming home late all the time if I knew that on tuesdays at least I could exercise. And I suppose that my friend’s situation isn’t the same as someone with a serious illness. She is capable of watching my kids, they would offer her a distraction, and she wouldn’t feel the burden of “owing” me something.

And perhaps, this is God’s way, again, of keeping me humble. I could be proud of myself for helping out someone in need and getting nothing out of it. Or I could let her reciprocate and thereby negate that accumulated balance of her “owing” me.