I remember at a baby shower a while back, there was a game that was essentially the “maternity olympics”…there were prizes for the biggest baby, the most over due, and so on.  When the “longest labor” event arose, I won.  Hands down.

When I was six and a half months pregnant with my youngest Junior Tribe Member (JTM), I began early labor. Through the wonders of modern medicine, the contractions went from three minutes apart to intermittent–as long as I didn’t nothing.  As soon as I moved around even a small amount, they would act up again.  I was in labor for 6 weeks, on bed rest between home and hospital to postpone the birth of the little guy as long as possible.

Problem was that I had a busy and active household, including a 20 month old JTM that never slowed down. What to do?  He needed to be chased after, and I needed to not be off the couch.

There was a delightful woman in my church, who I will forever consider my guardian angel.  She would phone each Sunday and ask, “Whaddaya need this week?”

And she would invite me to let her know which days I needed someone for childcare and when we needed meals, and she would ask someone to come clean my house. Numerous folks understood and knew my predicament and had offered to assist.  She would call those who were wanting to help and let them know when and how to help.

When my baby was born weeks later and needed only 10 days in hospital, it felt as though the community had birthed him. The support and help of the community prolonged my pregnancy enough that the complications were minimal. He was alive and healthy because the community surrounded us with care–the help was literally life-giving.

I will remain forever grateful…and forever open to supplying meals to young moms who need meals as a way of paying it forward. As a way of acknowledging my gratitude for the help.

We belong to each other.
We need each other.
We were created for connection.
We connect by helping and being helped.

It was powerful and humbling to be helped in such a meaningful way.  The community it created around me was one I will never forget.

Years later, when that JTM grew up some, and was in high school, he would ask for my help with his school work. There were times when I would sit with him and we would figure things out together…and times when I would decline to help.

• There were occasions where the demands on my times were large and it didn’t work to help him…and often he would ask for help the day before the assignment was due even tho he had known about it for several days. It just didn’t seem like I wanted him to learn that it is OK to make unexpected huge demands on a person very suddenly.  I don’t want him thinking that his lack of planning can have him expect others will drop everything to accommodate him.  That would be an unkind thing for me to teach him.
• There were other occasions where the assignment was challenging but I knew to be within his scope. He wanted help because it would be easier to do it with my help, but not because he needed it.  I would offer to proof read it when he was done his first draft, but would decline to write the draft with him. I wanted him to know that he can do hard things.  I wanted him to know that I believed in him.  I wanted him to know I didn’t feel like he needed rescuing.  I wanted him to feel my confidence in him.

I like helping…especially people I care deeply about. But there was a sense that, in certain situations, if I was helping him, I wasn’t really helping him.