My friend and fellow blogger, Kayse Pratt, just released a fabulous eBook Getting It Together: Your Guide to a Home Management System that Works! Details on how to get your copy -- including FREE -- are at the end of today's blog post!
Lying flat on my back was not how I’d planned to spend my 10th Mothers’ Day.
But it was my only option. Standing and sitting were out of the question. Even lying down, I was still in excruciating pain.
Monday morning...Tuesday morning...Wednesday morning... Each day I woke up expecting the pain to be gone.
Instead, it persisted.
Then worsened.
Finally, by the end of the week, I saw a doctor who said I must have pulled a muscle while working out at Curves the previous week. He prescribed a muscle relaxant and a narcotic pain-killer, which finally gave me some oh-so-welcome relief.
But each time the medication wore off, several times a day, the pain returned with a vengeance.
I tried heat. I tried cold packs. Nothing helped.
Descent into Helplessness
As the days and weeks passed, my hopes that “this too shall pass” faded and a dismal sense of helplessness descended.
The one constant in my life became pain. Everything else drifted to the sidelines: my hobbies, my job, my husband, even my children.
Oh, in the early days, I tried valiantly to keep all my plates spinning: my home-base business, my half-time teaching, my marriage, my 10-year-old daughter, my 8-year-old son.
But the pain was overwhelming.
It wasn’t just the pain I was experiencing in any given moment that overwhelmed me. It was the cumulative effect of so many nights of pain gnawing away at me and so many heart-breaking mornings of nerve-splitting pain being my wake-up call.
I could not escape the pain. I was utterly at its mercy.
Out of My Control
One well-meaning friend urged me to claim Philippians 4:13–"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me"–insisting that I’d be healed instantly if I just believed.
But the pain continued.
My entire life had changed without warning, without my permission, without any preparation. And that helpless feeling--of being completely out of control--was even worse than the physical pain.
It took six months for me to finally see a specialist who diagnosed me with a fractured vertebra and two herniated discs. Who sent me to physical therapy where God’s angels on earth taught me how to strengthen my core and brought me back from the brink of desperation.
It took a full year for me to break the narcotic dependency I hadn’t even been warned was a possibility. (Dealing with the withdrawal symptoms of codeine addiction is an overwhelmed story all its own!)
It took this injury for me to realize that a major weaknesses of my Type A personality is my lack of Plan B thinking.
When I was out of commission, I discovered how dependent my home, my children, and my husband all were on Mom.
Oh, they could “make do in a pinch” when I got sick for two or three days a year. In fact, they rose to the occasion like heroes when it was clear that Mom needed a down day.
But when it came to the weekly and monthly routines of
• planning the menus
• doing the grocery shopping
• stocking up on basics
• paying the bills
• buying school clothes
• making sure homework was getting done and piano was being practiced
• making food for potlucks
• having the cars serviced
• RSVPing for a birthday party (and then buying the gift and arriving on time!)
and all the other things they’d were used to me managing for them, they were as overwhelmed as I by my incapacity.
And it took this injury for me to realize how much of a human doing–rather than human being–I’d become. I actually felt smug, initially, when I saw how helpless my family was without me. See how much they need me? They can’t live without me!
But as months passed, my husband and children rose to the challenge. And I learned (albeit reluctantly!) to relax and let them take care of everything...including me.
Lessons Learned
Two vital truths have stayed with me in the twelve years since my injury:
1) I needed a Plan B.
My husband needed to know how to find access information to our various online accounts. My children needed to know how to plan a week’s worth of meals and then grocery shop for the ingredients. If life comes to a screeching halt when I’m unavailable, I’m parenting for dependency not maturity!
As Kayse says in Getting It Together, "Creating a Home Management notebook, where all of your important information is compiled ONCE and left in a permanent location, brings freedom to your life. You can hand the notebook over to the sitter (or hubby) and trust that they have every piece of information they need. You can enjoy a date night without that back-of-your-mind worry that you forgot something. Freedom. Doesn’t that sound amazing?"
2) My Plan A always needs to be Psalm 46:1
God is my refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
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| Click Here! |
Getting It Together includes…
- The top 5 reasons why you need a home management system.
- A step-by-step tutorial on creating your own home management binder.
- 30 printables that you can put to use immediately!
- Kayse's witty sense of humor.
Want to get your hands on it right this second? There are a few ways…
- Purchase Getting It Together as a PDF! For just $3.99, you can immediately download the book and start using the printables. Easy peasy! Click here to buy now.
- Purchase Getting It Together for your Kindle! Also just $3.99, you can get this wirelessly delivered immediately. This version includes a link to the printables, so that you can download the PDFs onto your computer and print them off. Click here to buy now.
- Get it for FREE for signing up for my monthly newsletter! Exclusive content, publishing updates, and a free eBook… what else could you want?
By subscribing to Kayse's newsletter, you will receive an email with a link to download the PDF version of the book for free! Click here to subscribe now.
Your Turn!
- When have you found yourself suddenly in Plan B (or C or D or...!)?
- If something were to happen to you today, what would your family be unable to do without you?
- Anything else on your heart!
