When you have young children at home, sometimes weekends are the worst. Sure, there are plenty of moving parts during the week, but the unstructured void exhausts me even more. Usually, my husband and I are able to get through it together, or divide and conquer. So when he plans a fundraising trip, we make sure to line up friends and babysitters to help cover those difficult stretches. 

Once he’s away, they drop like flies. Everyone has something that “came up”. Before Andrew left, several people said “Be sure to call me, I’d love to help!” I call. They’re busy. They’re so sorry. They’d love to come another time.

I get through it, of course. Don’t we always? It isn’t pretty. There’s a lot of yelling. The kids have forgotten it now. But what happened? I thought I had a community here. My friends were telling me that it wasn’t convenient for them to help me. What they didn’t realize is that I was actually saying, “I need you! Will you please inconvenience yourself for me?” 

So a few weeks later when I had just returned from my own trip, exhausted from 27 hours of flying and 9 hours of jet lag, we had four extra kids in our house. A single mom was taking university exams, another family was at a ministry event until late in the evening. I didn’t want to. It wasn’t easy. But those friends needed me to inconvenience myself, and I needed to be willing to do what I had asked of others. Building community is costly. I trust that over time we will reap the benefits. But in the meantime, we will follow Christ’s example, putting others’ needs above our own, and extending grace when they are unable or unwilling to do the same in return.