Help

The lasts two weeks since my daughter has been born, I have received more help on more levels than I know what to do with some days. Some help has been needed, other help prayed for, and still some help volunteered.

I’ve learned help is relative. The helper has a different perspective than the helpee (to invent a word). There are issues of if the help has been asked for, if the help is the right kind of help, if the help is too little or too much. All of this takes experience, tact, and maybe the help of Miss Manners.

Too much help, especially when the help has a recognized monetary value, can become awkward for the helpee. It can become awkward for both helper and helpee if the reason or terms for the help are not verbalized and understood.

The best help comes from God because the help is right in time and exactly what one needs. For example, one morning at work, I was attempting to send a FedEx package to a customer and was unfamiliar with the process within the company as it had recently changed and I had never utilize the service. After searching on the company intranet site and through all my e-mails for instructions, and finding no FedEx waybill in our mailing area, I became frustrated and thought, Lord…sort this out.

Less than a minute later a colleague came by, seemingly with no destination in mind, and I greeted him. He offered me congrats on my daughter’s birth and I asked him how his project load was. Like a bolt of lightning it hit me: this colleague used to work in the mailroom and was the perfect person that could tell me exactly what I needed to know. Not only did he happily tell me what I needed to do, he got me the new company waybill and told me how I needed to fill it out and who needed to authorize my overnight shipment with their signature.

Moments after my colleague left, and I continued to fill the waybill. The colleague who could authorize my shipment walked out of the office right across the corridor from mine. Unbelievable, I praised, as I excitedly called him over. He graciously signed the waybill and I sent my shipment out. I thanked him, and then I thank HIM for sending help right in time.