I Do Everything For Them And Nothing With Them

You are with your family constantly and you are never with them.

You are in the kitchen while they eat. You are in the hallway while they go out. You are at the side of the field, holding a bag, watching. You are in the car outside, waiting. You are upstairs putting away what they took out.

There is not one hour of this week where you were not somewhere in the same building as your children.

And if somebody asked you when you last did something with one of them, the same thing, at the same time, in the same way, you would have to go back further than you want to say out loud.

The word for what you do all day is for. You do things for them. Constantly, well, without being asked, and mostly without being thanked, which is not a complaint, it is just the arrangement.

The word this site is about is with.

And here is the part that will sting slightly, so let me get it over with: nobody in this house is stopping you. They are not keeping you at the edge. You put yourself there, for the best reasons anybody ever had, and now you cannot find the way back in.

Thou wilt surely wear away

There is a scene in Exodus where a man watches his son in law working and tells him the truth about it, and it is the only place in scripture where somebody says this out loud.

Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. (Exodus 18:18, King James Version)

Look at who wears away in that sentence. Not only Moses. Both him and the people who are with him, named together in one breath.

He will surely wear away, both he and the people that are with him, because the thing is too heavy, and it cannot be performed alone.

You have a household that is worn down by the same arrangement that is wearing you down, and Exodus 18:18 has never once made that a private cost carried by one person. The verse names both parties in the same breath, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a woman that the arrangement is costing the people she built it for.

You have assumed that your exhaustion is your own business, and that as long as you can carry it, nobody else is affected. Jethro says otherwise in the plainest possible language.

Why do they wear away too? Because a household organized around one person doing everything gets a manager and loses a member. They have you as a service. They do not have you as company.

And notice what Jethro does not say. He does not say Moses is doing it wrong, or that he lacks faith, or that he should care less. He says it is too heavy, and that it cannot be done alone, and then he changes the structure.

You are not being told to do less because you have failed at doing more, and the written word has never once made this a rebuke. Exodus 18:18 calls the load too heavy rather than calling the man deficient, and the Spirit of God is the one who reorganizes a household without shaming the person holding it up.

Which brings us to the ten minutes, and to the one adjustment that changes everything about them.

Leave one job undone

Here is the practical instruction, and it is going to be harder than it sounds.

Leave something undone, on purpose, tonight.

You are able to walk past one unfinished job and go outside, and doing that has never once been the same thing as neglect. It is written in Exodus that the thing is too heavy to be performed alone, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gives a woman permission to set a basket down mid task.

You have never done this. Not once. There is always a reason the ten minutes has to come after, and there is always something after.

So it does not come after. It comes instead.

The basket half emptied. The counter half wiped. The thing you were going to sort out before bed, not sorted out. Put it down at the point you are at, and walk out of the door.

You have a household that will survive a counter being wiped tomorrow, and the roof has never once come down on a family whose mother went outside for ten minutes first. Exodus 18:18 says plainly that carrying it all alone wears out both sides, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present with a woman standing in a doorway with a job behind her.

I know exactly what happens in your chest when you read that. That is the thing we are working on, and it will not be argued away by me. It will be worn down by evidence, which means you have to do it once before you can believe it.

Once. Tonight. One job, left where it is.

Do the same thing they are doing

Now the second half, and this is the part that makes it count.

When you get out there, do the thing they are doing. Not near it. It.

You are able to be a participant in this family instead of the staff of it, and that has never once required anybody to invite you in. It is written that the people with him wear away as surely as he does, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves a woman from the edge of a driveway into the middle of it.

If they are throwing something, you throw it. If they are going up and down the street, you go up and down the street. If it is a rope, you take an end, and if you can, at some point, you jump.

Not holding a bag. Not counting for them. Not photographing it, which is the most modern way of standing at the edge and looks exactly like being present.

You have hands that are free for ten minutes, and having them empty has never once been a failure of anybody's duty. Exodus 18:18 is a verse about redistributing a load rather than about carrying it better, and the Spirit of God is the one who puts an idle ten minutes into a mother's hands on purpose.

And expect it to feel strange. The first time you do the same thing as your nine year old rather than supervising it, both of you will notice. She will be delighted and slightly suspicious. That is not a problem, it is the whole point, and it tells you how long it has been.

Ten minutes. Then go back in and finish the counter if you want to.