Giving Too Much?
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Thursday, May 20, 2010 11:11 PM
The responses to my “Helping Hands” post from Monday made me realize: wow, I was taking a simplistic view of this one!
This is one of the reasons I love writing here at Faith & Family, because our lovely readers so often introduce me to new points of view. When I write about a topic, I try to consider as many angles as possible, but I miss so many. When I wrote about stepping out of my comfort zone to try to be more helpful to those around me, it honestly didn’t occur to me that some people might have a problem with helping others too much and thereby depleting their own resources.
One of my biggest vices is laziness. It’s true. If things need to get done, I get them done, but if something is optional I usually will not bother to do it. In many cases it won’t even occur to me that it needs to be done! I’m not proud of this, obviously, and I’m working on it, but that’s the way I am.
So for me, it would be very difficult for me to start helping others *so much* that I neglected my own needs. That means that for me currently, the right approach is to constantly remind myself to give more. It would take a long time, and a lot of growth in virtue, before I’d be in danger of being too generous with my time and resources.
For many people, though, it is easy to be generous. (Good for you!) And then there is a delicate balancing act to be managed. As my father always says, the hardest choice is between two good things. Taking care of yourself and your own family is a good thing. Giving to others is a good thing. Keeping those two good things in proper relationship to each other is a difficult job.
As with all delicate undertakings, I think discernment should be a key part of the process. God gives each of us a unique calling and one person’s perfect answer is not going to work for her neighbor. We’ve all got to do our own listening and deciding.
With that being said, though, I think we can learn a lot from each other. As a mother who’s at a fairly early stage in her family life, I’m always interested in the experiences of those who’ve gone before me. I’ll take wisdom wherever I can get it.
So, moms, speak up! How do you struggle: with remembering to be generous to those outside your family, or with giving too much? Are you still looking for balance, or have you achieved it and have tips or encouragement to share?
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