Little Strokes Can Fell Great Oaks

Thoughts on Time and Asking for What You Need

Last autumn, I wrote a rather lengthy post about how my life felt more than a little too crammed full, and that I couldn’t see an end in sight until the close of the the school year. By the time the holidays rolled around, I was fed up with feeling helpless about it all, and I think my soul was crying out in silent prayer for some kind of reprieve. Enter God with all his mercies.

January always feels a little slower, whether it is or not, because it sits juxtaposed next to the flurry that is December. But things have actually changed this month in a couple of small, key ways—and as they say, little strokes fell great oaks.

This year, my children have not been early morning people—at least, not get-out-of-bed-and-leave-the-house-at-eight-thirty morning people. Morning appointments, morning piano lessons—none of it has gone especially well. And the crabbiness that accompanies those early morning exoduses from home set the tone for the rest of the day.

Thankfully, we have a break from piano lessons until mid-February, but in a moment of inspiration, I asked our lovely piano teacher if, by any chance, she had an open slot in the afternoon for the winter/spring semester. And she did. This reminded me of James 4:2, “You do not have because you do not ask” (emphasis mine).Why, I wonder, did I not think to ask sooner? Just like that, one morning at home was added to our week, and not just for the next six weeks.

Then, my younger daughter’s speech and occupational therapists said, within days of each other, that they thought she would do well to reduce her therapies to every other week. My one ask was that we could do both therapies on the same day, making our trips out of the house biweekly. The answer was yes, if we moved to a different day at a later time, which was a better scenario than I had dared to imagine. Bam! Our busiest day’s activites were suddenly cut in half, with that morning now slated as at-home time. Every other week, we’d have an additional full morning at home on a different day, and on the weeks we do have to show up at speech and OT, we’ll start an hour later than we did previously. God’s mercies, all.

Just like that, our whole calendar looks different. Our homeschool looks different. Our pace looks different. Our life looks different. I spent a few hours blocking out a new schedule, mostly to help me wrap my mind around how things can play out at home for the rest of the year, and the whole exercise was like a big, deep breath for my soul.

If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed after a frenzied autumn, are there small scheduling tweaks you can make to ease your load? Are there simple pleasures or breaks you can fit in to provide rest and ease? Sometimes, a simple change in the day or time something occurs in your week can feel make it feel like a mountain has been transformed into a softly rolling hill. And we often forget that the people who serve our families—teachers, doctors, therapists, and so on—want what is best for us. They want to help us live our best lives.

Sometimes, all you need to do is ask.