This one is not for those who struggle to say no and are run ragged with saying yes to everyone’s requests and demands, but rather the ones like me who, all to often, say “next time”, “maybe later”, “in a minute” and “no, not now.” I’ve begun to catch myself and ask what exactly I am waiting for:
A new moon,
A rainy afternoon,
A hot air balloon
Or a silver spoon?
All we have for sure is NOW!
Not a moment too late,
Not a moment too soon.
Next time doesn’t ever come because this moment right now with all it’s perfect conditions cannot be replicated. When we don’t take the opportunity before us like the golden gift that it is, we risk losing what we obviously don’t realise we will gain.
Maybe the task became more important than the person and that is why I delayed.
I heard about trust banks this weekend at a conference focusing on Trust-Based-Relational-Intervention (excellent, mind-blowing material!). When we hear the cry of another human being’s heart and we respond to them, we are depositing into an account that will literally impact the face of humanity. When we take time to meet the needs of others, to communicate that people are special and to play with one another, a whole lot of healing, wellness and robust mental health is unleashed.
I have noticed that a ‘yes’ reverses a lot of limitations that were only in place because I had said no. I thought I didn’t have time but I actually did and I only knew that when I said yes to puzzles with beloved children and then still managed to hang the washing after all. If I had hung the washing first, I tell you now, I would have found at least three pairs of socks that needed scrubbing again with a green bar of soap and then I would have begun to wipe hand prints off the wall and then I would have remembered the RSVP’s I hadn’t sent and time would have flicked by and kneeling on the floor to work on puzzles together wouldn’t have happened. Just like a swim across an icy lake wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t spurred one another on and thrown off enough clothes to be light and modest, both, before plunging in and replying “You are making it” to the one who said “I’m not going to make it.” Hypothermia might have set in, but it didn’t. We made it and we lay in baths and stood under showers and drank tea in the sunshine, thankful that we had looked at one another and, before rationalising, said “Yes, let’s do it!”
I have carried children that I thought were too heavy because when a child asks you to carry them, you pick them up…one day it will be impossible, or actually nothing is impossible, but you could put your back out in the process. We said yes to stopping to see friends on the way home from our holiday and they said yes to meeting us, and whilst children played rugby on the lawn, four of us long-time friends sat around a table at a coffee shop that was closing for the day and as the sun began to set, we held hands around that table as an outward show of solidarity – “I haven’t seen you for an awful long time, but I hold your heart carefully and I think you are fabulous.” We got home late but my insides were smiling. One night I popped down the road to visit my friend because we seldom finish a sentence when we have our children with us. We stirred honey milk with cinnamon sticks and finished every sentence, ears attentive to one another’s stories and questions, ideas and concerns; fairy lights blinking into a deep blue night.
Proverbs 3 v 27&28 “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbour, ‘Come back tomorrow and I’ll give it to you’ – when you already have it with you.”
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