Take Care of Yourself First

I'm pretty sure I have a four year old that is wise beyond her years. You may remember this post about being confident. Sometimes the comments she makes during our conversations seem to be straight from the mouth of God to my ears. Talk about God speaking to you through other people. I've decided He uses Mary Lyndsey to speak to me and teach me things quite often.

Recently , we were riding in the van to pick up Spencer from school. I was listening to the radio and Mary Lyndsey was watching a DVD. She took her headphones off and said to me,

"Mom, turn off the radio, I need to ask you something."

"What is it Mary Lyndsey?"

"Do you have to complete your own mission before you help someone else?"

"What? What movie are you watching? What mission are you are talking about?"

(You learn to never answer a question for a four year old when you don't know what the source of the question is. It just might come back to bite you.)

"I'm watching Gigi. But that's not what my question is about. I want to know if you have to help yourself before you can help someone else."

She clearly had something on her mind, but I didn't know what, so I probed further.

"What are you talking about Mary Lyndsey? Why are you asking the question?"

(Great mom trick by the way... answering a question with a question)

"When we were on the plane to Chicago and to Washington, that lady said you had to help yourself first before you could help somebody else."

Now it was clear. She was thinking about what the flight attendant had said about the oxygen masks on the plane.

"Oh yes Mary Lyndsey, if something happened on the plane and you needed oxygen, you would want to put on your own mask first and then help the person next to you put on their mask."

I didn't want to go into too much detail as she has only flown twice and discussing plane crashes and loss of cabin pressure didn't seem like a good thing to do with a four year old.

"So do you have to always help yourself first with everything?" I wasn't quite sure how to respond so I made up some answer that seemed good at the moment and satisfied her.

The more I thought on her question though, I began to feel like I got the message. We do have to take care of ourselves first before we can help or take care of others. As a mom who is busy and seems to burn my candle at both ends quite often... I burn out quickly. At those times I lose sight of my first calling. After God, it is my family. I can't take good care of them if I'm not taking good care of me. Taking good care of me requires putting on my oxygen mask first to breath in the fresh air, the breath of life I receive when I spend time with Him and in His Word.

I found this quote in an article by Mankyu Oh and found it quite interesting.

"Several years ago a Canadian missionary to Korea translated "spirit" into Korean as "the breath of God," based on John 20:22. I was very excited to see this translation, since I had been reading about ancient ideas on breath at the time. I had also noticed Ellen G. White's emphasis on breath, stressing the benefit of deep breathing for our life and health. Led to do a study of the idea of breath and breathing in the Bible, I was surprised to find how strong a motif it was-running right through Scripture.I found that breath was an essential element in the definition of humankind. More than anything else, Scripture paints the picture of human beings as "breathing" creatures. Humans began with the breathing of the Creator, with breath from God. "The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being" (Gen. 2:7).So we can think of a living being as "a living breath." Man became a living breath when he received the breath of life from God. We become weak when the breath of life in us becomes weak. We become fresh and strong when the breath of life in us becomes fresh and strong. We become spiritual, so to speak, when the breath in us becomes spiritual. Where can we go to get a fresh breath of life? The apostle Paul says in his second epistle to Timothy (3:16, 17): "All Scripture is God-breathed . . . so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." The Bible is a reservoir of God's life-giving breath. When I open the Holy Bible I imagine that I am going to the seashore of life-giving breath. I picture myself standing before an ocean of breath, and deeply inhaling the fresh breath of life from the Scriptures."

This is exactly what I am talking about. Take time to put on your oxygen mask and breathe in the Word of God. If you do this first, you won't run out of breath before you complete all of your other task and you will be able to take care of the others in your life so much better.