Have you ever wanted to be helpful to someone, maybe a big pregnant lady, but you weren’t sure how? My fifth pregnancy left me needing lots of help. Usually, I am the person who gets to help others, not the person who finds herself asking for help. A few months ago, I got to be the person who needed a lot of help. Being less independent allowed me to notice how some people found really great ways to be helpful. On the other hand, I experienced some ways that people were not helpful. Read on to hear some ideas about being helpful to someone who is pregnant.
Let Me Know if There’s Anything I Can Do for You….
I think everyone has heard that phase a million times. Unfortunately, I am guilty of saying this phrase myself. This phrased gets tossed about because it’s easy to say, and it can mean anything, or it can mean nothing. People say it to genuinely offer help. Some say it to be polite, but never really expecting you to actually take them up on it.
When people said this to me, and I got it a lot, I really didn’t know what to do with it. Did they actually mean that I can text or call them and ask for something? What if I needed another meal? They might be too busy for that. Since the comment, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do” is vague, it actually gives the person who needs help more work because they have to think about what they can ask this person to do for them.
In the end, I didn’t take people up on their offer because I didn’t know what their bandwidth was. I really didn’t want to make them feel uncomfortable if I asked them for something too big. So, I didn’t ask them for anything. I have always wondered why no one ever took me up on my vague offers to help them. Now I know.
Then how can you help someone who needs help?
Offer Something Specific
The friends that came and offered something specific took the pressure off of me to think of a way for them to help. In my case, I was dealing with extreme insomnia during the third trimester of pregnancy. I was barely making it through some days. Friends who said, “I am dropping off a meal for you at 5:30. Will you be home?” made it so easy. All I had to say was, “Yes.” Some specific ways to that friends helped can help are bringing meals, picking up groceries, cleaning your house, doing Amazon returns, checking in and seeing if you need something from Costco, grabbing the mail (that’s if you mail box is a block or two away) or taking the kids out.
Offering to help in a specific way involves thinking about what you are capable of doing and what you think would help someone. It takes maybe a minute or less to figure something out, but it is a far more effective way to offer help. When you offer something specific, it is obvious that it is genuine and sincere. A genuine and sincere offer is hard to ignore or deny.
Examples to Copy
What this trial taught me was how I can be helpful to others. Like I said earlier, I am usually the person helping, and I enjoy being the helpful person. However, it is a lot harder to be the person who needs help. Even though I was without sleep for long periods of time, all of this gave me a unique opportunity to observe the best ways to be helpful. I found examples to copy. It made me grateful to see good examples of friends being kind and caring while I was exhausted.
Even though some friends helped in such seemingly small ways, you would be surprised how a small gesture goes a long way. Even people that would check in and ask me how I was sleeping was a kind gesture. It showed me that even something that might not seem like much on your part, can actually make someone feel seen and cared for. When you are cared for and helped, it spurs you on to be kind and helpful to others as well.
Today I have stored all the good examples of kind friends and family that helped me. I want to be able to be the kind friend that so many were to me.
So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Galatians 6:10
Thanks for reading!