Even though I was at home on vacation this week, I still had a full agenda of things I wanted to get done. I didn’t get everything accomplished, but I got much of it done. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, I’m going to schedule another “staycation” for next month and perhaps the next several months.
One thing I didn’t get done was adequately preparing for the class I teach at church on Sunday mornings. Part of the reason was because I was giving priority to the out-of-the-ordinary tasks I wanted to accomplish for the week rather than the routine ones, and part of the reason was because the schedule for the end of the week went largely out the window when a family member was admitted to the hospital and we necessarily had to adjust our plans.
By late Saturday night, I had the choice of either staying up into the wee hours of the morning to adequately prep the class, or I had to make the call to have our small group (usually 3-4 people) attend another class instead for the day. Since I only had about 3 hours sleep Friday night, I decided I shouldn’t do that again Saturday night, so I had my class join another one Sunday morning. It was the right call.
Not only did the decision allow me to get a few needed hours of sleep, but it gave my tiny class (just me and one other guy today) the enjoyable experience of taking part in a much larger, excellent class that always has great teaching and discussion. My one student met some new people who welcomed him with open arms and I think he enjoyed the experience. We may, in fact, plan on doing that once every couple of months just for the different experience.
For me, it was a tough call to make because I didn’t want to feel like I was abandoning my responsibility. In the end, though, it was good knowing that I could lean on someone else in a time of need and just be thankful for their help.
That brings me to leap year lesson #259: It’s OK to lean on others when needed.
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