Feb. 8: Learning to Shelve Your Pride

Part-time nurse and mother of seven Molly Beck from Westfield, Indiana, knows how irresistible it can be to want to handle everything by yourself.  However, there was one moment at a school event for her kindergartener several years back which changed this stubborn determination.

Beck made her way through the buffet line with her kids and a stroller in tow.  Though other parents offered to help carry food for her and her family, Beck refused all assistance and instructed her kids to carry their own plates.  Her back hadn’t been turned for two seconds when her oldest daughter, Natalie, started crying because her plate and bagel had fallen onto the floor.  As Beck comforted her daughter, she thought about her pride, what it had caused her to do, and how wrong she’d been.

“We are called by our very human nature to help each other out,” Beck claims.  “These days, when I am offered help, my instinct is still to demur. But when I remember the sight of those tears, I swallow that bitter pill of pride and say…‘Yes, please.’”

Never be afraid to accept and offer help.

Pride goes before destruction.  (Proverbs 16:18)

Jesus, may we never be too prideful to accept help.