Did you realize that sending just one child to a Christian school (even if it's not a terribly expensive one) costs more than buying homeschool curriculum (which all of the children will be able to use), hiring babysitting help, AND hiring a housecleaning service, too?!  So, keeping all that in mind to give us perspective on the cost, along with realizing how stretched we are for time and energy at this season of life, we have hired help!   

For years I was a serious control freak (compared to being a little bit less serious control freak these days).  I did not WANT anyone coming into my home to clean because I had a certain way of doing things.  I remember the days (years ago) that my towels had to be folded a certain way or I would get upset.  I would rather have done things myself than had help doing them.    After the birth of our fifth baby some family members gave me the baby gift of money to hire a housecleaner.  I was very specific about  how I wanted things cleaned and I would go behind her and do it the "right" way once she left.  (Oh my.  Those days are so far gone!) 

A few months before baby number six arrived I finally realized that I had to let some things go.  My weakness and complete inability to manage everything finally made me pray for help and gladly accept it when it was available.   We found a Christian housecleaning service and now I just say "thank you" and don't worry about the petty details.   We also put word out that we needed teen helpers for babysitting, laundry, and yard work.  It has been such a blessing to have teens from Christian families helping us and I hope we have been a blessing to them as well.

So I didn't always truly need or even want help from anyone, but when I really needed it, God provided for us in the form of hired help.  I had to come to the point where I was willing to accept it and then we had to be willing to rearrange our budget to make it work.  This meant rearranging our priorities to place hiring help in the necessity list!  I do look forward to the days when I can manage it all on my own or maybe 'hire' my own children to help out rather than bring in people from outside our family.  But for now, when our lives are so full and our children so young, having household help is a great blessing and I am very, very thankful for it.