Episode 78: When Your Family Can’t Keep Saying Yes

Kristy: 00:07
Welcome to Unshaken, the podcast where unwavering faith meets real life. I’m Kristy, and together with my husband Tony, we dive into authentic conversations, offering biblical insights and sharing stories that inspire resilience, especially for families navigating the unique challenges of disabilities. Join us each week as we explore faith, family, and the journeys that keep us grounded in Christ. Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Let’s stand firm together.

Tony: 00:42
This is Tony and I’m here with my beautiful bride, Kristy. Today, I wanted to talk through something that I think most of us struggle with. So a couple weeks ago, I had a great conversation with uh with a good friend of mine. Left that conversation really encouraged, excited to share that conversation with Kristy. Later on, we were finally able to connect, and I was telling Kristy as it had this great conversation, it was awesome. And she says to me, I hope you didn’t commit us to anything this weekend. And I said no, and I was kind of I was a little bit confused. There’s nothing on the calendar. I’ve learned and I’ve I’ve double booked myself too many times to be foolish enough to not check the calendar. I’m very careful about uh checking the calendar before I say yes to anything. But in this case, there was no commitment to make, there’s none of that happening, but it just really got me thinking like, oh, we’ve been pretty busy the last few weeks, and maybe Kristy’s just feeling a little bit overwhelmed and overloaded, and we all have those seasons where even if there’s a bunch of good things, it can be hard to just keep saying yes, and it’s a good conversation for us to have because there are times when your family just can’t keep saying yes, even to the good things. So I want to bring in some scripture. I want to go to Ephesians chapter 5, verses 15 through 17. It says this be very careful then how you live, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Have you ever had a season where every individual yes made a lot of sense? But at the end of the day, the the total of all those yeses did not make sense.

Kristy: 03:02
So I can think back in in our own lives to times where this has happened, kind of a regular occurrence for us during certain times of the year. And one of them is it’s this the summertime where it’s June. My students go to school year round. We have a family birthday in June, and we have a family retreat that we serve at every year in June. We’re gone for a week. It’s the most difficult time because the retreat happens with the idea that kids are out of school and there’s a lot of availability and whatever. But for me, I’m taking a week off work in the prime season. It’s just a matter of getting laundry done and getting groceries and all of those life things that still have to happen, you know, when a week of the month is kind of eaten up like that. And then, God forbid, we book something on the weekend before and or after. It can become a really long stretch between times that we are able to be home and relax and restock and make home like the launching station for the work week again. It’s like I said, it happens every June. It happens, you know, from time to time, sometimes predictably and sometimes unpredictably, sometimes accidentally. It’s something that is certainly worth examining because it’s a really cruddy situation to be in. It doesn’t feel good at all.

Tony: 04:31
I think this speaks to overload can be built from good things. We can have very full calendars, and when you examine the calendar one by one, none of these things are frivolous things or waste of time things. They’re all good things, and you want to say yes to the good things and no to the bad things, but at some point you can be overloaded and get to that point without being irresponsible. I think the problem can be cumulative rather than just suddenly out of control, it kind of just sneaks up on you because in the moment, of course I would say yes to that. Of course, I’m gonna serve my church this weekend at such and such event. And of course I’m going to serve on Wednesday night when the youth are having a special summer party, and of course I’m going to serve on Sunday morning and help be one of the Sunday school teachers, and of course I’m going to serve on this committee or that committee, be a part of this group and that group. All of a sudden, you get to a point where you do nothing but run from point A to point B. And again, none of these things are bad things. So it’s not, this is not about shaming the fact that you want to serve or that you want to be a part of things. We’re all going to have those ebbs and flows of busy season, and it’s a hectic season, and that’s okay if it’s a season that happens every once in a while. It’s when it becomes this endless thing. Why does this happen? Why is it harder to change the calendar when the things that are exhausting are all good things?

Kristy: 06:29
I think for me, the biggest reason is that I never want to disappoint anybody. And so, you know, people come with, hey, can you, or would you like to, or those sort of invitation things. And, you know, obviously they’re asking because they want us to participate. And maybe it’s uh dinner at a friend’s house, or maybe it’s, gosh, maybe it’s a wedding or a baby shower, or maybe it’s an opportunity to serve at the church, or, you know, any of these things that are joyful and connective and good, and where there’s an obvious right answer. Of course, you’re right. Like it’s of course I want to help the youth group with their summer thing. Like, of course I want to. Why would anybody want to say no? But sometimes I think if we have to say no, I guess with that old, like, you can’t pour from an empty cup. At some point, you that’s what happens. You are trying to pour from an empty cup.

Tony: 07:26
If you are a family that is tired, maybe it’s beyond tired. Maybe you’re just exhausted. But when you look at the calendar, nothing on the calendar looks obviously wrong. That doesn’t mean that you’re failing or that you should try harder or push through more. Good things can still add up to more than your household, your family can faithfully carry.

Kristy: 07:56
I think something else to keep in mind is that the actual cost of saying yes to something might not show up on the calendar. So Tony’s right, he is fantastic about checking the calendar. And I think that it stems from a time when we lived in, you know, in separate places and he had we both had school schedules and we both had work schedules, and there was just a lot going on. And, you know, and so we started to use kind of a shared calendar. And Tony is very careful about scheduling things when there’s anything else going on. And he’s so good about just being like respectful and kind and asking and you know, all of those things. The issue is that saying yes has a cost that’s so much greater than what shows up on the calendar. At least that’s my experience. For our family to be somewhere early in the morning, that is a huge ask. Neither of us is a morning person. Neither of us wakes up with a body that is ready to go. If I’m gonna struggle with my RA, it’s gonna be early in the morning or late in the day. Tony has his own struggles uh with stiffness and soreness in the morning. There’s just so many moving pieces. And I am a procrastinator. That’s just the truth. For us to be ready to go in the morning means yesterday I had to be mindful enough to get gas. I probably had to clean out the trunk of the car. We both had to get up, get showered, get dressed, all of those things. We had to pack whatever we needed, find the collapsible wagon. There’s just so many other pieces. When our kids were younger, that’s another piece. Are they coming with us? Is there somebody coming to stay with them? Are we dropping them off somewhere? All of those things. And if kiddos have stuff, maybe uh a softball tournament that weekend, how’s that gonna work? Or, you know, if there’s a an illness or a disability, you know, you’ve got a kid that is just sick, has the flu, has whatever, or has a maybe a physical disability that makes movement and transportation more difficult. All of those things just compound that. So really, when we’re saying yes, we need to be mindful of what we’re saying yes to and how independent that can be, or how dependent we are on all the members of our family we’re making a commitment for. Sometimes it’s not just you. You got to think about who else is involved and you’re saying yes.

Tony: 10:24
This is especially true for me because I don’t drive anywhere. If I figure out that this is a situation where Kristy is going to have to drive, I automatically will say to the person, I need to get back to you. Because I want to double check with Kristy and make sure that Kristy has the bandwidth to be able to do this. Because sometimes it can be something where I’m serving on my own and Kristy’s not serving with me. So is there something that she can do while she’s waiting for me? Sometimes both of us serve together and I love to serve with Kristy. In those cases, it’s absolutely, hey, let me get back to you because I don’t want to speak for her without talking to her first.

Kristy: 11:11
I think the flip side of that is there were times when my kids were little. So I had a crazy schedule and I was teaching at night. I was teaching at uh local career college and I was teaching evening classes. For me to be gone to teach meant that somebody had to be home with the kids for homework and dinner and showers and all of, you know, all of those moving pieces. And that’s hard. I mean, kids have two parents for a reason. And it’s it can be really, really hard when one parent has to be or chooses to be or whatever it is, away during those critical times of the day. You know, the trying to get out of the house and the after school, dinner, bed thing. Like it’s just, it’s a quite a heavy lift. And when it’s the same parent that ends up home all the time, that can get really heavy. And so, you know, it’s just something to be mindful of. Another piece of this, how does everything else get done? I kind of started to talk about this earlier. We want to do the thing, we make the commitment for the evening or for the weekend. All of those life things that got bumped that were never on the calendar, those things still have to happen. So if we commit to something at seven o’clock, how am I going to get home from work in time to make dinner and us to be ready to go and be there at quarter to seven for this seven o’clock event? Or when we’ve volunteered all weekend, or we’ve used our PTO for this, that event, whatever. When does the laundry get done? When do the groceries get purchased? You know, when does meal prep happen? Again, it’s not a reason to say no necessarily. It’s just something to factor in. That’s how we get to a place where sometimes we have to say no when the obvious answer is yes. And I think that’s all not always an easy thing, right? I think if it was perfectly clear, like 90 against 10 for, you make the 90 decision and you say no, I can’t do it. But I think a lot of times those things are like 51, 49, you know? And so it’s not always an easy call. You just have to really be paying attention, be in tune. And it’s something that we come back to over and over. You have to communicate. Spouses have to be in constant communication about stuff like that because I can’t hold it against Tony. If there’s nothing on the calendar, he should have every reason to think that he could schedule something if I haven’t spoken up and said, hey, babe, I’m needing a minute here. We’re we’ve been really busy these last few weekends. Could we please hold this weekend? And I will tell you that Tony is wonderful about putting holds on the calendar. I’ll never fail to be honored by this. The first several years that we were married, just coincidentally, that happens in we got married in June. Father’s Day weekend overlaps it. And there was like just coincidentally, there was some sort of ministry work that we really needed to do. Or there one time there was a trip out of state. Like, there’s just something. And I was not particularly gracious about it. I kind of came down on him like a load of bricks when I was like, Are you serious? Like again, our anniversary is gonna be, you know, this mission thing or this ministry thing. Are you kidding me? Tony has taken it upon himself to block off the entire week on the calendar, years out, you guys. He’s it’s just so sweet. And honestly, I think he would have, even if I hadn’t been so horrible about it. But all this to say, he’s really good about blocking out time like that. And if things are looking stressed, he’ll put on there like hold this weekend, and then we’ll go do something fun that weekend, or we’ll stay home and catch up on things that weekend, or maybe that’s just to like lay around and watch movies weekend or you know, whatever. But he’s wonderful about blocking time, and that is something that you can do proactively to prevent this sort of thing, communicate upfront and then block the time.

Tony: 15:12
All of this points to knowing and understanding your own family’s limits, their time and their energy and their what they can do, along with not shaming when you have a busy season. I also want to make sure that when you decide to take some time and not do the thing and not be busy, that’s not anything to be ashamed about either. It’s not a lack of faith, it’s not lack of spiritual maturity. There is actually a lot of wisdom when you notice the cost that other people in your family are paying, and it may never be something that’s quantifiable on a calendar, but the cost is still real. Really take stock of what your family’s limitations are, and then plan it accordingly. That doesn’t mean that you plan every single moment of every single second up to that limit and just don’t go over it because that’s not great stewardship either. There has to be a margin and there has to be seasons where you focus solely on recharging. There’s a lot of wisdom in those recharge seasons as well.

Kristy: 16:37
The question that this brings to mind for me is how do we tell? Especially because so many of our commitments are related to ministry. When an opportunity comes to serve in ministry, to me, it feels like that’s an opportunity from God to glorify Him. How do we know? When do we know that it’s okay to say no to that? When is it an assignment, like a clear thing? And when is it discretionary?

Tony: 17:05
Where we start from is just understanding that not every good opportunity is an assignment. I believe this is where discernment comes into play. And we have to be able to separate what is truly biblical commitments and real responsibilities from optional opportunities and not feel guilty when we make that distinction. There could be a need that’s out there that can be real without becoming solely the family’s responsibility. Just because you identify the need, it doesn’t mean that you necessarily are the one that has to do the fulfillment. Now, because we talked about this in a previous episode, when we see a need, we don’t just walk away. But in those situations where we either can’t meet the need directly or we’re in a place that we’re so scheduled out that we can’t meet that need in this particular season, we can do what Kristy was talking about earlier. We can communicate with our Christian brothers and sisters, the church, and we can say, Hey, I know this need that’s out there. I myself and my family, we can’t meet this need, but I’m sure there’s somebody here within our church family that would be more than happy to meet this need. We have to be willing to communicate that and be able to make people aware of what’s going on so that that need can be met. You know, when we look at the church in Acts chapter 2, people came to that church and they gave for whatever needs were needed at that time, and they gave what they could to the church, they didn’t overextend themselves. This is not that, this is not give until you’re in the poorhouse. So don’t hear me say that. This is about giving to help meet the needs of those that are in need, just having that posture of just being able to communicate that if there is a need, the need is being met somehow, somehow. When we’re trying to show compassion, it doesn’t mean that that act of compassion is meant to hijack our calendar or our responsibilities. We still have to do these things, and that compassion can still just come from a place of let me make sure that I get you connected with someone or an organization who can help meet that need. So maybe that’s a phone call or a text message or an email or something like that, so that we can just get people connected from A to B.

Kristy: 19:59
Having said this, I think that there are some yeses that really have been entrusted to us, specifically us. That family retreat, the camp that we go to in June is one of those for me. Like it is at the worst possible time. And I will always do anything I can, move heaven and earth to try to be there because I feel like I can help there. Like it matters. Like God has that for me. First of all, there needs to be so many volunteers there that I can’t really afford for people to drop out. I know that with that team, I have a place that’s important and I can, you know, I have a skill set that’s unique to me. It’s what God has given me in in my career, in my training, and I can help. And I just want to. I feel like God has that for me. And so when that is the case and God has tapped you for something, even when it’s costly, even when it’s inconvenient, you figure it out. But again, you communicate so that the people around you understand that you know it’s not a great time, or you know that this is a big ask, you know that it’s putting a burden on somebody else, but it’s important. And this is why we don’t take for granted that the people around us are just gonna pick up the slack because we feel called. We still have to be loving and respectful to the people that are immediate to us, that free us up to do those things, or that cover for us in our absence or whatever that might look like. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to make a rigid sort of schedule, like this is what we do, this is what we don’t do, these are weekends we volunteer, these are these are weekends that we do things with friends. Like I just I don’t think you can do that. I think so often, and I can speak for myself. We just are are coming out of now a season that has been really hard for me. So the fourth quarter of the school year for me is brutal. And it’s because my students go year round. So Q4, we’re We’re wrapping up one school year. We’re prepping for Q1 of the next school year. And it’s admissions like crazy trying to get kids in so that they can start the school year because there’s only two weeks between the terms. And if my team gets one of those weeks off, we have a week to reset the school and start the new school year. And so that Q4 is just brutal. This past year, in addition to those things, I was planning a graduation. We had seniors grabbing. It’s just, there’s so much going on. It’s probably always going to be like that for me in Q4. But Tony had more bandwidth than I did. And he has carried much of this ministry and this podcast. Tony has done the lion’s share of the work. But now that I’m coming back out of that, I can and I want to and I owe him the respect and the courtesy of merging back in because I can’t expect him to hold that forever. That’s not fair. And I want to. There’s that too. But it you just can’t do that, right? You can’t just count on people without ever merging back in or providing relief or even like saying thank you, those kinds of things. There’s different stages or levels of busyness that people within the same family encounter at the same time in the same season. And that is something to factor in. And the other thing, I guess it’s an offshoot of this, is like before you say yes to something new, you got to look at what’s going to happen to your household. What do you know upfront is going to happen? And the example that I can give you here is thank you, Jesus, that this has never been us, but it should have been. Whoever is the Girl Scout cookie mom, if you are a Girl Scout cookie mom, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Those women have hundreds of cases of cookies in their living rooms. There’s kids coming and going all times of the day or night, picking up cookies. I need another case and a half of thin mints, and it’s 11 o’clock at night on a Tuesday, and some little girl is gonna come to knock on the door and you know to pick up these cookies. And this happens for months. A dear, dear friend of mine is the, she’s the leader of a big Girl Scout troop. She got like going on 20 kids. She doesn’t have a ton of co-leader support. And she is the cookie mom. And her kids are like those 2,500 boxes patched kids, like they sell some cookies. And it is exhausting when she comes out of cookie season, she’s in like hibernation for like six weeks. And her family too, right? Because how many times is she out at a cookie booth with girls? And it’s her son that answers the door to this other family of girls that comes to get cookies or drop off money, or can you please like stick this under the mat or whatever it may be? I mean, I can’t express to you the extent to which her entire family is engaged in this for like three months a year. It’s crazy. And it’s not to say that you shouldn’t do it. Every troop needs a cookie mom. But before you agree to do it, you just really gotta factor in everybody else that’s gonna be impacted by that and, you know, and make sure that they’re aware of it and you’re not blindsiding anybody on something that big.

Tony: 25:12
So there’s two things that I want to say here to kind of wrap this piece up before we move on. One, you don’t have to turn every good opportunity into an assignment. You can see a need and you can see that it’s real and it’s worthy to be carried and it’s worthy of the compassion, but that doesn’t mean that you have to take on the responsibility just because you spotted the need. So if you see a need, get them connected with the person or organization or resource that they need to meet that need, but it’s not your responsibility to necessarily carry. On the flip side of that, some of the things that we have said yes to are worth protecting and they are worth blocking out on the calendar, being firm, and saying we are going to do this because we feel that this is what God is calling us to do. God has placed us in this season or in this location, because sometimes it’s very location specific. God has been obviously placing us for times such as this, that we need to protect this yes, despite what may be a hectic time or you know a time that may not be perfect, but the yes is obvious, and we need to protect that. Making room for those things just may require saying no to some other good things, because we need to protect this that we know is clearly from God.

Kristy: 26:46
What I would add to that is that you want to say no proactively before you have agreed to something that your family can’t honor or caused a rift in your relationship or whatever like that. Like, don’t let resentment make that decision for you.

Tony: 27:04
This really points to respect and dignity. We want to respect the person or the organization so that they have enough time and bandwidth to be able to find someone else to fill in the spot that they were hoping that we were going to fill in. When we are clear about saying no, it doesn’t require making the opportunity seem like a bad thing or pretending the person that is making the request is making an unreasonable request, because it could be a very good and reasonable thing to do. We just don’t have the bandwidth for it. So there’s a difference between saying no to something that’s bad, that’s easy to say no to, versus saying no to something that is good, but it’s just not ours to carry. Just because we said no today or this year for this event doesn’t mean that next year we won’t have the bandwidth to do it next year. Let’s not damage a relationship just because we had to say no. Let’s honor the relationship, let’s pray for whatever the event is, whatever the volunteer base is going to be doing. Let’s pray actively for them so that they can have a successful event. What I try to do is I try to sit down with Kristy and say, hey, we have this opportunity. I haven’t committed us to anything. This is what I think it would take from us, and this is what I think the time commitment is. What do you think about it? For us to have a clear conversation about what that looks like, and being able to then make a decision, it’s then on me to go and communicate that decision to whoever is organizing the event. Some commitments can sometimes end, some commitments can sometimes shrink, some commitments can sometimes get bigger as the years go on or as the event changes. As those things happen and those adjustments happen, I think it’s worth seeing how your bandwidth changes. And if that means that something now has to be a no that used to be a yes, then let’s communicate that clearly and early so that again, there’s no damage.

Kristy: 29:32
One happy thing that can come of this is that if it’s something that you have to hand off, if you have to step out, you have to, you know, bow out for that year or that season or permanently for a specific thing. Maybe God has called it for someone else. And maybe we can do them the service of a comfortable handoff and some training and support up front because we knew early and were able to find somebody else early. We were able to make that a good transition. And again, like just because God had it for you last summer doesn’t mean that God has it for you this summer. We just have to really stay prayerful and mindful and open and receptive to the information that we get so that if God is telling us back up from this, it’s time for you to let this go. Even if your ego is attached, even if it’s something you love to do, even if anything, we just have to be mindful for the cues that are telling us it’s time to back up. How can we support whoever’s going to take this over going forward?

Tony: 30:41
What an honorable thing to do, to be able to be there as a sounding board, to be able to be there to help train this is what we know now that we wish we knew the first time we did this. Maybe this helps you. I believe that that’s such a it’s a humbling thing, and it’s also an honoring thing to have the maturity to step back and say, you know what, we’re going to celebrate this new role, this new couple, this new person that’s going to take over this thing. We’re going to pray for them, we’re going to lift them up, we’re going to encourage them, and then we’re going to look expectantly for whatever it is that God is calling to us now. If we have our eyes open, we can start to really see how God really does weave a pretty cool tapestry.

Kristy: 31:36
Can I pop into this with a little scripture? Galatians 5, 13 tells us, you, my brothers and sisters, we’re called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather, serve one another humbly in love. And I think if there ever was a scripture to sum it up, it’s that we are called to be humble and to serve in love. That means do the process, do the task, do the event, do the whatever. But we’re serving people. We’re serving God’s children. We’re serving people that were created in the image of our God that has to happen in humility and love. And if we can’t do that without hurting our own families, or with a good attitude, or without stress and sighing because we know what we’re missing out on at home because we’re doing this or whatever, that’s something to be really mindful of. We do have freedom and we have the ability and the responsibility to purposefully, intentionally, lovingly hand it off if that’s what needs to happen.

Tony: 32:42
A clear no can still be an act of love before exhaustion turns it into resentment. Yes, there can be disappointment when we say no, but we can still be faithful because we said it early enough in a way that is humble, so that whoever is going to come behind us can do so with enough time to prep to continue the work that we started. It’s like passing the baton in a relay race. We’re now giving the baton to a teammate, if we can think about that way, because it then allows us to do is it allows us to be faithful to our family and faithful to what our families are actually capable of carrying. And maybe it was last year we could handle this event, but this year we can’t. And I think that we just have to number one be honest with ourselves and be humble enough to say, you know what? I really can’t. I want to, but I really can’t. As we wrap this up, I would invite all of us to just take a second look at our calendars. Husbands, can I give you a little tip to kind of help you? Protect some time with your wife, protect some time with your bride. So thank you for it, and it’s worth it. And it doesn’t mean that it has to happen every single week. It doesn’t mean that life won’t happen and won’t throw a monkey wrench into a plan every now and again. If we protect the relationship that God has said to us is foundational here on this earth, because obviously our number one relationship is with Him. That’s our vertical relationship. A vertical relationship is number one, but our number two relationship is the horizontal one that we have with our spouse. Protect some time with them, you know, whether that be on a weekly basis, bi-weekly, whatever, whatever works for your marriage, do that and be intentional with it. And then protect the yeses that you know that God is calling you and your family to faithfully serve and these things are important. If you don’t have a shared calendar, start one. I promise it’ll help. If you’re anything like me, without it, you’ll just end up double booking yourself too often. That just causes a lot of issues that are easily avoidable. Let’s protect our families, let’s protect the things that we know that God is calling us to. In doing that, we can serve better and serve more faithfully, which is what He’s calling us to do. Father, we come before you today thankful for the mind that you give us, thankful that we are able to perceive time and be able to schedule time and prioritize the things that you are calling us to. Father, help us to look at our time with fresh eyes, help us to prioritize time with you, to strengthen and grow our relationship with you first and foremost. And then for those of us that are married, help us to prioritize time with our spouse. It says in your word that when we get married, that we become one flesh. So by taking care of our spouse, we actually are taking care of ourselves in the process. So help us to do that and help us to protect and prioritize our families as well. Help us to make the calendar submit and not be submitted to the calendar. We thank you so much for the model and for the example that your son was and how he lived his life. And we ask that you just would give us discernment and protect us as we go forward. And we say yes to the things that you have for us, and we say no to everything else. And we ask these things in your son’s precious name. Amen.

Kristy: 36:47
Amen.

Tony: 36:48
Thank you guys so much. Hope you guys have a great day and a great rest of your week, and we’ll see you next time.

Kristy: 36:53
Bye, friends. Thank you.