One More Truth

Reflections on faith, truth, and being human

To the One Who is Busy, Burnt Out, and Still Saying ‘Yes’

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Please, say ‘no’.

You know you’re spread thin. Just yesterday, you looked at your calendar and noticed you’d overscheduled yourself…again. You sighed, told yourself it was fine. You’ll explain your situation, ask for an earlier or later time, a different day, another week. You’ll apologize and quickly follow up with, “It’s just a busy time, but after __________, I’ll have more breathing room.” You’ve been saying that for a while, but inevitably, the blank fills with one commitment, then another. Your life is always busy. It hasn’t slowed down.

I understand the reasons why you say ‘yes’. I know your worth and identity are tightly stitched into each one and it’s not entirely your fault. People like you more when you say ‘yes’. Many hands make light work and if your hands aren’t in it, the work is harder. Some people are disappointed by your ‘no’, some take it as rejection. Some get mad or hurt, and some just don’t understand. Some are so charismatic for their cause, they won’t take your ‘no’. They bargain for a smaller chunk of time or suggest ways to arrange your schedule so they are accommodated. Sometimes the conversation ends with a painful, “Well, I’m sorry, I thought you cared…”

I recognize you’re conditioned to say ‘yes’. You grew up watching overextended loved ones drain themselves past empty. They helped everyone, everywhere, and you were often included. People praised your assistance, gushed over your willingness, and said ‘thank you’ a lot. Praise wasn’t your motivation, but it certainly didn’t hurt. Being the hero isn’t a bad gig, especially for a good cause. Especially when the need is significant, and the work is important.

It’s true you lived selfishly before. There were times you could have helped – should have helped, perhaps – but you made excuses instead. Their problem isn’t my problem. No one helped me when I needed it. You’re not proud of this person, so you assuage your guilt by saying ‘yes’ more than you should. It never feels like enough.

I understand you cast a wide net because you feel underqualified. Everyone else seems to have found their thing and you feel like an imposter. It’s nice to have opportunities open to you. It’s nice to be asked by people who see in you something you couldn’t have seen on your own. Are you passionate about your commitments? Not really, but at least they’re safe. Passions are risky.

I realize the ‘yes’ of many others shaped you and equipped you to become who you are today. It is now both your honor and responsibility to be there for others and that is a beautiful thing. But before you say ‘yes’, please consider this: The cultural message of ‘showing up’ is slippery. It suggests availability to everyone at any time is sustainable. It implies everyone can and should have your attention.

The truth is, you are not called to make everyone happy, solve everyone’s problems, fix the world, etc. There are many good directions, many things worth doing, many noble distractions, and if you are pulled by all of them, your most precious relationships (your spiritual relationship included) are likely to get dysregulated fragments of you—physically present, mentally distracted, emotionally distant, and spiritually drained.

God’s will for you is specific, not scattered.

His plan for you is fullness, not spreading yourself thin.

His purpose for you is restoration through relationship with Him—all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind—that you might experience peace in Him and live in the assurance that the good work is always His.

Pull closer to Jesus, friend. Trust Him more.

 

Flood My Heart

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Rain drove me to the desert. Years of rain, actually. I’d grown up under gray Midwestern skies that lasted weeks in a row during winter and spring. And fall. Recess was soggy grass and slick playgrounds, a purple raincoat and foggy glasses. At fourteen, we moved to the sunshine state where humidity would collect in spring and summer clouds, and eventually let loose drops so big they stung. The rain fell in torrents, but minutes later, the sky was blue again.

Years later, as a mom in the South, rain meant spoiled plans. It ruined park dates and grocery shopping and birthday parties. The final straw was an Easter Sunday when I braced against icy rain while the kids searched for hidden eggs. I was over it, primed and ready for the job offer that came the following month. My husband’s company wanted him in Arizona. We said “yes.”

The moving process stretched months longer than planned. Chronic pain spasms intensified, which I attributed to the pressure of raising four kids in a house that had to be kept perfect for spontaneous showings. There was packing and piles of paperwork and school withdrawals. The neighbors hung Christmas lights; I said goodbye to my family, my job, and many friends. I often imagined myself in my new bedroom, sighing with relief. Rest is coming, I’d assure myself.

But long after the boxes were unpacked, peace was still elusive. My insides were frenzied, which made sense considering we’d uprooted our lives and were deep in the throes of making a new life. I speculated my unrest was further aggravated by grief, which I avoided by compulsively keeping busy and staying in motion. I wore a heart monitor for a month to figure out why it sometimes felt like my heart might jump out of my chest, but the readings said my heart was fine–strong and healthy, actually.

Every day, the desert sky poured sunshine, and every day, I hurried out to absorb it all. This went on for months, and then one afternoon, the air smelled like rain. The sun shone bright as ever, but a few miles north, the sky was dark. The unmistakable scent of rain loosened my muscles a little and a sense of relief shot through my veins. I settled into a chair by the window and watched the rain come down in sheets. The cracked ground gulped what it could, but the streets quickly became rivers. My kids and neighbor kids ran out with boogie boards and danced in water to their knees. In less than an hour, the monsoon transformed the desert into a rushing waterway, and I soaked it all in, completely still. If this was what renewal felt like, I wanted it. I was ready…

 

Read the rest at The Redbud Post.

Burnout, Crisis & Faith

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I wake to two of my favorite things: a cup of coffee on my nightstand and a sky warming for the sunrise. Gratitude should be first on my mind, but in the split second between sleep and awake, my mind rests on an unsettling word: depersonalized.

Indicators of burnout have been popping up for months—waking up to a sense of dread, going to bed defeated, pervasive sluggishness in between. There’s the constant drip of cynicism, even on the good days. The busyness of life is unrelenting, and I hover above work and writing projects with an aerial view of every overwhelming detail and little ability to narrow my focus.

The Red Flags of Burnout
There are the red flags of detachment, too. Forgetfulness, apathy, the inability to answer an acquaintance’s simple question, “What’s your favorite summer activity?” Dysregulation is overriding muscle memory and I’m running into door frames, getting turned around in familiar places, even forgetting to rinse the conditioner from my hair, as I discovered one hurried Saturday afternoon. My mind and body are out of sync with each other and their surroundings.

I call it burnout because it’s less cumbersome than calling it compassion fatigue, the very thing I’ve trained my team to avoid over the past few years of upheaval. We work with women in crisis and we know the statistics. We know abuse increased, addiction spiked, and the impoverished fell into deeper poverty. We know death has come too soon and too often. Our work puts faces to the numbers. Sara packed her two young children and left her violent husband yesterday. Jasmine was almost a year into her recovery, but we haven’t seen her in weeks. Maria is living in her car. Frances lost four family members in less than two months. I’ve continued the work by disconnecting.

But what do you do when crisis comes home? When the statistics say emergency department visits for attempted suicide rose 51% among adolescent girls in a year, and your daughter’s face and name make those numbers part of your story, what do you call it?

Continue reading at The Redbud Post…

Settling In & Allowing God to Work

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Last week, I happened upon unexpected traffic on my way to the gym. Three lanes were being funneled into one, bringing every vehicle to a dead stop. I was in the middle of returning a Marco Polo message to a friend (I may have been rambling) when a successive slamming of metal caused me to look in my rearview mirror. A work van was squealing toward me, swerving hard to avoid colliding with my rear end. There was nowhere for me to go, and all I could do was brace myself and hope for the best.

Fortunately, I was spared. I took a deep breath. But a deep breath couldn’t undo those few seconds of tense anticipation. I was so unsettled my bones ached. The Barre class I’d been looking forward to didn’t matter anymore. As soon as I could manage, I made a U-turn and headed home, taking notice that, had the work van not missed me, I would have been the fifth vehicle in a nasty pileup.

My instinct to return home surprised me. We were renovating bathrooms, and I had tolerated dust and drop cloths, toilets and tubs in places they do not belong, ladders and contractors, and all manner of noise for weeks. Being at home and working from home had been challenging, but despite the temporary disorder, it was still home.

This was an important realization, because I have a complicated relationship with home, even when it’s in order. I love my home, no question. The rooms are situated and styled for both beauty and utility. Each room has an intentional palette suited to accommodate the room’s purpose. The furniture—my great grandma’s writing desk upstairs, the repurposed table in the foyer that used to be a sideboard, my standing desk that was rescued from an office dumpster by a friend who knew I’d use it—has history or story, form and function. Home has all my things, all my comforts, all my interests, each of them in order. Home has all my favorite people. Home is endearing.

But home is also where tasks cycle through states of finished and unfinished by the hour…Finish reading here.