and the truth will set you free

I am really good at listening to people and helping them clarify what matters most to them, asking questions, reminding them of the foundation of their true self and the choices they get to make for their life. In fact, I was joking this week about how I am now, as a Mental Health Coach/Spiritual Mentor, being asked to do what I have probably been doing (without invitation) to my friends for years – for which I say, I’m sorry and thank you for putting up with me! I just care so much, I feel worthless if I can’t ask clarifying questions and encourage an action plan! But when it comes to being able to do those things for myself, and seeing the truth and letting it set me free, I am really a work in progress.

For example: Let’s talk about the “worthless” piece I mentioned in the paragraph above real quick. I’m joking but still there’s a bit of truth in there. We can feel worthless if we aren’t using our gifts because God did intend for us to be living our lives interdependently blessing others—but our worth comes long before and stays long after any such service.

That’s why I’m writing today.

I feel thoroughly and completely overwhelmed, exhausted, and wiped out. For months now, my body has felt shaky, I wake up in pain (although it doesn’t last long, praise God), and my mind is chasing something I can’t grab ahold of. I told my daughter yesterday that I feel like I’m in a box that the walls and ceiling are closing in on. She asked me if Jesus was in the box with me. In my mind, no, He wasn’t. I’m in a grieving process that doesn’t even involve someone dying. I’m grieving because I’m finally awake to how I really feel about the first half of my life.

I don’t do sad. I don’t really tolerate, haven’t had time for, sadness. But in order to have peace about my second half of life, I’m going to make peace with my first half. The disappointments. The rejections. The decisions. The things I thought were in my control but really never were and never will be. The pain people cause themselves that affect me every day. The realization that relationships have always mattered most and yet that’s the part of life I have been the worst at.

I strive too hard in every way. I want to do everything I think of, but am then spread too thin. I want to use all my gifts at one time, and then I really don’t excel at any of them. A wise friend said, “Find your lane and then run only in it.” I have never wanted that reality to be more true in my life as I do right now.

We serve from where we are and where we have been. When I coach, mentor, share scripture, and pray with women, I get the privilege of being my truest self—regrets, realness, real time growth in my own self. I don’t feel ashamed of this at all. We can’t wait until we are there to help others along. Like exercise, you don’t ever get strength and then say, “I’m done now. I’m strong and lean. I don’t have to do this anymore.” In two weeks, the muscle has deteriorated if not in use and you’re back to the drawing board. What we learn becomes a part of our life that we continue to practice. For me, that practice is grace, because it’s the thing that comes the least easily to me.

So, what am I saying?

I need to grieve, and I need to learn again how to enjoy my friends and my family, and spend lots of time in silence in nature and in the Word of God…yet I still believe I’m supposed to stay in the game, in the middle of the recovery time, the “game” being serving the body of Christ and loving His Church. But I need to do it differently, and Jesus offers a better way.

In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus knows our lives have to go on in a cadence of rest and work, Sabbath and doing. The frenzy that is the real problem is ON THE INSIDE. He says:

”Take My yoke (this is a heavy wooden device laid across the shoulders of animals pulling a wagon or large farming tool) upon you…and learn from Me…for I am gentle…and humble in heart…and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I imagine a field and Jesus has a yoke on His shoulders that isn’t a burden to Him in the least. He is full of joy and fervor. He also knows when to take a break. He has perfect peace in His soul because He doesn’t live with obligations and stress and expectations, He just lives. He knows what is His to do and He does it in love. He doesn’t take on more than He is supposed to and He says, Hey, there is space on this yoke for you to plow this field with me and learn how to be in the game with joy, which is your strength. Learn how to be in the game with grace, and not control…

The place I have come to in my heart today is this: I must let go of all the expectations I had of what a successful life would look like, and acknowledge I can’t do it. I can’t please that inner critic. I just don’t have it in me. And that leaves room now for the truth, for the thing I know God has been saying when I have asked Him what do you want me to know and what do you want me to do?

It is enough

to live a life

of grace.

To receive it, to give it, to hold every feeling up to the standard of God’s kind and generous grace.

I truly do repent of trying to be and do more than just this.

Who I am is just who I am, not who I “should” be.

This is the truth that sets us free!