Give yourself a break

The way I am working at the moment goes against all my instincts. It's like circuit training - going from one task to the other, only pausing as the whistle blows to down tools and move onto the next. Some seasons are like that. Some seasons leave no space for breath, no space for dreaming. 

It's a season of change - of massive change in my own life as I deal with moving 252 miles south east and of trying to stay upright as those I lead now explore what that change means for them. It's a season of excitement and joy as I co-lead on #doyouknowHim? which is one of the most joyous and challenging things I've ever been involved in. It's a season of challenge as I have been facing some of the things that nearly broke me early on in my ministry and learn to walk on with grace and generosity. It's a season that involves a lot of goodbyes and it's well hard at times.  

Thankfully that season, I hope, is just beginning to open up a bit and provide me with space to draw breath, but as I sit here this afternoon and begin to write my sermon for tomorrow (too last minute for me to even contemplate) about Jesus taking time out in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry I was challenged to pause and question this way of working that goes against my instincts and how I might deal with it better. 

At college I was taught to think of ministry and life as a sink that was sometimes full of water, but was emptied out by those things that pull the plug, but that after the plug is pulled, that you need to put it back in and fill the sink again with what is good and what is fulfilling, ready for when the plug puller returns. After I had gone through a challenging season (affectionately known as the 'summer from hell') a while ago, I developed ways of dealing with when that plug is pulled to fill up, bit by bit to take me to a better place. 

However, the sink that desperately needed filling up nearly broke it was so dry on Thursday afternoon.... and I was reminded that working myself into the ground does not make for the better side of me. 

So what do I do about it? Well two simple things to start......

In the next few weeks I am going to celebrate the joy with gusto - I will post on facebook (probably too much - but block me if you'd like), I will fulfil my 'leaving the enclave' bucket list to the best of my ability and declare each little win from the roof tops. 

I have turned the e-mail off on my phone and, while my addiction is making it hard to wean off, there will come a time when I will stop checking and stop answering straight away.... and what a joy that will be to those around me who get frustrated by e-mail efficiency and for me when I won't need to know everything in the world straight away. I may, just may, also just turn off my phone to find rest.....(perhaps a bit too radical). 

It is sad that so many of us have a habit of working ourselves into the ground before we stop and see, and my call, perhaps for lent, perhaps forever, is to not get to that point again, and to fill up more than leak out.... and it will make for a better me. 

The circuit training has to stop at some point, and while the achievement is great, when physical exercise tires you out, your body knows to rest.... and rest you must. 

"How do you do it said night
How do you wake up and shine?
I take it easy said light, 
One day at a time....."           Lemn Sissay 

"Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" - Jesus (Matt 11:28)

Now to get on and write that sermon.....