“Rest and self-care are so important. When you take time to replenish your spirit, it allows you to serve others from the overflow. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.” -Eleanor Brown
“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete” -Jack Kornfield
“I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival” -Audre Lorde
“When you say ‘yes’ to others, make sure you are not saying ‘no’ to yourself.” Paulo Coelho
Why this did not become a reality to me sooner, I do not know. In college, being a Psychology major and Child Advocacy minor, every single class I was in talked about self-care in some detail. Preparing myself for a career that I’d be surrounded by the realities of child abuse, sexual abuse, mental illness, and the devastating effects of the brokenness of the world, we needed to know about taking care of ourselves on a daily basis, otherwise we would self-destruct and burn-out. It was one of those things that I hated talking about, I understood its importance, but always thought “I got this, that wouldn’t happen to me. I’m strong.”
Coming into the race, I was still filled from the comforts of home, the overflow of community, and all the things that I knew to be true. I had carried myself on my own strength, I was able to handle the things coming at me (or so I thought. Silly, ignorant me). Now, half way through month 3 of the race, I am completely drained. I am exhausted. I am empty, clinging on to any type of seclusion or rest I can get because of the deprivation of it all these past 2 ½ months. This is a dangerous place to be, but also a beautiful one. The choice is how I handle it, how I decide to go on from here. This woman I met at church last week had a wise word as she prayed over me:
“Dear, this is the devil’s playground. This is a dangerous place to be. These things that you are doing, they are all really good things. But when we begin to say “yes” to all of them, that is when you will burn out. Satan likes to make us believe that we should do ALL of these good things, that they are what Christians do, they say yes to all they can do, and take on everything. THAT, is a lie. You need to start learning how to say no. How to balance the things that you take on, and how to truly rest. Rest in the truth that the Lord has called you to rest. He is a Father who gives us good things, and burn-out and being empty is not one of them.”
If you know me well, you probably know that I have the hardest time saying no. I very rarely say no to anything, which is not healthy. It provides a ground for people to unintentionally (or sadly, intentionally) take advantage of me. It sets up failure and stress for myself, and it is just not being a good steward of the self-control that I have. Some of the feedback my team has even given me is to practice saying no more. It’s something that is INSANELY hard for me, I’m such a people pleaser and I hate to disappoint or let people down. I walked in this attitude of “I’d rather take the stress or burden on myself of making someone else happy by saying yes, than disappointing them by saying no.”
With this burn-out beginning to happen, I found my depression starting to kick back in. To the times where all I want to do is sleep, to stay in bed, to block out any processing or thoughts of trying to be better. To shaming myself for not doing enough. To disabling myself from wanting to do anything all together. It’s exactly the place that Satan wants me to be.
This month has looked a lot different than the past two, a lot of this month is creating our own ministry. Vietnam is a closed country, so it is illegal to openly share the gospel. With that, we are “volunteers” teaching English, when in reality we are building relationships wherever we can and loving on the people of Da Nang. With this, our schedules are pretty much up to us except for a few set in stone programs. A lot of this time I spend going to a coffee shop down the road with my teammate Blair Grace, drinking strawberry ice teas and laughing with the mom and daughter who own the shop. They greet us with warm cake and even warmer smiles. We talk with them and are the best representation of Christ that we can be to them: LOVE.
I spend time being intentional with my teammates and loving them the best that I can. We fight for each other when we are weak, we laugh with each other, we build each other up and we tease each other too. We cook together, shop at the market together, learn to use chopsticks, flop around like beached whales in the ocean, drink the strongest/sweetest Vietnamese coffee, worship, bike around on flat-tired bikes, challenge each other, walk around in the pouring rain trying to find dinner, and always loving on each other deeply.
In the other parts of my time, I take time to try and learn how to love myself. How to treat myself with the same compassion that I pour out on others. Learning disciplines and rhythms that are good for me, that fill me up, and also learning the things that drain me out. I’ve struggled with the part of me that thinks: “this is selfish; I should be doing more. If I just try more I will be able to do it well. I don’t really need to do these things to fill me up, the people back home are going to think I’m on some kind of vacation or something. DO DO DO.”
I am learning that that attitude is a straight lie from the devil Himself. So this month is a month of a lot of healing, a lot of rejuvenation. I don’t think that it is a coincidence that we are in a nice hotel with the first real beds we’ve had, and the first hot showers we’ve had since being gone this month. I don’t think it is a coincidence that there are cute coffee shops with beautiful people around every corner, or the beach just blocks from our hotel. I don’t think it is a coincidence that there was randomly country music playing at the Vietnamese coffee shop Blair Grace and I go to for about an hour, and we happen to be the only ones on our team who like country. I don’t think it is a coincidence that we have good wifi connection to call back home to our loved ones during the holidays, and attend the first English church service that we’ve been to in months. I felt a lot of shame over these things at first, thinking “we should be suffering more, we shouldn’t have these luxuries.” But let me tell you, the Lord is a good good Father and he DESIRES to give us good things. Sometimes we fall into the trap that we should always be suffering and uncomfortable and if we don’t feel that we are doing something wrong. Let the Lord bless you sometimes. He loves you, he wants and desires good things for you. He cares about the little desires of your heart. He cares about my heart, he cares about my spiritual, emotional and physical health. He cares about the things that make me happy and he desires to shower me in those things, I don’t think that is selfish to rest in that.
So this month, I am choosing to be intentional. Intentional does not mean saying yes to everything, but being wise and using my discernment that I’ve been given. Intentional with my relationships with the locals here, intentional with my beautiful teammates, and intentional, for the first time, with myself. I am choosing rest. I am choosing to take care of myself. I am choosing to love myself and the gifts the Lord has given me, and being a good steward of those things by choosing rest in the Father.
