As I journey through this season in my life, I often find myself exhausted. It's a pure, unadulterated tiredness that seems to settle down in my bones, where the very marrow seems to cry out for rest. With what I lovingly call three jobs, my "real" job is in the Dean's office at a small, liberal arts college in Minneapolis. Then there's the fun job of hosting our Chinese students, where I get to pour into them each evening as we bake, cook, talk, and just hang out and we learn from each other. And finally, the most important, long-term job I will ever hold as the mother to Martin, my five-year-old son, the love of my life and heart.
But, as you can imagine, sometimes these roles begin to control me and the schedule becomes like that reality show where you try to bounce between the balls without falling into the green, muddy water below. And the exhaustion begins to seep down deep, to the core of my being, and I start slipping down the slippery slope where joy cannot possibly live.
My initial thought is to run, run away. Run where the schedule can't find me. Where the conflicts don't happen. Where I find total fulfillment and purpose in my "real" job. I want to hide.
And then I realize the truth of our friend, Henri Nouwen's, wisdom:
"In our much-doing we lose perspective, lose our energy, and more importantly, lose our creativity and sense of humor. We thus begin to carry the world on our shoulders and soon become overwhelmed or disillusioned. But to simply withdraw does not provide the way forward, for we then take our hurt or tired self with us. Rather, the movement to solitude is to find a renewed self, and from the center of being loved and nourished we can again enter our world with purposeful engagement and joyful detachment."
-Henri Nouwen, Dare to Journey
This is what I long to find - a renewed self, where my hurt and pain don't follow me. I have tried to get away before with the intention of running away, and realized that I was still there. Pain and all. The relief of rest was only skin-deep, without the renewing of my spirit.
What is the key to renewal? I'm on my journey to find it. To find the purposeful engagement. To live out joy.
