Coming Home

Yesterday, the caregiving committee at our church hosted a session on "self-care for caregivers." The irony of the fact that I can tell others all about the importance of such a topic, while doing an abysmal job of practicing it myself, is not entirely lost on me.

At the break during the session, a congregation member asked me how I was doing at self-care these days. I had to admit that I could be doing better.

"Don't I remember you talking about how you have a chair?" he asked me.

Of course, I have multiple chairs--but I knew the one he was reminding me of. I have a particular chair, a comfortable one, where I only sit when I'm seeking out quiet time in God's presence.

It's been sitting vacant for longer than I care to admit right now.

I have struggled, to be honest, to find my own rhythm of staying spiritually connected with God and with my own deepest self, in the midst of learning the rhythms and demands of full-time ministry.

And at the same time, I've moved from one faith tradition rooted in a particular stream of Christian spirituality to another which has different gifts and finds its home in an entirely different stream of Christian spirituality. One which is rooted more firmly in an action-oriented, social justice stream of spirituality. It's a beautiful thing to witness--but it is simply not one of the streams of spirituality that I most naturally gravitate toward.

I've also come to realize that, for years spent trying to navigate a call to ministry in an often hostile environment, I learned to rely on the gift of God's inner voice to carry me through some pretty difficult seasons. I wonder now if God's voice wasn't exactly the gift that I needed for that season of my life--a grace given for the journey.

Now, I'm learning the beauty of hearing God's voice in the midst of the faith community in new and holy ways. But I do confess that I sometimes long for the clarity of encounter that I had so often experienced during those wilderness years.

Anyway, for a variety of reasons, I've struggled to give myself permission to find my way back to the practices and streams of Christian spirituality that restore my soul and that allow me to drink of the living water of God's presence, that nurture me and give me what I need in order to be able to offer the best of me to those I am called to walk alongside.

If I don't find a way to do that, as we were reminded yesterday, I'm not doing anyone else any favours by simply working harder and continuing to ignore my own self-care needs for sabbath and renewal.

So this morning I found my way back to my chair, without any easy answers but with a renewed sense of conviction that I need to find the patterns and practices that will allow me to serve as one "like a tree planted by streams of water, which bears its fruit in season" instead of as one who is trying desperately hard to manage of her own strength.

So thank you for the reminder. I've found my chair again, and today I showed up, and sometimes showing up is enough.