I’ve been struggling to collect my thoughts, lately. When I do, I can’t seem to contain them, organize them, or arrange them in any sort of linear pattern. Just weeks ago, I was experiencing the greatest clarity of mind and spirit and faith that I’ve known—maybe ever—everything that was flowing around me and through me felt cool, transparent, refreshing and unrestricted. Yet for the last few weeks, it has been as if it began to harden into something opaque, slow, and tepid.
This didn’t happen because of some secret sin of mine, or because I wanted to focus on anything else. All I want right now, in fact, is Jesus. I want to contemplate His presence, and eternity, and the Word, and the Spirit. I want to write about Him and teach about Him and sit with Him in the quiet of my back patio, where I retreat to study and pray and worship. I know He is calling me into all of that. I feel it in my bones.
But still, I was interrupted.
I run a non-profit that has to do with food security. We feed about 250,000 people per year. Sixty percent of those people are kids. About 20 percent are disabled senior citizens. I love my work; it is important. I believe in my work, and I don’t want to do it anymore.
I’ve been in this job for 10 years, and the work has gotten harder, the money for this work is drying up, the world has gotten uglier, and I’ve grown discouraged, exhausted, and uninspired. I want to leave and be an artist. I want to go back to freelance design work, where no one really counts on me, and I just get paid to do the hobby I’d do for free, so I can put all my mental and emotional energy into “my ministry”. Although God hasn’t released me from my day job, He’s given me outlets for that yearning. Lately, I’ve felt like He was telling me “yes.”
That is, until about 3 weeks ago. To put it as briefly as possible, I discovered that a long-time employee, whom I loved and considered a friend, whom I believed shared my convictions and values, was stealing from the organization. There are layers and layers to this betrayal, which I’m not going to get into here, at least not now, because that’s actually not what threw me off course.
This is always the busiest time of year at the non-profit, but we are also in the middle of moving from the location where we’ve been for over 40 years, a major pivot for our programs, and our annual audit (a thing non-profits of a certain size have to do annually to keep their non-profit status which is incredibly time consuming, complex, and costly). Busy. For sure. But manageable—change is the only constant in the industry, and we can handle it. I dare say, many of us who are attracted to this work actually thrive on it. All these changes were imbuing me with more enthusiasm and creativity in my work than I’ve felt for some time—and more hope. Sure, work was intense, but I could still make time for my side gig where I keep my graphic design skills fresh and make a little extra money. I was still managing to get lots of quality time in with my three kids and husband, and was even reconnecting with old friends—and making new ones. I still found time for rest, and to spend time in the word and prayer. I still had time to dive into faith stuff with other believers. It was miraculous, really.
As I said, it wasn’t the betrayal that derailed me. I mean, I hurt, but I’m not new to this world, and with Jesus near me, and lots of support from loved ones, I was able to move through it pretty quickly. But there are no short cuts to get through the legal and administrative quagmire this created. It’s a slog. I’ve called in every resource, and I have a lot of help, and it has still been the equivalent of working two full-time jobs for awhile, and it’s going to continue as such for a little while longer. There’s just no way around it.
This isn’t something I can delegate my way out of. I have had the occasional person, who doesn’t really understand the inner-workings of the situation, say something like “well, you have to take time for yourself, there’s no rush, just hire more help!” I won’t explain the complexities that make that totally, unfortunately, impossible. But it is. For now—and please know how much I hate the phrase I’m about to use—it just is what it is. I have a staff that still needs to get paid. I have legal responsibilities inherent to my job and this situation. I have a whole lot of people who are counting on us for their actual survival. This isn’t workaholism, it’s just a temporary reality, and I am the one in charge, so I have to do my job. That’s all there is to it.
I don’t share all this for any sympathy. I’m not upset. I’m stressed the normal, appropriate amount, but not all stress is actually bad. I am sharing it for context. Because the spiritual morass that my boots keep sticking in is not a result the stress or betrayal or emotional turmoil, any more than it is sin (of mine, anyway).
I’m sharing this because, while I have felt bogged down with busyness, while I’ve been unable to spend hours in contemplation and prayer, while I’ve been unable to write to you about the cosmic wonders of our great God that I’ve been steeping in for months, while my soul has been weary and my brain has been in “do the next thing” mode—God has met me.
I thought the crisp, clear spiritual waters inside me had grown still and murky. It felt that way; it still kind of feels that way. But yesterday, I finally had ability to make time for some spiritual maintenance. I took a couple hours while my husband manned the frontlines, and I escaped to my back patio with a blanket, and a cup of hot tea, and I caught up on my Bible reading. That was my whole goal—if nothing else, I would do that. When I was done, I still had time to pray, and listen. It was more discipline than joy, at first. I felt that the clarity and energy I’d felt in recent months had been a result of the daily practice of scripture reading and prayer, and I intended to reclaim it.
There’s nothing wrong with that. The discipline, the prayer, the worship, the scripture—those are all good things. What was flowing, now felt stagnant, and hardening. I am not saying my heart was hardened, in the sense of turning away from Christ, or failing to show mercy or love God or even my neighbor. In fact, all of my time and energy was directed toward those things, albeit in a practical and unromantic sense. But there were misunderstandings.
Non-Newtonian Fluid Soul
I thought that water was my soul, but it turns out, my soul is actually made of oobleck.
Have you ever played with that mixture of cornstarch and water that wows preschoolers as it defies the simple physics they’ve observed in their play and exploration?
Oobleck is a non-Newtonian fluid (stay with me, this isn’t as much of a non sequitur as it seems.) Most fluids we encounter behave pretty predictably, based on Newton’s rules of fluid viscosity. We sort of know what to expect when we interact with water, oil, gels, and fluids of different consistencies. Non-Newtonian fluids react differently to stress (force, tension, etc) than we’d expect. If you slap your hand on the surface of water, you’ll feel a smack and some resistance, but your hand will quickly pass through the surface tension and the water will behave in a predictable way. You’ll get wet. You’ll displace some volume. There will be a splash. Slap your hand on oobleck, wet and flowing as it seems to be, and it will harden in response. The harder you hit it, the greater the viscosity, and the more it will resist. But gently poke your finger into that same mass, and it will pass through the surface with almost no resistance at all. Squeeze a fistful of oobleck in your hand and it will harden, but open your hand and it will run through your fingers.
Oobleck isn’t bad because it responds that way instead of behaving like water. It is just different from water. But it is harder to penetrate. The force or stress applied to the surface isn’t good or bad either, it’s just a thing that happens.
Meta-Anxiety
One of the things I’ve learned about myself in the last couple years is that it’s not my feelings that are the enemy. It’s usually my feelings ABOUT my feelings. Sometimes I’ve been under incredible stress and feeling a lot of anxiety, and no doubt, it is unpleasant and disruptive, but it’s the white-knuckled grip on toughing it out and “being okay” that leads to the insidious, agitated anxiety that robs me of my peace. Sometimes I’ve been justifiably afraid, but it’s my fear that I’ll be afraid of everything forever if I let myself be afraid right now that keeps me up at night and wears out my nervous system. Sometimes I’m exhausted and burned out, but instead of resting I think I need to double down, soldier through, and show the world that I AM FINE, resulting in an emotional and physical burnout that is much worse, and longer-lasting than if I had simply rested, and shown myself a little compassion.
Since this has become clear to me, I’ve had to take the risk of appearing a little fragile at times. I have begun to cry when I’m sad, find comfort when I’m afraid, rest when I’m tired, and I don’t always enjoy how people perceive that. I really want people to know how strong I am. But I’ve learned that allowing my body to experience and respond to these feelings as they come frees me to move right past them, instead of storing them up for a future explosion. For me, at least, the ones I store seem to earn compounding interest. The reaction is going to come one way or another, but the strength of the reaction is not a constant.
It turns out, this is also true of my soul. I suppose it is dualistic or something to think of my spiritual responses as distinct from my emotional ones, but I tend to think of my emotions as human and therefore bad, and my soul as spiritual and therefore good. I didn’t consciously develop that idea or anything, but it’s there and there’s no sense in denying it now that I see it.
Here’s what has actually been happening. The stress of a real-life, justifiably stressful situation has been exerting force on my heart and mind. Events outside my control are exerting external pressure, and the non-Newtonian fluid of my soul has reacted accordingly. It’s probably a protective mechanism, in a way, but whatever it is, it happened.
And here’s where the meta-cognitive force multiplier comes in:
I feel the way my soul responds to the stress, and busyness, and exhaustion, and I notice that it’s a little less flowy, a little less soft, a little less receptive.
It’s supposed to feel like clear, cool water! Why can’t I feel it flowing around me and through me?
I begin to feel some fear about feeling so fearful, and some shame about feeling angry, and some guilt about feeling less “spiritual”.
It presses down even harder on me and, my oobleck soul behaves like an oobleck soul and it resists EVEN HARDER.
And it’s becoming very clear that I’ve gotten something wrong.
Three misunderstandings and one moment of clarity
The cool, clean water that was flowing through me and around me was never my soul, or my faith, or my mental clarity. It was always the Living Water, the Holy Spirit.
The feeling of hardening and resistance in me was not the Holy Spirit distancing from me because I wasn’t praying as much. It was a natural resistance to external pressure, which I unwittingly multiplied with my meta-cognitive stress habit.
The crisis at work, the busyness, the heartache, and the exhaustion aren’t derailing God’s plans for me. They can’t, and they won’t.
While I was slapping and punching away at the surface tension, God extended a tendril of power and mercy, pressing a sacred finger gently through the viscous barrier as if it were nothing. Just a small break in the pattern that allowed me to sense the trickle of water He had never stopped pouring over me.
The external pressure is still there, although it’s lessening a little as I dig my way out from under this mess that someone else made, but the added pressure of feeling bad about feeling bad has been removed. The vice grip on my heart has loosened, and while it’s not flowing freely yet, it has softened enough that I am aware of what IS flowing freely around me, even if I can’t feel all of it right now.
Carrying on
I actually don’t know what’s going to happen next. Work is going to be challenging for awhile yet. I still don’t know how God will use this desire in me to serve him in the future, but I do know where He has me right now, and much of what He requires of me is unequivocal. I have no idea what the future holds, but I never did.
“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
(Romans 8:38-39 NLT)
The onus on me is simply to keep showing up with humility and faith, keep doing the work God puts in front of me, and to trust that He will work all of this to his perfect ends.
I still want. I still yearn. But I only want to want what He wants for me, and that’s enough. I realize that the space for contemplation and prayer was needed for me to take this in, but I’m not ashamed that I have to take those moments where I can find them right now.
I will carve out what time I can, and He will meet me there. Even when I don’t feel Him, He’s there. He never left, and He never will.
A closing prayer
Heavenly Father,
God of mercy, you are the Living Water and the source of everything I will ever need. Thank you for reminding me that You will never leave me, and that no force or stress or distraction can ever keep You away from me. Please continue to minister to my heart and give me the energy to serve You and your people in the ways You have have ordained, and the perseverance to turn to You even when I can’t feel your presence.
Give me the wisdom to navigate the complex problems I’m facing, and the faith to step into the unknown challenges of each day knowing that You will not be caught off guard. Please give me the peace to enable my mind and body to rest when I need it, and the humility to know that You do not expect me to do this alone, and that I couldn’t if I tried.
Give me your presence, Lord, when I’m awake or sleeping, working or resting. Allow me to serve You in the ways You have appointed. Thank you for loving me and teaching me and correcting me and loving me some more. Thank You for your endless grace and mercy and forgiveness for my hard-headedness.
Forgive me for forgetting the truth of your enduring presence, and for doubting the path You’ve put me on. I trust You. I love you. I will serve You until the end of my days, and then forever.
In Jesus holy name,
Amen
This was so good. I recited the prayer at the end and I really needed it. I’m so sorry you’re going through this time, and I’m sorry that “it just is what it is,” and thank you for putting it into words and sharing your beautiful prayers