Sabbatical. An Attempt
About a month ago, I sensed God telling me to stop working like I was or He would stop me Himself.
I’d even said to a few trusted people, “If I can’t do this business of mine with joy and without all this physical overwhelm, burn-out, and exhaustion, I won’t do it. Something has to change.”
Unfortunately, I’ve been saying that for two years and doing nothing about it. My body has been screaming - migraines, sad thyroid, and that relentless bitch perimenopause - God could use any one of them to lay me out.
Wait…what? That doesn’t sound like a loving merciful God, you say.
Are you sure?
Rest Is Holy
Not only is rest holy, but it’s #4 of the Ten Commandments.
Sabbath is one day out of every seven that’s dedicated to rest and restoration in the presence of God. It’s clearly so important that God codified it into THE LAW so we would do it, which most people I know don’t.
I do though. I’m serious about it and guess what? I’m still burnt-up.
Why?
Well, in part, because I’m an Enneagram 3.
When my unredeemed, dysregulated three is running the show, I think I have to achieve to earn love. So I am a relentless performer. I kick the ball through the posts, then immediately move them so I can kick it farther. The dark side of my three is the mantra “it’s never enough.”
God Knows This About Me
He also knows about the darker more dangerous thought underneath it.
The real secret under all the striving and achieving is I know God provides, but I’m not always sure He’ll provide for me.
It hurts to admit I do things in my own strength, not because I think God is incapable or unwilling, but because I’m afraid He might not be willing for me. When I have so much evidence that proves otherwise, like this, and this, oh and this one too.
Perhaps that's exactly why God commanded his people to Sabbath, so they could learn from experience that He can be trusted with lost time, revenue and everything else.
I need to learn that.
And that is why I’m taking a sabbatical this summer, so I can learn to trust and maybe even be delighted by how tiny and cute my own efforts are compared to God’s inconceivable provision.
I’m here for it, but I’m still nervous because I’m challenging a very old pattern, one that says, because I can handle it, I have to handle it and if I don’t, it won’t get handled.
I’m doing exactly what I teach my clients to do: The thing that scares them. But as Joseph Campbell said, “The cave you fear to enter, holds the treasure you seek.”
Leaders Go First
Now that Girl Catch Fire is built and thriving, I have to set much of it down for a minute and rest. To give God the hours He wants from me to teach me once and for all that He is willing and can be trusted to take care of me, my people, and the business that is home to my blood sweat, and tears.
This is the next level for me and Girl Catch Fire. Pushing myself and the current system harder is not.
So Here’s the Plan
Maybe you need some rest too, that’s good - do what you must to get it, maybe starting this Sunday. But perhaps there’s another part of you that’s desperate to decide where the second half of your life is going.
Yes, we’re pausing enrollment into our flagship course The Meaning of Midlife for the summer, but we will fire it back up in the fall. (Unless God has some other plan.)
If you want to know when we are reopening the course and how it can help you find purpose, joy, and impact in your second half reply to this email and we’ll keep you looped.
In the meantime, expect to see a little more of this.
