Tag Archives: self-care

1 Corinthians 13 for Me

21 Wednesday Feb 2018

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In an effort to promote an authentic and healthy love of self as many of us fail to do, I’ve taken 1 Corinthians 13 and made it into a statement that a person can speak to themselves.

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I could speak or write brilliantly in the language of humans and heavenly beings, but let’s be honest – if I do not have love for myself, all my words are just a bunch of noise.

And if I seek justice and peace for the world, and understand all and know all, and if I have an amazing faith on paper, which may look like I could move mountains,
ALL OF THIS…
But
do NOT love myself – you know, the unconditional way that God loves me –
my work is empty… even hypocritical.

If I give away all I own to appear as a fabulous philanthropist,
and if I dress up my body so that I may boast that I look young or hot,
but do not have genuine self-love of my essence and soul, I gain nothing.

Loving myself through all my errors takes patience.
Loving myself means that I am required to be kind to myself.

Healthy love of self doesn’t mean that I’m envious of others (which I am quite often).
It does not allow me to brag over and over of my accomplishments or become arrogant and rude to prove that I am better than others.

Love of self absolutely can not be shadowed in shallowness,
and it requires me to reflect when I’m irritable or resentful of someone else’s accomplishments or celebrations.

This unconditional love does not allow me to rejoice when someone else errs, and it leaves no space for me to berate myself when I make a mistake.

It rejoices in what is best for everyone.

In order for my soul to thrive, true love of self will seek help when life is harsh.
It believes that anything is possible.
It continues to hope for all things
It endures when love seems present no where else.

Authentic love for myself is meant to be permanent and eternal.

But as for the work I do, it will eventually come to an end as my body ages or my mind falls away.
As for the brilliant language that I write or speak- it’s all going to cease.
As for knowledge that I possess here on this side of heaven, it will come to an end.

Let’s face it, now I see myself and God and others only in part. All I do will always fall short because of that partial view I have.
But when the complete comes somewhere on that side of heaven, the partial will come to an end.
The complete view of me and God and others and the universe will be all I can see.

I remember when I was a teen. I spoke like a teen, and I thought like a teen.
I reasoned like a teen.
I was disgusted by myself the way a teen would be.
Since becoming an adult,
I’ve been working on not to look at myself the same way I did at 14.

For I must remember that I see myself in a dim, cloudy, foggy mirror.
But someday, somewhere I will see the true view of my face and heart and soul.
For I must remember that right now I only myself in part-
But at some point I will know fully, even as God knows and loves me fully.

When nothing goes right and the world seems hopeless and I’m thinking so little of myself, I must remember that these three pieces are my foundation:
faith, hope, and love.

And even when faith in myself weakens and hope for the future wanes, God’s authentic, unconditional love for me will guide me back to where I need to be.

Ash Wednesday and Human Fragility

02 Thursday Mar 2017

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imageToday, I was reminded of my fragility.

It didn’t happen at an Ash Wednesday service.  I wish I could have led one today, immersing my thumb in oil and ashes, looking into the eyes of fellow humans, and reminding them that we come from dust and we will head back there again later in our lives.

Instead, I got my own Ash Wednesday lesson in the form of pain, shots, and a nod to my human frailness from a nurse practitioner.

As I’ve mentioned on this blog a few times recently, I had surgery for my endometriosis.  While I was expecting the recover to go much like it did last time (SWIFT!), unfortunately, the amount of endometriosis and adhesions were greater so more tissue needed to be removed.  That usually means that recovery will reflect the heightened intensity of my endometriosis and what needed to be done during the surgery.

I didn’t return to work on Tuesday.  The pain was bad.  I had a low-grade fever.  And because of all of the discomfort, I met with the nurse practitioner in at the doctor’s office.  Tarodol shot #1 happend on Tuesday, but it didn’t help much.

Sleep was restless, but I was going to be a delusional hero and push through.  Even as late as Wednesday morning, I was intending to go to the Ash Wednesday service.  Earlier in the day, I was still in pain, having problems sleeping and then needing to sleep.  I called back into the doctor for a third day in a row.  They urged me to come back in for my second Tarodol shot in two days for the pain.

While in the office, I saw the nurse practitioner.  Reflecting on our conversation from Tuesday, she noted that I needed to take the extra time to rest.  “For the first surgery, taking one week off to recover makes sense.  For your twenty-fifth surgery (she meant third), you need a couple of weeks.”

Noooooooooooooo!

Laparoscopic surgeries for endometriosis aren’t like knee or shoulder surgeries.  You don’t have wraps or slings or crutches.  Under my shirts and comfy stretch drawstring pants are three fresh scars.  That’s all I see, and others don’t see any of that.  So I don’t look that bad.  And I still don’t know what my insides looked like during the surgery.  I’ll see pictures next week.  In the meantime, I just see three healing scars.  And what I forget is that I may have healed well on the outside, but my internal cells, tissue, and organs are trying to achieve full restoration. .

I look back at my previous laparoscopic experiences.  After my first laparoscopic surgery for endometriosis at the age of 30, I had a long weekend to recover.  Thursday was the surgery, and I was back to work on Monday.  Frankly, I wasn’t ready to return to work, but I mastered the art of pushing myself even when I was sick.

For the second surgery at 39, I took a week – maybe a week and a day.  Like the first surgery, I was still stage 2 endometriosis.

This surgery at the age of 43 – We are going on one week and two days.  I’m not 30 anymore, and based on the report of many adhesions, I’m probably beyond stage 2 endometriosis (the stage diagnosed during the first two surgeries).

Thankfully, my wonderful ecumenical colleagues in ministry were able to lead the service tonight without my presence.  This came in the form of a group email giving me grace and the permission to rest.

Ash Wednesday in pain.  And so I thought to myself out loud in a Tweet:

My pain and my inability to live fully on Ash Wednesday were more symbolic than any ash could give me.  I’m limited.  I’m mortal.  I’m fragile.  I can’t keep going the way I normally do right now because my human body is healing.  I need help.  God knows this.  Other humans know this.

Why can’t I accept this?

Sigh.

The Grace Project

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in Life, Music, Pop, Pop Culture, Single in the Sanctuary

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image.jpgI give no grace to myself.

There.  I said it.  It’s been my reality for the 43 years I’ve been alive.  I’ve apologized millions of times for my existence.  My competitive nature does not play well with my graceless attitude because I compare myself with others and then give myself a tough time when I haven’t achieved the same.  I blame myself for not marrying in my twenties or thirties.  I blame myself for not having children or being at the top of my career.  I blame myself for my weight and all of my health issues (most of which I can not control).  I blame myself for the times when I fell short of my goals and dreams.

I blame myself when I forget something relatively small because I forget that I am human.

Because I am so hard on myself, I tend to really rob myself of grace when others give me a tough time about mistakes.  For some reason, ever since I was young, I believed that I needed to be my own worse critic, so when someone else is tougher on me than I am on myself, I raise my level of self-criticism.

I forget that my faith is one that is all about grace.  I neglect to acknowledge that God is pouring copious amounts of grace upon me even as I rob myself of the same. While I am generous in grace with others – mostly because that is the way I would want to be treated – I can not gift the same to myself.

Technically, living in my own critical, graceless head is hell because there is a wall between me and God’s mercy. If hell exists, it can’t be any worse than this, I now think to myself.

There have been times in my past when I’ve noticed that my soul is either filled with rage against me or completely empty.  My soul has lacked love from me, and now is the time to work on filling up that tank with something positive, not the negative it has become accustomed to.

So today I open myself up to the world of my greatest shortcoming: lacking self-grace.  Today, I move towards loving myself, knowing that I will continue to be human and continue to make mistakes.  And sometimes, what I will do will hurt someone else – not because I want it to, but because we all overlook others.  But now when I make those errors, it’s my call to begin the process of forgiveness, to extend reconciliation not only to neighbor but to self.

This new project of mine can be best summed up in the words of Florence + The Machine’s song “Shake It Out”:

And I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I’m gonna cut it out and then restart

Dear graceless heart, it’s time for you to go.  It’s time to heal from your scars.  It’s time to embrace grace as a way of living.

The Glorious Exhaustion of Pastoral Care

15 Monday Jun 2015

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Jesus Goes Up Alone onto a Mountain to Pray James Tissot [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

There is nothing greater and, simultaneously, more draining than being in the midst of the squalls of grief that we encounter as clergy.

Recently, we had a few deaths in our congregation.  I loved the people who passed away as I had gotten to know each one of them.  Each death wasn’t sudden but, rather, an intense time of fading away for the dying and their families.

Being that pastoral care is probably in my top three to five passions for ministry, I try as much as I can to spend as much time as possible with the congregant ready to pass and their families.  If I can and they are awake, I bring communion to them one last time.  I’ll pray the “time of dying” litany in the Book of Worship with them and their kin.  Each time I visit them during those last days, I see them moving farther and farther from our world, drifting closer to that side of heaven.

These are some of the most sacred moments I’ve ever experienced.  God is visible as I watch their loved ones stroke their hands and kiss their heads a few final times.  Quite often, it takes everything I have to hold back the tears that are ready to gush forward from my eyes.

As pastors, we want to be as invested as possible in the lives of our congregants.  This means that the remaining hours in our day are weakened by our sapped souls.

Desks seem to pile up with papers and various other items.  Writing slows down.  Blog posts get place on the back burner.  (Usually writing is a energy-generating activity.  This particular season, I was even too tired to engage in writing.)  Maybe I forget a detail or two – names, dates, etc.  A steady stream of binge-watching Netflix becomes the norm because our minds are completely spent from our work.  Naps become the new norm.  Even though I’m an extrovert, I want more alone time to recharge.

Why am I so tired??? I would ask myself.  But I knew I was giving everything I had to my calling and knew I was exactly where God needed me to be.  I was giving life 100% of myself.  The grace of God would have to cover the rest.

Like I said, I feel incredibly blessed to be present for others in the midst of life’s messy moments.  But what I will overlook on occasion is that my self care needs to improve as I’m caring for other people.

As they say on the airplanes, place the oxygen mask on yourself before placing it on the person next to you.  If we’re not breathing, we are no good to anyone else.

Overall, I think I do well with self care.  And I know every great once-in-a-while, a rush of intense pastoral care comes into every pastor and every congregation’s life, and everything gets thrown off balance a bit.  I am blessed to have the example of Jesus, who made sure to get away to pray and rest.  But even with Jesus as model, it takes much for us to regain our spiritual equilibrium after spending our soul reserves quite quickly.

For those of you reading this who are not members of the clergy, at some point you will most likely become a caregiver.  The same rules apply.  Care for yourself as needed so that you can continue to care for your loved one.  Make sure to place the metaphorical oxygen mask on your face before placing one upon the person or persons for which you care.

Through the grace of God, the love of Christ, the energy of the Holy Spirit… and some Netflix binge-watching… spirits will revive once again.

A Note from a Pastor to Loved Ones During Holy Week

01 Wednesday Apr 2015

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imageDear people who I care for the most,

As you definitely know by now, it is Holy Week.  For those of us in the clergy/ministry business, we are attempting to accomplish in one week what we usually accomplish in about three or four ordinary time weeks.

In this process, our ideal selves are not shining this week.

I will want to stare at stupid reality shows, binge watch Netflix, play 60 consecutive games of Bejeweled Blitz, and surf the computer for hours in the evening.

I may eat one too many brownies or have an extra glass of wine this week.

I will want to pamper myself somehow… maybe a massage, a haircut and color or a mani/pedi.

I will either not sleep enough or I will sleep too well.

I will be Rev. Crankypants until Sunday morning is over.

I will be Super Crankypants if I am approached about taking care of something that can obviously be completed well after Easter Day.

There will be tears. Guaranteed.

There will also be an impromptu dance party at least once per day.  And I will be breaking out in song – most likely something from my college days and reminding me of a much simpler Holy Week.

The house will have extra clothes on the floor, the dishes will sit in the sink a little too long, and I will not have vaccuumed as I usually do.

I will remind people of things over and over again because I’m truly hoping not to drop one of my many balls in the air.

If you can not find me I will be at one of the following places: (1) church, (2) Michael’s, (3) the ice cream store, or (4) curled up in a corner somewhere as I wail and gnash my teeth.

My throat will start feeling scratchy by Thursday which brings on the added stress of extra needed sleep, gargling with salt water, and remembering to take any and every kind of vitamin that could possibly work.  Otherwise, I have to carve into my day a good hour and a half for a trip to the clinic.

Easter morning will be full of caffeine, adrenaline, and pure Holy Spirit joy.  And then once noon hits on Easter, I am a complete zombie.  Not normal Sunday afternoon zombie but full zombie-apocalypse walker.

I am so exhausted that I might as well post a “Do not disturb until the Thursday after Easter” sign on my door.

Holy Week Michelle is not typically who I am.  Well, sometimes it is – especially in the two weeks preceding Christmas.  And I will apologize over and over and over again as I try to keep everything moving forward.

All I ask is a bit of grace, a bunch of prayers, and maybe, a pint of double chocolate ice cream.  Thank you for loving me through the valley of the shadow of Lent and every other day of the year.