[this one is ironic, considering it talks about limits and my adrenal fatigue, which very things led to my withdrawal from the College : }]
Choose some book that has been important in shaping and deepening your thoughts. Discuss and develop a single aspect of it (not the book as a whole) that you consider to be particularly significant.
...Among the most influential books I’ve read, The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazzero is a recent example of a book that changed the way I think and thus live my life. I have adopted it as my “life manifesto” and purposed to reread it regularly. One chapter that was revolutionary for me a year ago when I read it, and has continued to bear fruit in my life in the form of some considerable breakthroughs, is “Principle 4: Receive the Gift of Limits.” It explains how in our desire to help people and make our own lives significant, human nature tends to take responsibility for the people around us beyond our own abilities, schedule, priorities, and even health. And we overextend or misapply who we are and what we are meant to do in this world by trying to prove something, maintain an image, please people, and right all wrongs. In short, we end up playing God by thinking we can “save” ourselves, the people around us, and even the world. We deny our limitations or try to overcome them in our headlong rush to fix everything, not realizing that limitations are a gift to remind us that we cannot fix everything, and are not expected to…and will die trying if we do.
This was a revelation to me a year ago because during the last decade of full-time nonprofit work and volunteer service, I have largely labored out of those misapprehensions. I allowed myself to be controlled by other people’s needs and neediness, instead of deciding what I could give and where to draw the line, and sticking to it. Guilt and fear were among my motivations for service. I compared myself with those around me for my sense of approval and rightness. I sacrificed my body on the altar of whatever I thought, or my boss thought, needed to be done and was the willing subject of Tyrant Urgency.
For someone to tell me it was okay to have limitations, that they were something not simply to be borne but embraced, as a source of peace and direction and dependency on God and others, was radical and refreshing to a weary soul. And I let this truth begin to change my thinking and renew my mind and perspective on life and service. Not only did I start letting myself off the hook and stop trying so hard, but I had the freedom to do the same for others, and allow those around me to fail, be human, be late, be messy, and basically be accountable to God for their lives alone as I was for mine alone. The control freak loosened her grasp.
In recent weeks I have been relearning this lesson, but on a deeper level than a year ago. Although I have made progress in embracing my limitations and letting go, I am now realizing just how extensive and deeply rooted is this tendency throughout my personality and lifetime. I am appalled and amazed. As the oldest child in my family, I tended to overprotect my siblings or take on my parents' burdens that were too heavy for me. My seventh grade birthday party was a flop because I was so worried my friends weren’t having a good time and it was my job to make sure they did. In high school I felt so responsible to be a good example to my peers that reputation management and fear constricted my personality. Even now, I find myself apologizing too often, blaming myself for unmet needs outside my jurisdiction, and rushing around as if the world depended on my perfect and timely execution of everything on my to-do list.
Thus enters upon the stage a limitation enemy turned friend: Janel’s Unconquerable Fatigue of 2006. In searching for remedies and answers for an exhaustion I could not explain or overcome, I started reading The Hidden Link Between Adrenaline and Stress, which surprisingly built upon the principles in The Emotionally Healthy Church. Also surprising is a change in my thinking that it brought about, which strongly influenced me to consider attending college at this season in my life. As arrogant as it sounds, deep down I believed the world “needed” me to stay in full-time nonprofit service because of my contributions to it and its needs. Suddenly I am not only set free to pursue personal enrichment (which will hopefully benefit others someday of course, but not “right now” as Urgency demands), but I see it as necessary to discovering who I am and developing my gifts and proving to myself that the world will get along just fine “without me.” Yes, my well-meaning arrogance is glaringly exposed when I put it like that. And how freeing exposure can be!
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