Just back from a trip South to visit family, I find my inbox filled with questions as to why I’ve stopped blogging. I haven’t stopped; I just took some time off to rest and relax in the arms of my family. Interestingly enough, one of our many topics of conversation was gratitude! It seems that by writing about and practicing gratitude for years, I have successfully inculcated an attitude of gratitude in the rest of the family! That just goes to show how we can, just by being, influence others.
Another topic of conversation was finding the balance between self-care and other care. This, we decided, is a real challenge. Whether the church teaches us to be overly co-dependent or whether we misunderstand the church’s teachings is up for grabs. Personally, I figure it is a bit of both. Nevertheless, it is vitally important to discern what boundaries we need for our own good, what is selfish, and what is selfless. Doing so requires us to be present to our own needs, feelings, and longings before we can be truly there for others.
Many of us look to Jesus and believe nothing less than total selflessness is required to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. We read the stories of Jesus, assuming he always puts others first, but it doesn’t even take careful reading to show something very different. In fact, Jesus is our prime example of just how important self-care and time-outs are. Time after time, when the crowds became too much, he slipped away for some much-needed- time. I have always resonated with the scene in Jesus Christ SuperStar when the crowds press in on him demanding healing until he screams in frustration, “Go heal yourselves!” That scene may not be exactly Biblical, but it certainly meshes with the Jesus we meet when He cleanses the temple, tells off the Pharisees, heals on the Sabbath, etc. In fact, if Jesus needs my time, why are we so surprised that we also need time to recoup and re-group on a very regular basis? With Easter coming, I found myself reflecting on the 11th step… seeking through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with the God of our understanding, asking only for God’s will for our lives and the courage to carry that out.