“I feel completely numb,” she said. “I don’t want to be a mom or a wife anymore. I could walk out on my family today and not feel anything…but it would devastate them. And I can’t do that because I care about them. I just don’t have anything left in me to give or feel. And I don’t know what to do…”
I was shocked. Not as much about what she told me, but because she was the second woman who had come to me with such a brave and raw confession that weekend during the women’s retreat where I was speaking.
Two women who felt numb and empty. Two women surviving but not really living.
I had shared similar story and struggles that morning during my keynote message. Shared how ten years earlier I sked God WHY? Why, after being a Christian for over a decade, was I so miserable?
Jesus said He came to give us life to the full. And I needed to know how and when was He going to keep that promise to me. Because the only things that filled my life were obligations, stress and hurry.
Kids activities and church commitments, play dates and Bible studies, neighborhood ministry and me trying to leave a legacy. All good “Christian” things, so I assumed my commitments reflected Christ and hopefully pleased Him.
Surely it’s just a phase, I had told myself. Things will slow down and I’ll start enjoying my life eventually.But life wasn’t slowing down; and I wasn’t enjoying anything.
Drained by all my doing, I became numb, exhausted and depleted. And I couldn’t just keep going. My heart was checking out and it scared me. I needed to get honest with myself and with God about where I was and how I got there.
And when I started asking hard questions and listening to His heart and mine, God showed me something I needed to see : Most of my {undoing} was of my own doing.
My doing and doing and doing…
Instead of hugging my brave new friend who stood in front of me waiting to see what I would say now that she had spilled her guts, I looked into her eyes and said “I understand. I’ve been there…”
Over the next hour we prayed and processed what was going on in her heart and in er world. And I shared what God had shown me ten years prior in the middle of my personal “I can’t do this anymore meltdown”…
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