Leading On Empty

I was at Tecman last week, buying a few books for gifts. At the counter, it was my turn in the queue, and I realized that I could get further discount if I got one more book. So I quickly browse through the best-selling books just beside me, and there it was, this book that stood out to me, one I've rarely seen among the Christian books, Leading On Empty.

It was a book about burn out, about how the author experienced it, and took 3 years of rest and re-calibration to come back re-energized in Spirit and propelled to greater level of service. It also talks about how many others like Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon and even Mother Teresa, go through tenacious, life-sapping melancholy and depression in seasons of their lives. Many characters in the Bible like David, Moses and Isaiah, as well as leaders today experienced it too.

I thought that things were better and well after seeking God and growing deeper in my understanding of Steadfast Joy. But even so, I constantly feel like there's a tiger behind me, waiting to pounce at anytime. And that really was so..

Recently, I started doing telemarketing to share about my mum's education product and book an appointment with Kindergartens. God gave me success to book an appointment with the first Kindergarten I called. Later on, more appointments were made. I knew the lines that I am to say. I knew some will want to know more, and others not. Yet I was tired and anxious before each subsequent call. My hands felt like jelly after calling for a while.

Furthermore, God even blessed the start of our sales. Such that the first 2 Kindergarten appointments were great successes. A Government Kindergarten that will even discuss the product with other branches, a Church Kindergarten that had 6 computers for our software and just happened to be looking for such a curriculum as ours. Yet despite of these blessings, I was still angst to my mum and recently to more others around me.

My mum was doing up a brochure, and after hours of working on it, I blatantly slandered it, pointing out how these and that could have been done better. It was to a point that my mum started crying and I felt terrible. I sit down to edit the whole brochure with her thereafter.

Throughout this whole season, I get impatient, angst, critical and rude to my mum, especially when working and even in rare occasions to others. I realized that I could do the brochure better than my mum, though I've not done it before, that I could prepare a quotation better, despite not preparing one before, and could present the PowerPoint on the product better, despite not presenting before. Yet I vehemently wanted to refuse these responsibilities that she considered to dedicate to me, and when she doesn't do it as well, I become critical and rude. I also get angst when I take up the task to do it too. My mum even pointed out that I've been becoming so easily angst and devoid-ed of joy when I talk to her that I should re-evaluate the things I was doing.

I used to love to prepare, plan and execute for birthdays, I used to love even when I feel offended and am uncomfortable to love a person, I use to go out much more to reach out and to love others in my spheres of life, I used to be much more patient and careful to love my mum, I used to want to serve and mentor others more. And all that I mentioned here, are still things that I still love to do. However, I've been finding myself robbed of joy more often, finding myself anxious and being unable to sleep with a fiercely beating heart, I find myself wanting to be in isolation more, I find myself getting angry and angst more easily. And there are just times and times recently that I just feel like crying, that I just stare at a blank, that I feel unjustifiably helpless (despite of being able to do what I'm set out to do and despite of God's blessing along the way), times when I feel like others don't understand what I'm going through when I myself am not fully sure too.

The reaching out and sowing on others, but not seeing them come closer to God overtime; the sense of feeling under-appreciated while serving and doing things like birthdays preparation; the worries of finances, health and fitness, stewarding things like piano, and daily disciplines like journal-ling, reading the Word, devotions etc; the stress of being tasked to do new things in work like telemarketing, making documents like quotations, translating complicated Chinese etc; feelings of not having others who understand; the sudden low point during NS Camp; these were little things that slowly leached unto me.

I found many of these things I mentioned to be good to me, things that should give joy and grow me. But outbursts of angst, times of feeling empty, feeling like crying, feeling like isolating etc that happened more frequently are perhaps signs that I need to take time to unwind myself.. Perhaps I need to take time to rest my soul and re-calibrate myself.

I may not be a LGL or Pastor, and I may not undergo depressions as severe as David, Paul, Spurgeon and Abraham, which were even to the point of death at times. Furthermore, Han Hui also mentioned in Hope Sem that God allows trials in our lives, to reveal the condition of our faith and grow it as we look to God. However, as I've never felt the way I've been feeling recently, maybe the best thing for me to do in the midst of this season is to put aside the things that may be stressing and affecting me if possible and to really just rest and find restoration in God.