A Lighter Load

I'm so glad that I've decided to refrain from serving regularly this semester. Before I came back to school, I was contemplating whether or not I should go back to serving at church or other regular ministries, be it worship or something else.

I gave it some brief thought, and what I decided was that I would take a break. At the time of the decision, I didn't have a lot to justify not serving, so I was somewhat hesitant to tell people I wasn't serving. I thought to myself that I'd just tell people that it was because this is my last semester and I really want to focus on school and getting accredited. Well, I had no trouble balancing school with ministry before, so why would I have any trouble now? This was the question I had to wrestle with for a little while.

After two months of a "break," I can say that I feel all sorts of things. Before this semester, I was serving full time on my internship. Prior to my internship, and on top of school work, I was leading worship regularly at church, leading worship with Upper Room Youth Ministries, and dipping my fingers into a bit of everything. At the pace that I was going at, I was going to be exhausted and possibly burnt out if I kept going. Toward the end of my internship, I started to feel tired, but not enough to make me want to stop. In January and February, though, I really started to feel that tiredness wash over me. Initially, I didn't really know why I was tired; I thought that it was maybe because I'm not feeding my soul enough, or I'm not taking enough care of myself. And while I think these factors definitely contributed, I really saw that I had basically gone two and a half to three years in a row with school and work with maybe a month of real rest in total.

So I think it is fair to say that I probably should be a little tired. As far as responsibilities go right now, I just have to look after my school work and begin planning my summer. I've already had offers to preach at churches and at summer camps, so I am excited that I get to look at those opportunities right now.

What I've realized with this bit of time off from serving is just how good it is to me and how much I needed it. I'll be honest and say that I don't really work that hard in school; it's not for the lack of trying, it's just I am not one to really enjoy school work and care enough about it to be a workhorse - but I digress. Being able to simply attend services to listen and absorb things rather than needing to think about what I have to do next, what I'm in charge of, etc., is so refreshing and allowing me to be on the other side of things for a change.

I am glad for this chance to take a back seat for a while and to be able to have a bit of a lighter load to cap off my education.

"I know I'm filled to be emptied again; the seed I've received I will sow."