Dear Hildegaard
Christian Wiman and self-preservation
Dear Hildegaard,
A couple months ago, a group of fellows from an inner-city ministry in Tulsa visited our little church. While you showed them your plastic dinosaurs and begged them to play hide and seek, your dad and I gave some lectures and held panel discussions on a myriad of subjects, one of which was the idea of self-preservation in ministry. We were responding to a recent New York Times article which said, essentially, that you should cut out any person in your life who is taking more than they are giving.1
Oh, beloved. Please ignore such selfish nonsense. Your dad and I’s first response was to chuckle. Anyone in ministry knows that enacting this rule would cause church ministry to cease to exist. The very nature of ministry implies ministering, which is the willingness to hold someone else’s hand (or baby, or vacuum, or grief) for the sole purpose of blessing them to the glory of God. If you give only to receive, you will be constantly disappointed, not to mention distracted from Christ-like love.
This is not to say that taking care of yourself is something to laugh at. It’s very important. You, too, are an image bearer of God. He created you to need rest and silence and times of refreshment. If you neglect these for too long, you will find yourself resenting everyone around you. You will not be able to show mercy with cheerfulness, as Romans 12:8 calls us to. I have experienced this. When I start to think it is godlier to wear myself out for the kingdom, I quickly see bitterness rise up in my heart and relationships. I resent others for my exhaustion, when it was my responsibility to say “no,” drink more water, and take time for prayer and creativity (which seems to be my very lifeblood, outside of Christ).
The topic of boundaries is all the rage these days. I’m not sure if the pendulum will swing back or forth and end up somewhere else with your generation, but right now, the concept of protecting your time, energy, and emotions is quite popular. I have learned from this conversation. I have learned that accepting my weakness and limitations is a way to practice humility before God and others. I have learned that rest matters. And most of all, I have seen how important it is to recognize that I am nobody’s savior.
But I have also had to fight some new temptations that the “self-care” rhetoric poses. For example, the desire to put myself first. While I agree that you “can’t pour from an empty cup,” I also think that the desire to dismiss the needs of others in lieu of my own is ancient. It has existed from The Beginning, and its sway hasn’t lost an ounce of strength. Sin is selfishness and selfishness is sin.
I was reading a book by Christian Wiman where he was discussing the woman in the New Testament with the flow of blood. After doctors and her community failed her, she reached out in desperation and pure bravery to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe. She was healed instantly! Then, Scripture includes this little gem of a detail: at her touch, Jesus felt power leave his body.2
Wiman writes:
Few of us will ever be called to witness world pain…but I feel sure that there is some pain to which every one of us is called to witness and perhaps ease. It might be as simple as a phone call to a family member you haven’t spoken to in too long, it might be some thorn in the heart of a friend to whom you have not paid sufficient attention, it might be some wholly ordinary encounter you have in the next few hours of this wholly ordinary day—when suddenly you feel some power going out of you. Christ may be in us. But ours are the only hands he has.3
Jesus still has his hands of course, and apparently, even his scars, but for now he is seated at the right hand of God in heaven.4 For now, we are indeed the hands and feet of Christ on this earth. The key is to view this as a privilege, not a burden.
Anything that causes you to depend more on yourself than God is a problem. If your desire for self-preservation is based on the belief that God can’t or won’t come through for you, if you are putting yourself first because you have forgotten that Jesus already gave you his very life, you have forgotten calvary love.5 We minister to others out of the very ministry we have already received from Christ himself.
Our bodies need rest, but our holy communion cup is always full. Pour from that. From Christ, not yourself. And you will find yourself renewed. For those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.6
I love you.
Thank you to Miriam Boone who was the inspiration behind this panel!
Luke 8:46
Christian Wiman, “Zero at the Bone,” pg. 41.
John 2:24-28
Amy Carmichael wrote a little book called “If” that uses the refrain “...then I know nothing of Calvary love.” It’s...powerful.
Isaiah 40:31
Dear Rachel,
I so appreciate all you write about. You have such a servant's heart, and I pray for your family.
I agree that is such a balance between self-care and selfishness. However I would like to share an article I just wrote about caregivers and self-care: https://www.dementiamap.com/caregiving-can-kill-you/
Such a journey we walk as Christians. nancyrpoland.com
Amy Carmichael's book is a mood; a powerful, all-consuming, delicious mood. We've been studying Matthew in Sunday school, while studying Hebrews and now Thessalonians, after Ephesians, in church. And, this idea of self care has been muddling in me, for a while. It can be selfish to give too much, for fame; it can also be selfish to give to little, because of lack of interest. There's a difference between taking a vacation or getting your nails done or a sabbatical or day unplugged versus, in my opinion, constantly announcing self care, and determined to have it. We discredit God's grace, a lot. We discredit it by assuming we can do it all, and by deciding we're done. The balance isn't as delicate, the line isn't as fine, as we are led to believe.