The last 3 weeks, we have looked at the concept of Sabbath, Biblically, and then practically how to implement it into our lives. If you missed the first two posts here they are: Part 1, and Part 2,

Last week we talked about the importance of NOT being SUPERWOMAN (or Superman for our awesome guy readers out there).  Read more to find out if you have a “Superwoman Complex.”

Today I am going to share a few insights about how I got over my Superwoman complex.  I would also LOVE to hear any thoughts and ideas you have about how to move past this.

1.       Acknowledge you have a problem.  “Hi I’m Charity and I have a superwoman complex….”  You many never be sent to a therapy group for your superwomen complex, but maybe you should!  Its important to talk with a trusted Christian friend about your struggle.  Take your cape off, and let a friend know that the cares of other people are weighing you down and you need their help.  A friend can be a sounding board for situations and also an encouragement.  Ask them to tell you this simple phrase “Charity, its going to be ok, you are not responsible for the choices and actions of others.”

2.      Read!  The best book I have read about maintaining emotionally and physically healthy boundaries is called Boundaries, written by two Christian Psychologists, Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend.

It absolutely revolutionized my world, and I consider it a must read for anyone with a gift of mercy or anyone involved in ministry or a helping profession. Do you have any good book recommendations on this subject?  Please share with us!

3.      Understanding God’s heart for us!  I have spent a lot of time meditating on this verse, it is a powerful  scripture (especially for those of us who have a hard time taking our capes off) and I encourage you to do the same!

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

            What does this scripture speak to your heart?

4.      Lay it down at the cross.  Take a moment to think about the cross.  I mean to really consider what happened at the cross.  It was even more than Jesus dying and taking every sin upon Himself so that when we believe in Him and accept Him as Lord of our lives we get to spend eternity with Him in heaven. 

John 11:25 “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.”

YES!  This is a REALLY BIG part of the work of the cross and an extremely important part because without it Satan would have every legal right to demand our lives as payment for our sin.   The cross and the empty tomb are the ABSOLUTE FINISHING WORK AND VICTORY over EVERY  sin, fear, sickness, disease, tragedy and death. 

1 Corinthians 1: 18, 30 “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. “

This means that when Jesus said “IT IS FINISHED!”  that wasn’t just a dramatic climatic phrase.  He literally meant it is done and completed!  Wow!  That is so freeing!  It means that I know the ONE who can save anyone from anything.  It means that the same God who triumphed over every evil scheme of the enemy that was and will come lives inside me! 

So after reflecting upon what the cross and empty grave mean I imagine every person and situation sitting at the foot of the cross.  And then I ask myself…”Charity, is the cross and empty grave enough for this situation?”  and I also ask, “Jesus are you enough for this situation?”  The answer is YES, of course, EVERYTIME!  But there is a difference between knowing that the right answer is Yes, and sitting with Jesus and taking the time to hear from Him what His truth is over the situation.

5.       Obedience.  A verse I love is:

 Psalm 16:6 “the boundry lines have fallen for me in pleasant places, surely I have a delightful inheritance.” 

If we don’t know what those boundary lines are it is hard to resonate with this verse.  That is why I cannot emphasize enough the importance of talking to God about what your boundary lines should be, for the day, week, month, or season of life.  It is as simple as asking, “Lord, I have been asked to serve in ABC ministry do you want me to?”  or “Lord, my friend is really struggling right now and I know they have great need, how do you want me to love them?”  Then wait for His answer.  Ask other trusted believers to also pray with you.  I have found such confidence comes from taking time and humbling my heart to ask the Lord how to spend my resources of time, energy and money.  When I am confident that I am in His boundary lines it is also a lot easier for me to lay my cape aside and not feel like I have to solve every problem that I see.

 

As we conclude the series on Sabbath I would love to hear your thoughts!  Has this series inspired you to make a change in any way?

The last 2 weeks, we have looked at the concept of Sabbath, Biblically, and then practically how to implement it into our lives. If you missed the last two posts here they are: Part 1, http://claritywithcharity.com/?p=20 and Part 2, http://claritywithcharity.com/?p=77

Today we continue our series on Sabbath by looking at a specific portion of Anna’s question. You can find her original question here: http://claritywithcharity.com/?p=20

I am so thankful for her vulnerability when she shared, “It’s easy to feel like I’ve failed everyone by the time I’ve laid my head to rest at night.”

I think a lot of women fall asleep at night feeling this way, whether they are Moms, professionals, wives, church leaders, volunteer workers ect…I know that I used to fall asleep at night feeling like I had failed someone during the day.

Before I was a blogger, I worked in “helping professions” – these are professions such as teaching, advising, nursing, physical therapists, counselors, social workers, human resource workers, managers, full time ministry workers, even baristas! (believe me I spent a summer pulling shots and often my hair because of the problems people would share with me while I made their triple foam, extra shot, light on whip, mocha frappe thing).

Even if you are not in one of these professions, you may still go to bed at night feeling inadequate because of your personality and how you naturally interact with people around you. You may be an “intuitive feeler,” find out by taking a free Meyers Briggs test here: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp I am an ENFJ, sometimes I test ENFP What are you?

You also probably have the spiritual gift of mercy. Find out if you do here: http://www.spiritualgiftstest.com/index.html

My top three were Faith, Mercy and Pastor. What were yours?

Often I resented having the spiritual gift of mercy because by 5 p.m. I felt like:

I just lost my job, my dog had died, I had been diagnosed with an incurable disease and would soon fail out of college and spend 20 years flipping burgers. This was because I had just heard those problems from friends, co-workers, students, oh… and the person in the grocery store line that told me their life story. This can be difficult for me because of my mercy gifting. Having a gift of mercy means that when someone tells me about their struggles I can feel their pain…

I am not just hearing the story of you being in a sinking ship without a lifejacket and rowing with one oar, I am in the boat with you, using my hand to paddle while the icy rains beats at my cheek. If you relate to this feeling of experiencing the stress of others so deeply that it actually affects you mentally and physically then you MUST ask yourself one very important question:

DO I THINK I AM SUPERWOMEN or SUPERMAN?

Get over your Superwomen Complex. You may or may not have this, but I would like to suggest that you could be suffering from a savior mentality. I know I was for years. I realized that I could make every practical preparation in the world for a Sabbath but until I worked through my Superwomen complex I would never be able to mentally rest on my Sabbath.

Let me describe to you what I mean by a Superman complex: You think you HAVE to rescue and save people from their problems and ultimately their sin. You believe deep down that if you don’t text them back right away, have coffee with them, pray for them that something horrible will happen to them. They will not follow Jesus, they will fall into a lifetime of drugs, or think that you don’t care! And this thought process haunts you everyday, because you feel like you are letting people down and you can never spend enough time with the hurting, you can never give enough good advice to the searching and you don’t have enough love to heal the broken…that’s why I spent so many years feeling exhausted and so not enough…until one day I realized

I WAS RIGHT!!!!!

I couldn’t spend enough time with the hurting

I couldn’t give enough good advice to the searching

I couldn’t meet everyone’s expectations.

I would disappoint people.

I don’t have enough love to heal the broken

I WAS NOT ENOUGH TO SAVE ANYONE! BECAUSE I CAN’T SAVE ANYONE! ONLY JESUS CAN SAVE PEOPLE.

This was a major revelation to me. I was human, Jesus was not! I had limitations of time, space and energy, Jesus did not! I am not perfect, Jesus is! I don’t always know what to do or say, Jesus does!

WHAT A RELIEF!

I lost about 100 pounds of emotional weight that day…..Talk about a great diet!

Maybe you need to go on the Superwoman diet too and lose some emotional weight, in the next post, I am going to share with you how I got over my Superwoman complex.

Can you relate to the above, how? What was your personality type and spiritual gifts? Do you think your God given make-up could contribute to having a superwoman complex?

Hello friends! 

Today we continue our series on the Sabbath which was inspired by a reader question about how to find rest in the midst of a hectic life.  Here is Part 1 if you missed it.   http://claritywithcharity.com/?p=20#comment-26

Practically this is how I made/make Sabbath happen.

Choose a Day! I chose Saturday as my Sabbath day.  (I worked M-F, 8-5 and spent about 6 hours every Sunday at church, so that is how I chose Saturday.)  I would strongly recommend if you are leading and serving in your church in a substantial way that you NOT take Sunday as your Sabbath, because you are working whether you get a pay check for it or not.

Plan Ahead.  I thought about my week and month every Monday with the thought at the forefront of my mind, how can I get EVERYTHING done I need to do by Friday night so that Saturday is refreshing to me.  Planning ahead helped me be able to accomplish this goal.  (stay tuned…I mean subscribed!  In the coming weeks we will take a more detailed look at how to plan your day)   It also meant that I spent a lot of Friday nights working on things for the children’s ministry so that I could be ready for my rest on Saturday.

Communication.  I told people that Saturday was my Sabbath.  When I trained my Children’s church volunteers I told them Saturday was my Sabbath and to please not call, text or email unless it was an emergency.  I told girls I was mentoring,  that Saturday was my Sabbath and so if it wasn’t an emergency and to not expect a response to their text or call until the next day.  I didn’t check my email and often turned my phone off or turned it to silent.  I was amazed how encouraging and supportive people were of this.  If anyone did call or text they always apologized for doing so on my Sabbath.  I also was surprised to find that somehow miraculously there weren’t a lot of crises or emergencies on Saturdays.  I really believe that God protected this day for me, because I was doing my best to obey His commandment!

 

Self Awareness.  I determined what was restful for me (this can vary so much person to person and season to season).  In the church planting/working full time season I am referencing it was relaxing to me to clean my house, garden, cook or bake.    This was a way to let a different part of my brain work, because in that season I didn’t spend a lot of time at home.

People don’t have a beginning or end.  Like you, I tend to take on the emotions and stress of other people, which makes me wonderful at extending empathy but horrible at emotionally resting.  Completing a project on my Sabbath, really helped me deal with situations in life that didn’t have a nice and tidy beginning and ending.  Sometimes I didn’t go to parties or social gatherings on that day, because during the week I was consistently meeting and interacting with at least 10-20 new people per day.  This meant that by Saturday, I (although I am extroverted) literally felt out of words.  I didn’t want to try to make conversation with anyone unless they were in a very close and small circle of friends.  I would usually go to a coffee shop or park that day and have a date with Jesus.  I would spend a lot of time journaling, praying or reading.  Sometimes I would go to Barnes and Nobles and read kids books (because they always make me happy and fuel my creativity!)  Sometimes I would sit and watch tv shows that I had dvrd earlier in the week and I felt great about totally vegging out. 

In my current season of life as a newlywed wife living in a new city and working on a blog, I am not around very many people in the week.   What is often refreshing to me on my Sabbath is the opposite of what it was in the last season.  I usually want to try to get people together to play games or have dinner.  I definitely don’t want to clean the house or cook because I do those things everyday.  So I have made Friday my house cleaning day so I can start my Sabbath with a clean house.  This way I am not constantly looking around thinking I need to clean something.   I try to cook extra food ahead of time or have really simple, quick meals that we can make on the weekend (think hamburger helper, frozen pizza).  My husband is also amazing and usually we eat out once or twice on the weekend.   I don’t write for my blog on my Sabbath.   I try to use that day to rest,  connect with my husband and the Lord.  I do this by napping, listening to a sermon podcast, laying outside to tan while reading a good book,  playing bocce ball, wandering around Home Depot with my hubby making remodeling plans for our house.

Our Sabbath on series continues next week where we will talk about  Superwomen…and if YOU are trying to be her!

I would love your thoughts!  How do you make Sabbath happen?  What is restful and refreshing for you on your Sabbath day?

 

This series comes from a question I received from a reader.  It was such a great question, with so many aspects to it, that as I began to write my response I realized it would be a great series.  Today is the beginning of the series.  Here is the question which prompted the series.

Dear Charity,

I tend to over-stockpile my plate full of obligations, responsibilities, events, church things, and social community things. They are all great and good and fine, but its really hard to find a place of rest in my heart that is not burdened by something or someone else already. Not to mention, my husband, more often than not, tends to get the last bit of my energy that’s barely existing, and It’s easy to feel like I’ve failed everyone by the time I’ve laid my head to rest at night.

How can I be responsible and faithful and yet still balance getting a day of rest without feeling lazy while doing it?

Sincerely,

Anna

Dear Anna,

I can completely relate with your struggle.   I feel like I have been on a journey with this same question for the past ten years.  I too felt that exact same way for years every night as I fell asleep, that I had failed everyone.  God has been so faithful through wise believers, His Word and His Spirit to help me be able to fall asleep at night being able to truly rest in body and mind because I no longer feel like I am living in a pressure cooker about to explode.

Let’s start by exploring the concept of taking a Sabbath day.  I lived for years thinking that taking one whole day a week to rest was at best a luxury but impossible for me.  There was a particular season where I was working full time while directing a Children’s Ministry at a church, helping lead a small group while also investing and mentoring young women in the church.  At the beginning of that two year season I did not take the concept of Sabbath very seriously.   However, I found myself quickly becoming an absolute mess!  I woke up most days feeling heavy and exhausted with the weight of tasks I had to complete along with the emotional weight of pastorally covering several ministry areas.  I felt like I was continually on the verge of an emotional meltdown and couldn’t enjoy “normal” things anymore.

It didn’t matter where I was invited to go, or what there was going on, all I wanted to do was SLEEP and not think for several hours.  Somewhere in the midst of this the Lord really spoke to my heart about the absolute necessity of taking a Sabbath, an entire day of rest once a week.  I couldn’t fathom that this could actually happen, but I had a major light bulb moment when I realized that a Sabbath wasn’t just  a nice idea or suggestion it was actually a command!  It’s a little embarrassing to admit but somehow I had missed this commandment in Exodus 20:8-11.

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.  For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

It amazing how many believers miss this commandment, when we pay a great deal of attention to the other ones.   Although compared to most of the commandments God is extremely specific about this one!

If someone came up to Joe Average churchgoer and asked “Does God command us not to murder?”  Joe churchgoer would emphatically say “YES!”  And if we asked Joe if that was a commandment he tried to follow he probably would say again, “YES!”  However, if we asked Joe Average churchgoer does God command us to take a day off once a week where we rest, recharge and connect with Him?  Joe may stutter and stammer, thinking about His answer.  Even if Joe did answer “yes” if we followed up with the question, “is this a commandment you try to follow?” you may get a few more stutters and stammers.

I realized that not following ALL of God’s commandments was a sin!   Although I may never get thrown into jail for it, it didn’t take away from the weight of this commandment.  One thing I have found out about God is that He doesn’t give us commandments because He is trying to be a kill joy or controlling, it is the exact opposite.  He gives us commands because He loves us and wants us to experience fullness of life and incredible joy.

One thing was certain to me, the way I was living life was not giving me incredible joy.   Yet as crazy as it sounded, I was confident I was right in the place God wanted me and that He must have a better way for me.  So I decided to give the Sabbath a try.  And guess what it worked!  I began to feel much more refreshed every week.  Yes, there were times where I felt weary but it always helped me to know that no matter how hard the week was that I had a rest coming on Saturday!

So how did I make Sabbath happen?   I will tell you my practical steps in the next post. 

In the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts about Sabbath.   Is it something you practice weekly?  Why or why not?  What does your Sabbath look like?