It’s been months since my sabbatical ended, and I am still processing. Because of holidays, inclement weather and other hiccups, I didn’t give my official sabbatical report to our church for quite a while. The extra time to process was helpful. Earlier, I didn’t have the words I needed to give a clear description of all that had and continues to take place within me as a direct result of my time away.
Honestly, in thinking back to the days, weeks and months leading up to my sabbatical — and even still — I need to borrow the words of author Mark Yaconelli in The Gift of Hard Things to help paint a picture of how I was feeling: “I can’t stop thinking about the beginning, the romance, the way God felt in my heart, in my body, when I first began ministry. …”
Eli Withers
In his chapter titled “The Dark Night,” Yaconelli continues lamenting the then-current state of his soul. “My theologies and practices were too small and limited,” he writes. His theologies and practices were too small and limited — as were mine, come to think of it — so was my God.
Yaconelli says: “I continually sought a container for God. My spiritual life was an unending attempt to grasp the mystery of God through words, practices, songs, thoughts, feelings, memories and images. Over time, I had substituted these symbols of God for the reality.”
“I am not sure I could completely recognize the God I had supposedly devoted my life to, even if that God were standing right in front of me.”
Yes. I could relate. Like Mary Magdalene on Easter morning, I am not sure I could completely recognize the God I had supposedly devoted my life to, even if that God were standing right in front of me. I barely felt like I recognized myself.
I was overwhelmed, whittled down and feeling defeated on a regular basis. In Diary of a Pastor’s Soul, M. Craig Barnes reminisces about those old flannel-board characters that might even still be lying around in the dark corners of your Sunday School classrooms. He likens them to ministers who have been at it a while, noting these old, worn and tattered flannel-board characters remind us: “God is not easy on the people used in the holy drama. By the end of their lives, even the best of them were taped together and discolored.”
I felt that. Deeply.
I’ve come to realize recently, due to a lifelong struggle with low self-confidence and being unsure of myself as well as issues with my weight for as long as I can remember, I have lived my life at least partially in a perpetual state of apology for the space I take up in this world.
Allow me to borrow Yaconelli’s words again: “Created in the image of God like each one of us, somewhere along the way, I became ignorant of my own potential” — and God-given beauty, I would add. “I had become attached to certain fixed ideas about myself, about the nature of the divine mystery and how we related to one another. I had constructed a faith life — and in some ways an entire way of life — that entombed God and myself.”
Me too. And my ministry was suffering greatly because of it.
“You used to be much more muchier. You’ve lost your muchness.”
As the Mad Hatter once said to Alice when she visited Wonderland: “You used to be much more muchier. You’ve lost your muchness.” That’s it exactly. I had lost some of what God had given me to make me who I am. And even more, I was missing that. I felt like I had lost my “muchness.”
Something had to give. And thanks to the grace of God and a generous congregation and church staff, something did give, and I set out on a journey to get my muchness back.
No matter how far gone we may feel, we are never too far gone for God to get to us. Scripture reminds us time and time again that God is the eternal pursuer.
I love the image of Elijah sitting under the broom tree, depressed, and all he needed was a good nap and a tasty treat to help get him in a better place. This seemed like a good model for my sabbatical. Actually, this seemed like a good model for everyday life!
Without having any direct conversation with Yaconelli as far as I know, Barnes reminded me, “Jesus is always calling us to come out of our tombs.” All of us, every single one of us, fall into patterns of familiarity that dull life and drain us from the ability to recognize the wonder of the world that is right in front of us. And God is constantly calling us out of that. Even now, we find ourselves in the light of resurrection after all.
One of the verses I claimed heading into sabbatical became the focus of my report to the church. Psalm 51:10 and 12 especially became my repeated prayer and the object of a congregational piece of art: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. … Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing (or generous) spirit.”
“Create. Renew. Restore. Sustain. Four words that became a mantra of sorts.”
Create. Renew. Restore. Sustain. Four words that became a mantra of sorts on the sabbatical journey and four words I need to be breathing in and praying daily.
“God, create in me” … perform the divine act of creation deep within my heart. “God, renew my spirit” … deep within me — in the deepest part of who I am — repair what is broken and build something brand new. “God, restore to me” … take me back to the joy I knew in you at the very beginning. “God, sustain me” … allow me to lean upon you, to take hold of you and to rest deeply in you so that I might be fully restored.
When I started working toward my sabbatical, I saw my life as a process of seeking out puzzle pieces I picked up along the way, trying to find the right places to make them fit so that the picture of my life could be more complete.
But through this process of preparing for, experiencing and processing my sabbatical, I’ve come to see it more as a mosaic or collage. The pieces we pick up along the way, or even the pieces of ourselves that have had the edges roughed up a bit or maybe even taped back together, are still important pieces. They are not pieces to be thrown away.
You see, with a mosaic or a collage, the pieces don’t have to all match up and fit only in one small place with every other smooth and proper piece. The parts that make up a mosaic or collage can be random, mismatched or even upcycled and turned into something we never saw coming. Even the shards and broken bits can be used to create an amazing work of art!
As Barnes points out regarding those tattered flannel-board ministers God calls: “This is what it means to be called to be a pastor. The calling doesn’t come our way because we deserve it. We don’t. It comes only because God chooses to use flawed creatures to take a role in the high drama of proclaiming grace to all who are taped together and stained by life. … Perhaps this is a prime example as to why we need to do so much better at caring for our pastors. We really need it. Please, please give your pastors a sabbatical. We will all be better for it.”
Earlier this year, I stood alongside our senior pastor as he led our congregation in Communion. And in those moments, as I was looking around at the faces of our people, I was overwhelmed with the sincere, while still imperfect, goodness of our congregation. Their gift of sabbatical helped me realize they see me — sometimes more clearly than I see myself.
And as I watched them receive the gifts of the body and blood of Jesus, I realized my sabbatical also helped me better see them. Right after Communion, I sat down and wrote these words:
From Where I Stand
As I stand by silently watching and listening
Let me tell you what I see …
As we are invited to this shared and sacred meal
I see your yearning to know him better,
I see your desire to share him with others
and in a single moment I am overwhelmed by your faces.
I can do nothing but give thanks from the depth of my heart.
From where I stand, I see you get up from where you are and come forward,
step by step toward the great remembrance
of a gift even still we cannot fully comprehend.
I see you take a step of faith into a place of vulnerability.
I see you look around to be sure you’re going in the right direction
careful not to venture off course as you
help others to find their place.
I see you nod and wink gently as you pass others in line.
I see you as the bread inadvertently drops to the ground
and you reach for another bite.
I hear the one that offers the simple, yet full words … “bless you”
and know that those words are deeply intentional and meant to be experienced.
I see you as you look around at all the others and smile as we eat this meal together.
I see you and I am grateful for my own vantage point
and for the view I have of you.
I see you and I see the love emanating from who you are …
each of you.
From where I stand, I give thanks, because by the grace of God, in this very moment,
I see you.
Eli Withers serves as associate pastor of Harrisonburg Baptist Church in the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia. She enjoys watching movies, reading books, playing with art and being outside – especially wherever there are wildflowers.
Related articles:
No one ever talks about how hard it is to come back from sabbatical
A sabbatical gift of grace and rest and exploration
7 things I (re)discovered on sabbatical
No church wants the Moby Dick of ministers