Burned Out

Burnout changed my life. Well, what Christ did for me through burnout changed my life. It defined my life… created this life I now live. What I went through was devastating, and I pray you never have to experience it, but I will be eternally grateful for the moment of impact… the equivalent of a fifteen car pileup… when all my self-reliance crashed head-on into the grace and mercy of Father God. I thought it would end me… and it did… but in the best possible way. 

An Island Unto Myself

I wanted to be Wonder Woman so badly. This is my one life, and I want it to mean something. The Bible says when we foolishly build our house on the sand, it will fall… and great will be the fall of it (Matthew 7:26-28). In my case, people-pleasing was my unstable foundation. 

I was built to carry a heavy load, but in my former life, I only knew how to work in my own strength. My spiritual foundation was weak and my boundaries were pretty much non-existent, so I said yes to everything. 

I was “Jen,” and I could do it all by myself. 

Sometimes I reflect on the fact that no one called me by my full name at that time in my life. No one ever shortened my name growing up, my mother wouldn’t let them. My name was Jennifer. Not Jen or Jenny. But during the seven-year season that encompassed my burnout and subsequent breakdown… and only during that season… everyone called me "Jen." No one called me by my rightful name. 

I find that symbolic. It was like the Lord set me aside for seven years so He could remove “Jen” from my existence. Jen was abandoned. Jen was rejected. Jen was unloved and approval-addicted. That was the unstable foundation of my life. It colored everything. It was the filter through which I saw everything. Unloved and unloveable. 

But God knew that wasn’t my true identity. It’s not yours, either.

At that time of my life, I didn’t know how to ask for help. I was afraid to show weakness, and terrified of vulnerability. It put up walls between me and everyone around me. It hindered my prayers. If I couldn’t acknowledge that I had a problem, then how could I bring it before God? 

So I lived my life in the shallow end of the pool, always wanting something deeper, but never knowing how to get there.

Taking on Too Much

Only eight short years ago, a feeling of dread settled over my life and I could no longer work. It happened ten months before a 6th-annual city-wide charity event that I was supposed to oversee. This was when the crucial groundwork started. Planning and scheduling, finding partners and donors, hundreds of phone calls… and I felt panic and dread with every step. 

Every day felt mentally and physically heavy, like wading through deep mud. Everything depended on me, and I didn’t have it. I was beyond stressed. 

I had weekend responsibilities at church, I had three children at home, and I helped to oversee a long string of weekend ministry events throughout the summer and into the fall. I attended meetings during the week, I brought work home with me, I got little rest… and even when I did lay down, I often slept poorly and had bad dreams. 

I was burning the candle at both ends, and a little in the middle.

Breaking Down the Body

My workaholism was like Israel’s 40 years in the desert, going around and around the same mountain, making the same mistakes over and over again. I wanted peace and rest, but I kept missing the exit ramp. I thought I had to work harder, be better. I thought I wasn’t succeeding because I was weak. 

The truth of the matter is that I am weak in my own strength. I have no power to do the works of God without His help. But was it the work of God I was doing? Or was it the work of driven, self-ambitious Jen? I asked for God’s help, I asked Him to lead me… but then I did what I wanted. I had a hard time submitting. My cup was already full of my own desires for my life.

The unfortunate truth was, I was living a double life… and it gave me an unstable foundation (James 1:5-8). 

I once dreamed that I was busy at work stacking bricks into towering, teetering piles. There were piles of bricks as far as the eye could see. They waved in the wind, they shook with every circumstance… and in the end of the dream, they all crashed down on top of me and I died. 

Bricks are human-made stones. They denote human effort and works of the flesh. I was chasing after the wind, and all my work would burn up in the end because I wasn’t working for God (1 Corinthians 3:12-15). I was working for the idol of man’s approval.

My body was breaking down. In the years leading up to my burnout, I began to get sick pretty often. Allergies increased, cold and flu season took me out, I lost my voice every winter… and then things got weird. 

I started having problems with vertigo, severe cases of the flu, and one very odd systemic strep infection that forced me to lie still for over a week. The pain was unbearable. 

I was never sick this much before that season, and I’ve never been that sick since. Maybe God was trying to get my attention… or maybe I was killing my immune system by neglecting my health and burying myself under a mountain of work. I believe it was both. 

In the end, when everything went dark and I began to crack under the weight of approval addiction, I was diagnosed with a severe hormonal disorder caused by overwhelming stress. I had every one of the wide-ranging symptoms. I was unhealthy in every way: physically, mentally, and spiritually.

I have none of the symptoms now, praise God.

The Blessing of Burnout

I stepped down from leadership of the charity event and turned it over to others who were able to pull it together. I still worked hard to do my part, pushing as much as I could until it was over. When it was done and all the equipment and supplies were stored away, I crashed and burned. 

It might sound nicer on paper than it was, but it was a real breakdown. I was no longer able to move forward. I stepped down from all my responsibilities… and lost my purpose and all my people as a result. My life was run through the rumor-mill. Lies were told about me behind my back. I thought I would never recover. I prayed for God to take my life. 

But in the end, it was more a blessing than a curse. 

My husband and I decided the best direction was for me to get a job, so we bought an old truck and I went to work for Postmates and Door Dash. While my kids were in school, I made pickups and deliveries all over the city. I didn’t realize that job would refresh my soul as much as it did.

After years of putting on layers of masks to gain approval, I no longer cared about any of it. I lost the will to dress nicely, put on makeup, or straighten my hair. I lost the ability to paste on a fake smile and power through. But out there on the road, no one cared. Traveling through unknown corners of the city, experiencing the sights and smells of new shops and restaurants, I met people from all walks of life who treated me with kindness, or at least indifference, and I was just me… jeans, tshirt, curly hair and no makeup…

No stress. No pressure. No expectations. No need to “fake it til we make it.” Nobody glaring over my shoulder or pushing me to do more. There was no more to do! It was just me, the world… and Jesus.

That’s when I began to know His love for me in a different way… and that’s what still holds my attention firmly on Him to this day. When everything else was stripped away, He was the only thing still standing… and that was His purpose for me all along. “Look at Me, Jennifer. Keep your eyes on Me.”  It changed my life.

The Battlefield of the Mind

It was John 15 that hit me first… apart from Him, I can do nothing. It makes me cry as I remember it now…

4 Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in Me.

5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in Me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing. 6 Anyone who does not remain in Me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. 7 But if you remain in Me and My words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! 8 When you produce much fruit, you are My true disciples. This brings great glory to My Father.

9 “I have loved you even as the Father has loved Me. Remain in My love. 10 When you obey My commandments, you remain in My love, just as I obey My Father’s commandments and remain in His love. 11 I have told you these things so that you will be filled with My joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! 12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.

John 15:4-12

For a person like me who in the center of my being believed the Father would eventually give up on me, choose someone else, and leave me in the dust… this was the first lifeline in a long string of lifelines that started to shine a light on HOPE. It was these verses that began to solidify the truth of God’s love for me as a human person, just as I am. I had seen it a million times on paper in my former life, but it didn’t reach my heart until it was cracked open by burnout.

Abiding in the Vine produces fruit. Abiding in the Vine produces energy. It’s not about focusing on the work, it’s about focusing on Christ and His Word… and letting everything else in life flow from there.

Martin Luther said, “When I have a lot to do in a day, I spend more time in prayer. For more work can be done by prayer than by work itself.” Prayer changes everything. Prayer IS the work… and checking boxes off our to-do list is the outcome of that work. In this way, we are working in His strength and not our own, for apart from Him, we can do nothing.

These were the keys I was missing in my former life. The Lord handed them to me through the blessing of burnout.

---

Galatians 5 hit me next… living by the law [human effort] severs us from Christ. 

1 So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.

2 Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. 4 For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.

5 But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us. 6 For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.

Galatians 5:1-6

All my works failed, but His never will. I tried to gain acceptance, find love, and earn God’s approval by human effort [i.e., circumcision]. It cut me off from Christ and I fell away from God’s grace in my everyday life. No wonder I felt horrible. 

This message of Grace, and a book by Andrew Wommack called, “Grace: The Power of the Gospel,” started a journey of learning the full message of Grace through the book of Romans. 

1 Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. 2 Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. 

When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son.

Romans 5:1-10

It’s not about me, it’s about Him. It’s not about what I can do, it’s about what He has already done. That’s the message of Grace.

Rest in Him by Faith

I’m not immune to burnout now that I have experienced it so completely. Just earlier this year I began to feel widespread heaviness about all of the roles and responsibilities in my life. I couldn’t pinpoint one thing. I wanted to step down from all of it.

Instead of withdrawing into myself and trying to figure it out in the shallow end of the pool… I spoke to my leaders and stepped down from one role. They were kind and supportive, but encouraged me to be slow and prayerful about making changes. I sought wise advice and accountability through six weeks of informal counseling sessions. I prayed and fasted and asked the Lord for help.

There was some inner work I needed to do. Some heart issues I needed to work out. But instead of working it out alone and striving to make myself better… I sat down with Jesus and put everything on the table before Him with as much vulnerability as I could find. And once the work was done, my desire and energy to serve returned. Through prayer, I realized my error in stepping down from that one role, so I stepped back into it again and the work continues… but without heaviness.

That’s how I like it.

What’s Your Story?

I was utterly helpless to see the truth about myself in my former life. I was stuck. I was sitting in a cage Christ had already opened for me, wearing shackles He had already broken. Maybe that’s where you are today as we read this together… 

I worked so hard to get His attention and gain His approval when I had them all along and didn’t know it. Do you know that He sees you right where you are in this moment and loves you completely?

All of this was provided for us through Christ when He died on the Cross. That’s what He meant when He said, “It is finished.” All the work to get us to Him has already been completed. After we have accepted His sacrifice and made Him Lord of our lives… which is really what I did just seven short years ago… all we have to do is rest in Him by faith. 

Will you follow Him today? 

But to as many as did receive and welcome Him, He gave the right [the authority, the privilege] to become children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name.

John 1:12