Spiritual Fatigue and the Prodigal’s Brother

 “Bone-tired,” she said. “I sense a deep, deep tiredness.” The spiritual director told me during a four-day retreat.

Although I had been sick this year more than ever, it wasn’t just physical tiredness. Although my mental health was nose-diving, it wasn’t just emotional strain. It was deeper. That place beyond, a spiritual fatigue I didn’t want to admit. But I was in grave need of that soul-deep rest. My bone-tired body needed restoration of the Gospel. What IS the good news? Had I forgotten? I didn’t think so. But to have good news, we first need to acknowledge the bad news. What was my bad news I had been trying to avoid? That I can’t save them. I can’t prevent them from pain, suffering, or making choices that will lead to slavery. That I can be good, but never “good enough.” That I can’t fill that hole or fix that space in people’s lives or even my own heart. That no matter how hard I work, there will still always be work to do. And I cannot do it on my own.

I don’t doubt the Lord’s love, power, sovereignty; I trust Him completely. I’ve seen Him do miracles and I know He’ll do them again. I watch as He welcomes back the prodigals and celebrates them and I rejoice, too! After all, they are also my children, too. I cry and weep for joy, I thank God. But at the end of the day, when the lights are out and darkness settles in, and the house is quiet except for the hum of solar batteries or my noisy fridge, and I go into my bedroom and find a scorpion on the floor, or a cockroach, or I leave my bathroom light on because even though I’m a grown woman, sometimes I’m still scared…My tears turn inward, from sorrow and a deep yearning, not from joy. From a deep cry of wanting the fattened calf slaughtered for me, too. I start to tailspin. God, when will you do something for me personally? Who will you send to take care of me? When I am weary, scared, weak, sick? Who will carry this burden with me? Why do you send me out among the wolves, to do battle for you while I’m just as important as the prodigals, too?

(And He says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” -2 Cor 12:9)

My spiritual fatigue had twisted the Gospel. I saw God not as a loving Father or best friend, but as an army commander, giving me instructions that I obey because I love Him. (You see that shift? The hidden pride and misinterpreted Gospel? I love God, not that He loves me.)  Someone asked me, “Are you sure that’s God you’re hearing/obeying? Are you sure it’s God giving you those commands?” Or is it my own demands masked as God, or worst yet Satan, the wolf in lamb’s clothing, making God look like a sheep in wolf’s clothing?  

And then the Prodigal Son story hit me all at once. I am still the brother, asking the Lord, “In all my faithfulness to you…all I’ve done for you…the good, the obedience, my loyalty and my love…. And you kill the fattened calf for the one who betrayed you? I’m fine celebrating those people, but what about me?” And just as the father had to remind the son, God reminded me, “I don’t have to kill the fattened calf for you, because all that I have – is yours. Kate, all that I have, is yours. You have access to ANYTHING and everything you will ever need. Because you’ve been faithful and loyal, I have put in you charge of my household and land, not just to work it but to ENJOY it! It is YOURS.”

This ministry is not just to work but to enjoy. In my fear of not being cared for, I got swept away by anxiety. But when has God ever failed me yet? Has there ever been a time I was sick and not cared for? Sad and not comforted by a hug or even a kind comment from a stranger? Struggling and not prayed for? Frustrated and not encouraged, by random donations or words of encouragement? I mean, honestly, there has never been a time in my entire life where I was left unaided. [A recent story: A woman I don’t know donated on our website and left a note saying she was praying for us and my name came specifically. As she prayed for me, she felt God tell her He wants to give me a book. She thought maybe there was a book I really wanted but wasn’t able to buy, so she then donated money but sent, “God wants to give you a book!” What she didn’t know is that I’d been so discouraged in finishing my second book, that I was giving up. I was worried about what people are gonna think, it’s not perfect yet, maybe it’s just for me and I don’t need to publish it, etc. And then here God is, across an ocean, encouraging me through a complete stranger to finish my book, that it’s HIS desire to give it to me.]

No, we are not given escapes from pain and suffering – no matter how “good” you are, no one can earn their way out of pain. But we are given graces for EVERY SINGLE MOMENT we face, that we may not only endure it, but that we may be transformed through it or aid others in their own transformation journeys, too.

Sometimes, it feels easier being the prodigal, wandering off but coming back home, knowing the Father will never reject you – rather than the one that stayed. Maybe the Gospel seems easier to comprehend that way. Maybe the prodigal’s brother didn’t understand the gospel like his lost-and-found brother. Sometimes it’s easier to forget the Father’s love when you’re the one who stayed. Because sometimes staying is boring or monotonous. And then we forget…the entire Gospel. We forget not just who we are or what we already have, but we forget Whose we are, and we forget the immeasurable gifts of our inheritance as sons and daughters of the King of Kings. We don’t have to lose it all to find it again, like the Prodigal Son. We can rejoice that we never have to trade it in. Because Jesus already traded His own life for our inheritance. The prodigal son learned the hard way, but so did the prodigal’s brother.

 

Let it Fall: A Beautiful Death

How can a season of "dying" be so beautiful?

I was walking while Benji was biking. The sidewalk paved perfectly under a canopy of trees, colors so bright and beautiful, not even the best camera could truly capture its perfection. I had a sudden urge to pick up a leaf beneath my feet. I second guessed the urge, thinking it childish. I’m a grown adult, I don’t need to be bending over and picking up leaves like a little kid, I thought. But the urge didn’t go away at my chiding. I sighed and hoped no one watched me crouch down to search through a pile of leaves for one I wanted. Not one was perfect, but each was absolutely unique. I picked two, smiled, twirled the stem in my fingers and walked on. Benji, who had stopped a couple times on his bike for me to catch up stopped again. He put out the kickstand and parked his bike on the corner, not to wait for me, but to pick up his own leaves. A huge smile swept across my heart. I guess someone did see me after all. When I approached him, I expected him to show me the leaves he wanted to keep. Instead, he extended his little arm to me as if presenting me a rose, and said, “Here, I got this one for you.”

He turned away without a second thought and rode on ahead of me not knowing the impact of this gesture to me.

What are you telling me, Lord? I whispered with tears glistening, knowing very well where He was taking me with this. I had sensed it was the Holy Spirit urging me to pick up the leaf to begin with.

I had been feeling defeated. So deeply defeated this year. Like anything I tried to do whether to help my girls or help myself didn’t work. Because creative writing is my best expression of human experience and emotion, I wrote a poem in my journal earlier this year, and here's an excerpt from it:

The amount of “life pearls” I’ve offered this year that have been traded in for lies instead - is gutting actually. I mean like, life-saving, keeping-you-out-of-destruction and hope-securing advice, but it fell on deaf ears. I felt frustrated with God, too, like, why give me all this wisdom and love to not be able to use it and instead watch them hurt, fall, break, devastate. I asked God on the plane ride home, “Can I just not care so much anymore? It hurts to care this much.” And He said, “What if you could still care as much as you do but not worry instead?” 

Thanks, God, but easier said than done.

So He showed me instead. With a leaf. An image I used earlier in the year when writing in my journal. 

God spoke to me now through Benji, redeeming this image of a leaf. With a dying leaf that was nothing but extraordinary. Colors so vibrant a grown woman had to bend over and admire a pile before choosing one, unique in its imperfection. Just like God’s children. All of His children. Every single one of us. Dying can be beautiful. Death of control-seeking, self-protecting, letting go. Caring just as much, but worrying less by letting the leaf fall, because it’s beautiful that way. God is in control of not just the leaf but the seasons, and the tree, and me. So I can release myself from the pressure of being perfect, from saying the “right” words… If only she would have listened! If only I would have said it this way instead…

And then God steps in to remind me: “You see, Kate? He picked up the leaves because he watched you do it. Not because you told him to. You are so frustrated about the words of life, the warnings, the advice and protection you offer your daughters and they reject or ignore it. But keep living. Keep picking up the leaves like a little kid. You are MY daughter. And it is My pleasure that they model after you. They will hear you speak and the enemy will twist your words; they will hear you speak and throw it back at you; they will hear you speak and ignore it. But they will see you forgive and they will, too; they will see you admit when you’re weak, and they will ask for help, too; they will see you pick up a dying leaf and call it beautiful, and they will see beauty from ashes, too. They watch you, my child, and they see Me. That’s ALL I have ever asked you to do.”

A leaf. Free. Free of worry and control. Free to fall, free to die to self to provide something beautiful. Oh yes, death can be beautiful when it gives true life.

“Truly, truly I say to you unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” -John 12:24

“But I have come that you may have life, and have it in the full!” – John 10:10