It’s been a hard last week or so—slowly but surely, I have been feeling the all-too-familiar crushing weight of my job combining with the all-too-familiar crushing squeeze of my other daily and weekly responsibilities.
I knew, from years of experience, that the only thing keeping me from a major meltdown was the fact that I was still managing to go on 5-mile runs a few times a week. And while everyone else in my close circle of acquaintances was looking forward to a relaxing weekend full of inspired messages from our church leaders, I was trying to keep my cortisol levels down enough to focus on grading the massive amount of over 200 assignments and tests I had been forced to bring home so I could have all my grades current for parent/teacher conferences this week.
I usually love General Conference weekend—it’s one of the two Sundays all year that you get to stay in your pajamas and watch “church” over t.v., but this time, all I could think about was how I was thisclose to getting sick and how my stomach had felt tied in perpetual knots for about 8 days straight.
Then, a little miracle happened.
During the Saturday afternoon session of Conference (a 2-hour block filled with inspired talks given by various church leaders), I lay down in a patch of sunlight on my in-laws’ living room floor and promptly fell asleep. I was exhausted and frustrated and completely spent.
Then, without any warning, my eyes flew open about an hour later—I sleepily looked at the screen, and all of a sudden, my brain was wide awake:
The words coming out of the speaker’s mouth literally felt like my Heavenly Father Himself was speaking directly to me.
The speaker (one of my favorites) was talking about how if we don’t take time to take care of ourselves (and our health) now, we will surely take time to be ill later. He continued by saying, “Fatigue is the common enemy of us all-–so slow down, rest up, replenish, and refill.”
It was as if I had been awoken purely so that I could hear the memo straight from heaven about what I sorely needed—I had been praying for relief from the stresses of my life, yet I had been keeping up a frantic pace that could only lead to exhaustion and breakdown.
With that talk in mind, I made a decision:
I need to put my mental wellbeing first, or I won’t be able to be an effective teacher or an understanding and loving wife or an inspired leader in the young women’s program.
Therefore, I have decided to take a break from blogging until I have found sufficient time to replenish myself.
I don’t know how long it will be (I’m hoping no longer than a week), but in advance, I appreciate you all for understanding—-I love blogging, but I feel this is something I must do. I thank you for your continuous support in reading and commenting on my blog, and I hope you’ll stick around long enough to let me get my head back on straight.
Hopefully I’ll be back soon! In the meantime, you should definitely check out the message that inspired me so profoundly here.