19. Me and St Stephen

ONE DAY AT A TIME
Meditations for Carers
 
19 Me and St Stephen

John 8.10–11

It was one of those days. Exhaustion had set in early but there was still too much to do and only me to do it. Get help? Well, yes, of course that would be nice. In fact, someone had offered . . . But would they really be able to cope? Splash: straight into the ‘easier-to-do-it-myself-even-though-I’m-totally-worn-out’ trap.

We all do it. We all feel we should be able to manage, keep on keeping on regardless. And after we’ve pushed ourselves too far, we crumple into the inadequacy zone. After all, everyone else at carers’ group seems to manage. But pushing ourselves too hard leads to exhaustion, which leads to feeling inadequate, which leads to despair and, if we’re not careful, to a major attack of feeling martyred,
with our apparently neglectful family and friends holding the coats.

Stop. Nobody’s throwing stones – except you, yourself. You’ve been doing your best and probably more than that, and now you’re just worn out. Nobody’s going to hand out gold stars for dying on the job. In fact, if you’re in danger of that, it’s definitely time to stop trying to do it all yourself. Even God took a day off after creating the world...


Taken from One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers by Dorothy M.Stewart