Skip to main content

Growing Weary in Well Doing: Acknowledging and Recovering From Burnout and Compassion Fatigue

 Realistically, you can grow tired of doing well. You can get sick of showing up when no one else appears to be willing to do so and you can feel stopped up from all of the complaints that you hold in. Your own silence can become to loud and you can feel lonely because of a lack of available avenues to authentically express your emotions about everything that appears to be going well for you in the eye sight of others. 

 

It’s easy to feel alone in a wilderness that is filled with flowers because you have not carved out the space that you need to enjoy them. I understand this place. I am in it with you, and I want to encourage you as I encourage myself.

 

“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up”. 

(Galatians 6:9 NLT).

 

It is important for me to acknowledge the feeling of desiring to isolate myself because of weariness, compassion fatigue, and burnout as a Christian because it’s so easy to feel obligated to ignore those emotions for the sake of the healing of others or to make sure that things get done.

 

My prayer is that you will extend the same grace to yourself that you extend to others and patch up the holes in your own cup so that you will have an overflow to pour into the cup of others when it’s time to do so.

 

It’s amazing to be a helper and to be available, but it’s also okay to allow others to “man the ship” while you take care of you. It’s okay to not be available and to repair your emotions from the day, week, month or year for that matter. It’s okay to pray for yourself and to be completely honest with the Lord about how you feel;He already knows anyway.

 

You must know that you are not alone and that you were not created to hold the world on your shoulders. Give those things, those people, those situations, worries, fears, thoughts, and desires to the Lord because He cares for you. Yes you! With all the mess that you may consider yourself to be, you are loved by the One who specializes in making all things new. 

 

 

“The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O Lord, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands”.

(Psalm 138:8 KJV)

 

Lord in this moment, I position myself under the waterfall of your love and I ask that you flow over me. God drench my head with the reassurance of your presence. Open my eyes and give me the grace to see as you see. Fill my nostrils to revive me of any tiredness and fill my mouth with your words. Cover my body, especially my heart, and wash away all the weights that I should have given to you long ago. Cover my feet Lord. Make them new and give me the strength to continue to stand in you. 

Lord, I receive the refreshing that you have for me today, and I leave yesterday at your feet. In Jesus name, Amen.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Healing Prophet

 I did not desire to write this, but I heard this title and agreed to be obedient. I once read a statement by Tasha Cobbs Leonard. She shared that she would go and sing, return home, and then feel depressed. I understand that feeling more than I would like to admit.   Depression is a weapon the enemy uses against those whom God has anointed in many areas. Depression has stagnation attached to it, and its assignment is to either kill you, isolate you, or both.   As a therapist, I help many people navigate through depression. I advise increased therapy sessions and medication when needed. I tell them all the ways to battle what has been battling them while being in the very same fight myself.   Depression is nobody’s friend. It is an enemy that wounds.   The Healing Prophet is an intentional title. It speaks to the heart of the one who carries and speaks the oracles of God, and  today, God has a word for you, and for me. “Get up and believe Me.”   I...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Barrel of Meal Shall Not Waste, Neither Shall the Cruse of Oil Fail: RESET

This morning as I was thinking about the fact that God gives us a new start each year, the word reset came to mind. I tried to figure out why that word came to mind, and I began to look up its meaning. I have listed the meaning in the noun, verb, and adjective forms. Reset- set again differently, cause to enter the state representing the number 0, a plant that is planted again, to restore, a plant that has been recently transplanted, adjust again after a failure, set anew. Once I found the meaning of the word reset, I began to look for synonyms associated with it. Words like order, switch, replace, shift, changed, corrected, reformed, prepare, recondition, make ready, modify, do over, reappraise , and rework came up. At this point, I got a little excited and began to wonder how the Lord reset His people in the bible and what that word means concerning me. One of the first thoughts that crossed my mind pertained to the prophet Isaiah and the time that hot coal was placed over hi...
Post a Comment
Read more

See Yourself the Way that God Sees You

In 2010 I was lost. I did not know who I was or where I was going. I was sinking. I was not living a life of purpose, but I was merely existing. That all changed when God injected Himself into the mix. I cannot say that I was looking for Him, but I can say that He definitely took the opportunity to change my heart through love. God loved me during a time when I placed a man’s attention over seeking and falling in love with the attention that He was showing me. God had already placed so much in me that He saw fit to not allow what He had already started to be wasted. I was in a backslidden state, but yet God loved me enough to still use others to show me what He thought of me. When God begins a work in you, He is faithful to bring it to completion. I desired God, but I was not running after Him. God meant me in a dark and lonely place. He continued to shower me with His love and He allowed the roots that He had already planted in my life to go from a dormmate state to a growin...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Secret Place

  “ Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves; and He was transfigured before them” ( Mark 9:2  NKJV). Jesus is taking you somewhere. Will you go, and can He trust you  with the assignment that He is sending you forth with?   Jesus could’ve chosen anyone to see Him in the  secret  place, but He choose Peter, James, John, and you. We saw Jesus being both human and God in a uniquely divine manner. We saw the type of encounter that caused Moses’ face to shine in  Exodus 34:29 , and we saw that God is calling us all up higher in Him. This is not about just getting a prayer through, this about getting into a deeper place with Father God and seeing Him in a way that many of you are praying to see Him in if you are reading this.  God wants for us to see Him. His divine glory is all around us, but the secret place is where the mysteries of the Kingdom of God are revealed.   “   N...
Post a Comment
Read more

Those Are Fighting Words!!

If you would, imagine that words can be cloth in armor, have a helmet on, and can carry a sword. Now, imagine that the words are powerful and can be gathered into an army. The words are strong on their own, but in a large number, they can either propel you into your next step or stop you in your tracks. With a battle field full of words with helmets on in mind, do you see the seriousness of this powerful tool that pushes us through life? Words are spoken to us and around us in our mother’s womb. The words help to shape us and to influence our thinking patterns. Now let me ask you a question, what are you allowing the words that have been spoken to you to do? Are you using the words to fight for you or are you allowing the words to war against you?” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1 KJV). In the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God (truth). Everything that God had to say about you from the...
Post a Comment
Read more

When Your Season Lacks Applause

Everyone wants to fulfill your purpose until they realize what it costs you to say yes to God. People judge struggles and trials that they have not had to survive in. They want what you have, but lack the understanding of the number of tears that you have shed in order to continue to bend when the applause of man says that you should stand- up and be honored when you do something great. Your greatness is attributed to God, but people who merely seek applause from others have no idea what that really means. “I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images” (Isaiah 42:8). Walking in your purpose is beautiful. Walking in your purpose with a holy anointing will cost you something. God is not looking for people who want to be seen. He is looking for people who want to submit. Seeking to be seen out of season will set you up for attacks that you may not be ready for. It will cause you to be identified by enemies when your jo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Breaking Out of The Mundane

  I r emember when I first got filled with the Holy Sp i rit . I felt as if I had no control over my self . I woke up one morning singing a song that I ha d never heard in the language of God and that thang had a lot of high notes, but it was beautiful. I found myself praying more and I was n' t so rese r ved with what God wanted to do with me. I recall praying for my mother and I was the one to fall out, but her medical report came back perfect. I also rem em ber spending the night with my aunt and getting no sleep at all because I was sent there to work. I danced around her hospital bed and I prayed for her, her leg was healed that night. I also recall just walk ing around the hospital praying down the halls. Now I wonder what happen to me . W hy am I so dis c ontent when I know the power of God and what he wants do through me? I've become reserved.     The question I ask my self now is how do I break out of the mundaneness that I feel in my life....
Post a Comment
Read more

The Private, Matters

“And Zacharias said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years.” And the angel answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings. But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their own time.” ( Luke 1:1-20 NKJV).   Zacharias’ prayer was not answered in the way that he thought that it would be. During his prayer time with the Lord, he asked God to allow him and his wife to have a baby, but years passed, and they got older. Zacharias’ went on with his life until his season changed, and it was time. Time for what you may ask; it was time for the blessing of the Lord over this man and wife to come to pass. The issue was that Zacharias had allowed this prayer to leave his heart, and unbelief took its place. Wha...
1 comment
Read more

Catching Fire

  Have you ever tried to catch fire? I mean really catch fire? That notion seems hard and it seems crazy, but in this upcoming year, you need to get your catcher’s mitt ready because it’s time to catch fire! The fire that you need to be preparing for right now is not a natural fire, but it is a more powerful fire. It is an unquenchable fire. It is the fire of the Holy Ghost. God wants to ignite you like never before. He is tired of his people bei ng lack luster. He did not create us to live a mundane life. We are more than a 9-5 job. Our purpose and destiny is greater than any degree than we can get from a college or university. Stop believing that your title defines who you are. God defines who you are. No longer can you put off your purpose and your destiny. Put the fire extinguishers of life down and get aligned with your father so that you can catch his fire and run with it. God does not want for you to sit on the ideas that he has given you. Stop pushing them ...
Post a Comment
Read more

REMIX!!!!!

Does nobody ever feel like the underdog? You’re picked last for everything, no one ever listens to you and you always feel like you get the short end of the stick? Carrie felt like that. Yes, the horror movie chick Carrie! Her life, at the beginning of the movie, is very relatable. She had all this power, but she was over looked.   She would always say, look I have all this power, but people teased her and she was still over looked. Stay with me now, I’m not with all the demonic stuff, but what if Carrie was saved? What if her gifts were spiritual? Instead of Carrie tearing everything up in the natural, what if she used the power of God (Look at her from a Godly stand point) to pray for people. Can you imagine the destruction that her prayers would have done to the devil's kingdom? Don’t be discouraged if you are the underdog. David was an underdog to his family, but he was a power house to God. Focus on who God says you are. If you spend most of your time alone, allow God to c...
Post a Comment
Read more