running out of steam

It’s after midnight.  I just got home from a long night of worship team rehearsal, and I’m nowhere close to sleep.  It’s been a good day.  I had the privilege of praying with a friend today who was feeling the squeeze and pressure of a busy life.  With little margin in her days for much more than the urgent, she was feeling more than a little spread thin.  Bilbo Baggins used the phrase, “like a little bit of butter spread over too much bread.”

Have you felt like that?  Sure you have.  Do you feel like that now?  This is the weekend before finals week at Penn State, and so many undergrads are trying to cram a semester’s worth of studying into a 2-day push.  Grad students are scrambling to finish their last papers for the semester.  Parents are running their kids to dance and soccer and baseball and musical rehearsals.  Moms are trying to get the mountain of laundry done and make sure kids are fed.  Dads are looking at the harvest of dandelions in the yard, wondering where the grass went.  And then there’s work.  And relationships.  And exercise.  And…well, you get the picture.

I am so grateful for the people who have prayed for me when I’ve been frazzled, who have encouraged me, challenged me to make some room for rest, to find margin in my life.  We’re all busy, I suppose, but we don’t have to be busied.

The other night while we were praying and walking around the high school, Aaron reminded me of these words from the Apostle Paul in his first letter to the church at Thessalonica:

warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

They come in the middle of what seems like a laundry-list of other instructions to the church.  But it seemed to me that God was highlighting or reinforcing the idea that we need to encourage each other.  When I run out of emotional/physical/spiritual steam, I tend toward idleness, timidity, and weakness.  Fortunately, I’ve found some friends who will speak into my life, warning and encouraging and helping me get through the tough patch.

Do you have someone in your life who has permission to speak to your heart?  I hope you do.  We all need someone who will love us, care for us, confront us, and encourage us through the difficult days.  When I don’t have enough steam to make it, it’s good to have friends who will lend me some of their courage.