Posts
Mar012013
Have you ever felt your life had no margins? Too many events, too many people, sometimes even too much ministry? Today I’ve invited my friend Colleen Chao to share a piece of her journey and how God’s grace has helped her narrow her life for a bigger cause.
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Once upon a time, I had a social circle the size of a small country. In fact, as a single girl, I had multiple people tease me about how I’d need to rent the local 5,000-seat amphitheater for my future wedding.
I wasn’t popular; I was insane.
I loved ministry and serving in the local church. In college I led girls’ Bible studies and mentored younger women. During my twenties, I ministered here in the U.S. and overseas. I found rich fulfillment investing my single years in serving others. But by my early thirties, I had become a ministry machine and had forgotten my center.
With so many girls reaching out to me for friendship and for help, I didn’t know what to do. I felt endlessly guilty when I couldn’t keep up with it all. Exhausted physically, I was frequently sick, having panic attacks, and suffering from insomnia. I was running on fumes spiritually.
Without knowing it, I had burned out.
Jesus didn’t burn out.
He knew when to pour out His life for the good of others and when to withdraw to desolate places to be with his Father (Luke 5:15-16). Oh, how I want to learn from His example!
Over the past four years, I’ve been trying to figure out the answer to this question:
How can I live a slower, quieter life while still passionately serving people for Jesus?
“And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.” Isaiah 32:
I haven’t figured this thing out. But I’ve wrestled in my heart; in prayer and the Word. I’ve talked to others and learned from their experiences. I long to narrow my life so I’m focused on one great goal: God Himself.
Out of His great love for me, the Lord used three significant life changes to rescue me from my out-of-control lifestyle: my husband Eddie, our beautiful son, and a debilitating disease that left me largely homebound for the better part of two years. These events revealed my unhealthy addiction to ministry and people-pleasing. For the first time in my life, I was forced to disappoint people by saying “no.” Failing to live up to their expectations, I fell off the pedestal I never should have been on. And it hurt.
The Lord took my bleeding schedule and Savior – complex and misappropriated resources—and gave me the blessing of marriage and motherhood, and the brokenness of years of pain and illness, to teach me how to narrow my life in order to make more room for Him. To listen to Him, rest my heart in
This isn’t about “healthy boundaries” or self-preservation. It’s not even about convenience.
This is about my life’s priorities. I want certain things:
1. I want to know and love God with every fiber of my being.
2. I want to love people well. Deeply. Faithfully.
3. I want to be a woman who is free from chronic anxiety, a woman “with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (1 Peter 3:4).
4. I want to be a faithful wife and mom.
But what am I willing to give up in order to get what I want? Contrary to popular opinion, we can’t have it all. I must make some hard choices along the way.
A New Way to Ponder
“The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer…” Proverbs 15:28
These days when I listen to a voicemail from a girl who’s in an emotional crisis, my old impulses to save-her-at-any-cost are now governed by a new thought process. “Colleen, I really need you today. I don’t know how much longer I can take this…” leads me to question myself and listen for a response from the Holy Spirit.
Lord, is this a priority for me today?
Will this keep me from caring for my son and husband?
Am I in a good place emotionally to walk with her through this crisis?
Sometimes I feel a freedom and joy to reach out immediately and minister God’s grace to a hurting one. Other times, I feel a caution in my spirit. Or, it may take me a few days or even weeks to respond. And when it does, usually the crisis is long gone and God showed up without my help.
Narrowing my life is an endless learning curve. But more than ever before, I want my identity and worth to be found in Christ, not in my calendar, not in my ministries, not in what other people think of me.
I want a quiet heart that’s full of Jesus. And as that overflows into the lives of others, I get the joy… but God gets the glory.
“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” Isaiah 30:15
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Colleen makes her home in Redlands, California, with her husband Eddie and their son Jeremy. She blogs about her journey from singleness to marriage to motherhood at Becoming Chao.
