After a decade of working 60-70 hours per week, I hit a wall called burnout. It was a high, thick wall that knocked me out figuratively. I needed sleep and peace. A different pace in life.
Once I was out of the all-encompassing job, sleep came, but peace still alluded me.
I found another job with more normal hours and started sleeping my weekends away, but the only healing at this point was physical. My soul still ached. I was still weary.
It was really frustrating because I had always been on fire; passionate for my job and calling. Wondering if I would ever feel that passion or sense of purpose again was exacerbating my soul sickness.
Having found Christ (or vice versa) I no longer found purpose in business alone. Profits as the only measurement of success lacked significance and could not ignite my heart anymore. I needed a deeper calling. A mission. God’s plan for my life.
Don’t we all?
A mom who lovingly pours her heart into the family meals that bring her husband and kids together each day.
A pastor who spends countless hours studying and shepherding his flock so that each may know his Savior.
A doctor who brings physical healing.
An inventor who shows the world how to fly.
An architect who brings vision and art into a physical structure.
A child who buttons their first shirt or eats their spaghetti all by themselves and cheers “yay me” through a sauce covered smile.
Small or big, following God to a purpose, for the moment or even a career, brings life. It strengthens our faith and heals our soul.
I found purpose on the other side of burnout. When I stopped long enough to seek God and was still enough to listen, in His faithfulness, God called.
At first it was in giving me a heart for helping others.
Then He guided me to use a dormant passion of writing to encourage.
And even in the hard work of a new education, a downsized standard of living, and a different pace of life, I learned that pursuing our purpose even through trials, was part of the healing.
You don’t need a new career to find purpose.
Significance isn’t necessarily in a grand mission.
It can be in the pursuit of God’s will. It can be through loving, not necessarily doing. It is always a matter of the heart.
And it is available to us all.
