Faces of Fatigue

Watch your­self go through the phases of get­ting tired. Fatigue is a lan­guage of the body, mind, and soul that are worth observ­ing. The com­bi­na­tions are many and the spir­i­tual lessons gleaned are worth remem­ber­ing. Jesus was so tired once that he slept so deeply even a near-hurricane could not wake him. He also walked across a stormy lake while his fol­low­ers exhausted them­selves try­ing to row across in the same storm (the point of that lit­tle scene was that it is bet­ter to walk over life’s storms with Jesus than merely try to drag your­self through them).

My weary stages go from ide­al­ism (this is a great project), to a dis­ci­plined pace, to gru­el­ing endurance, to anger and frus­tra­tion with myself and oth­ers, to humor, to act­ing like a small child with the gig­gles, to falling asleep (some­times on the office couch). The process can take years, months, or hours — depend­ing on the project. There are dif­fer­ent forms of fatigue. (I found out through sev­eral unfin­ished aca­d­e­mic degrees that I had a thirty month limit to aca­d­e­mic pur­suits on any given sub­ject. The degrees I did fin­ish were accom­plished on a year-round basis.)

As a coun­selor, I see the faces of fatigue in a thou­sand expres­sions. Peo­ple become worn out with their mate, their chil­dren, their job, and with them­selves. Life itself becomes a strug­gle. All joy dis­ap­pears. Every­thing becomes seri­ous. They get stuck before they get to the break­ing point of totally trust­ing God, being bet­ter to them­selves, and get­ting the giggles.

Fac­ing fatigue means learn­ing how to lower your con­trol demands, let­ting go, trust­ing the whole big scene a lit­tle bet­ter, and ulti­mately let­ting your ego col­lapse so that your spirit can shine through. There is noth­ing more exhaust­ing than the expec­ta­tions of the human ego (in per­sonal or insti­tu­tional form).

When small chil­dren wear out they fall asleep wher­ever they are — in total trust and inno­cence. You will find them in a heap some­where sleep­ing soundly. Fight­ing fatigue is a los­ing bat­tle. Try­ing to stay awake actu­ally exhausts you sooner.

Wel­come to Christ­mas — the most exhaust­ing time of the year!