Finding the Beauty in the Burnout

By the time you read this, we will have all said goodbye to 2020 in our own ways. I imagine most of us bid it goodbye with joy. Yet sadly, the virus continues to rage, and 2021 does not promise to be better.

How do Christ followers look upon the newness of 2021 while in the midst of burnout and despair from a global pandemic that has transformed all of our lives? I value the tension between the beautiful and the hard, the already and the not-yet, the newness and the ongoing struggle. We can lament one while experiencing joy and taking comfort with the other.

There Is Always Good to Be Found

I’ve written before about how there is always beauty and joy to be found if we are willing to look. My husband and I have worked hard to discuss the positives that have resulted from the novel coronavirus with our children. We talk about how we have had more time together as a family and how much we actually like each other (most of the time!).

Even in the ugliest of trials, there are moments of grace and beauty to be found if we’re willing to look. A coworker of mine recently learned his thirteen-year-old son has leukemia. It’s a devastating and life-changing blow. However, the family is overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support from their community. You can get bogged down in the negativity about COVID-19 on social media all day long, but a positive is that you can set up a support page in a crisis and watch your community come together.

You may be in the midst of a trial of your own where you are not seeing anything redeeming or good. My heart goes out to you, and I pray your struggle ends in a positive way soon. However, I assure you, God wants to meet you there. He wants to show you his presence in the midst of the darkness. He wants to remind you of his beauty in the midst of the destruction. If your heart isn’t ready to open up to him, ask a friend or loved one to do so on your behalf. There is grace and beauty in that also.

The Reality of Burnout

We are ten months into the pandemic if we begin counting when the United States began the lockdown. We are in the middle of the winter, which is combining the flu with the pandemic for the first time. Regardless of your feelings about the virus, we are all burned out in some way. We’re exhausted from our lives being changed and controlled by a virus.

Our family made the very difficult choice to pull our kids from our beloved public school district and enroll them in a public online school this year. There are many moments when we are confident it was the right choice. However, our kids are always here, y’all.  They’re just so very present in our home all the time. I love them. But it’s a lot of togetherness.

There are days when I lose my patience. There are days when I am exhausted by trying to work my own job from home while shepherding my kids through school and making decisions related to the virus. Determining what is safe and what isn’t for our family is exhausting. I’m tired of it all. I want to punch the virus in the throat.

I’m feeling these things, but I recognize that I’m in a place of enormous privilege. I still have the luxury of my job, and we are not in danger of losing our home. We don’t personally know anyone who has died of COVID-19. Some of you may be struggling with how to make ends meet. Some of you may have lost a loved one. We are likely all experiencing burnout in some way, but what some of us are experiencing is undoubtedly far more intense.

The Tension of Beauty in the Burnout

My encouragement to you today is that you embrace both the burnout and the beauty. Acknowledge the burnout. It’s real. It exists. It’s overwhelming at moments. It may not be going away soon. But beauty is there, too, if we only look for it.

The only way I know to combat burnout is to turn to our Savior. He is there. He is providing moments of beauty and redemption. They can be easy to miss, but we can ask him to open our eyes to them. We weren’t promised an easy road, but we were promised a Savior who will ultimately redeem all of the ugliness of this sin-filled life. Relying on him is the only way to keep moving forward.

Amy Wiebe is a Jesus follower, wife, mom of three, church planter, finance director, and lover of sarcasm and deep conversation with friends. She also loves camping, rafting, skiing, sewing, and having people over. Amy blogs with her husband at fringechurch.com.

Photograph © Claudia Barbosa, used with permission