Self-Care

Bear one anothers' burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ....
For each man must bear his own burden. [Gal. 6:2,9]

These verses speak to the issue of self-care. We are called by Christ to help people with their burdens. Others are called to help us with ours. We realize, if we are practicing the Love of Christ, that we do not want to burden other people with our burdens. They have burdens of their own, and we must be alert as to how we can help them, as Christ would have us. So we work diligently to carry our load--we are responsible; we know that it is more blessed to give than to receive; we have before us always Christ on the Cross, giving His life for us and commanding us to love each other as He has loved us. Our desire is for all people to be responsible in this way, but they have never been, and are not likely to be so in our lifetime. So we must learn to keep our peace in a world with the type of spiritual blindness that makes people sick and weak, and causes them to be more dependent on others than they should be. We help people like this by using our energies to persuade them toward responsibility as the pathway of their greatest happiness. We realize that their dependence is pathological for them. And we are careful not to judge them, nor to do for them what they can and should do for themselves [which is called "enabling."]  If they can receive Christ, becoming regenerated in the New Life that He supplies, then they become more responsible because they begin to be influenced by the voice and Spirit of ultimate Truth--the Love of God in Christ. But this is just religious vernacular to those who have not tasted the beautiful, transforming Truth of Christ. So we do not expect them to understand. I have seen cases in which, for example, a daughter was working diligently to care for an aging mother who had never really been a mother because of an unredeemed personality disorder. The mother was incessantly displeased with her daughter, complaining about the daughter's ministries, accusing her of not "caring", keeping her in a constant battle against guilt, anger and resentment. Caregivers must learn to "guard their hearts" in such situations. If we [caregivers] give too much, we will start feeling resentful and may become passive aggressive. It would not, however be loving to totally abandon the dependent one. We must remember that God loves the caregiver as much as the receiver of care. And that He sustains our hearts as we love and serve. We must not lose our peace trying to give it to others. It seems that some people never take root in the Truth that would set them free. They never get to the soul-fulfillment that Jesus gives us. We must be ultimately OK with this.
And we must not idealize this "soul-fulfillment". Life on this planet never gets easy for anyone. We hear Christ when He says, "In this world you will have tribulation"[  ]. We accept this on a very deep level. But we also hear Him say, "Nevertheless, be of good cheer. I have overcome the world."[John 16:33]  Our Savior and Friend, who has promised to be with us always, even to the end of the world [Mt. 28:20], has overcome every tribulation we will encounter, and secured eternal life for us. Death is our final victory! The afflictions of this world are slight and temporary compared to the "glory to be revealed in us" [ 2 Cor 4:17; Rom 8:18]. But in the mean time, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer has said "If the Lord returns tomorrow, then I will rest from my labors, but today, I have work to do."  We have work to do. The work of faith, hope and love. The work for which we have been ordained by our Lord: to go out into the world with the Light that is shining in us--the Light of Christ Himself.  This work  is accompanied and partly motivated by an ongoing sense of unfulfillment. It is the unfulfillment of Christ Himself who was at times, frustrated with faithlessness, sorrowful, angry and disappointed.  His humanity connects with us. Then His divinity lifts us to new heights of freedom and peace. The unfulfillment is swallowed up in His Love in us. It becomes fuel for a holy fire that we would never extinguish. This is a mystery, but some will understand, not only with the mind, but with the heart. These are the free ones.
Christianity is a religion of the heart, soul, mind and body. All of these are in the domain of the Creator; our "Father" as Christ called Him, and with Whom He was and is One. How could our faith in the God of the entire universe be anything but wholistic.  This frightens some people, I know. They see it as too "dogmatic"; even arrogant. If it were not centered in the Love of Christ, I would think so myself. But I challenge any man to discover a purer, more holy or healthy philosophy to devote one's life to than the Way of Christ---His sacrificial Love---and His command that we love each other. Until we attain that level of maturity, I can see no other pathway worthy of  our devotion. Everything outside of Christ's Love seems like a distraction at best. "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his soul?" Jesus asks [Mt 16:26].
If we truly embrace Christ in our sincere quest for ultimate Truth, we will find it there, in Him.