Too much alone time? You be the judge.

This is a response to Eric's post, but I figured I'd just make a new one since I don't like the formatting that blogger uses for comments.

Eric, thanks for sharing those select memories from the trip. It's so funny how the littlest things can be used to teach us all interesting life lessons, such as literally doing nothing and listening to your iPod. Hmmm.

I, too, enjoy having at least a little bit of simple "Kelsey time" each day, and on the days and weeks when I don't take very good care of myself by setting that time aside, everybody else pays the price while I try to suffer silently (which doesn't usually work because I just get cranky). It is good and well to spend time with whatever "community" you're currently a part of, but it's also just as, if not more important to make sure you take the time to yourself and don't always cover a genuine desire for alone time or silence with a facade of a good mood and a smile. If we constantly try to "fake it" and put on a smile when we're feeling really crappy, we very well may end up suffocating or just getting burned out and in the end everybody loses.

John, personally, and I obviously don't know the ins and outs of your feelings when you were not talking to anybody at dinner, it sounds like you're being a little hard on yourself (and that's coming from someone who beats herself up alllllll the time, so who am I to talk, anyway?). Shoot, not everyday is going to be a cakewalk of smiles and butterflies, and I think that's just alright. Sorry if that comes across crass, it's really not supposed to.

We recently did team evaluations where each of the four of us answered a couple of questions about the other three missionaries on the team. The category that challenged me the most was "Living Order," which essentially pertains to making time for yourself and your own personal life amongst the bazillions of things you have going on all the time. Tim (my team director) is really good at putting things into context and expressing them very well with words, and I told him that it's hard for me to take time to myself, especially in the middle of the day, because it seems selfish to do that when there are students I can meet with, barehanding (talking to random people around campus) to be done or expense reports to fill out.

He called me right out on that and said that rather than being selfish to the people I know right now I am actually being selfish to the people that the Lord desires to put into my life a few years down the road. He mentioned a shocking statistic: 98% of Youth Ministers (of course John and Sarah came instantly to mind) last 2 years on average in their ministry and after that they get burned out and never work for the Church again.

This was completely shocking! It makes total sense: we desire to help the lost sheep find their way, and when it comes to matters as important as our Faith, we desire that they know it fully and know true friendships in Christ.  We might end up pouring everything we have into just a few people for a short amount of time, but when the Lord presents new disciples to us down the road, we have already burned out and cannot give them the adequate, if any, time that they deserve in order to grow. Therefore, by taking time to ourselves we are actually doing a service to the people we don't even know yet and still allowing the Lord to work His magic through us with them.

Now I'll end this rather long post with a thought. Yes, I believe it certainly is possible to become selfish with our alone time and begin to guard it, build up walls around it and never let anybody touch it while it continues to grow and grow. But is guarding a set amount of time each day, whether 15 minutes or 2 hours, to remain sacred for you and you alone (with Jesus, of course) bad? There are both positives and negatives to a "yes" and a "no" answer, but this is definitely a common struggle--especially among us!--and by learning discipline in this an entire community can be strengthened.

Praying for all of you,
Kelsey

p.s. Perhaps we could read a book together? It's been something on my heart. I was thinking, although I'm sure many of us have read this, Mother Teresa's Come Be My Light. She understands suffering and service more than any of us and has truly lived it! Let me know your thoughts! :)