I think God cussed me yesterday

Yesterday, I hosted my team kick off party for the Lupus Foundation of America’s Atlanta Walk for Lupus Now Walk. I started the year with a vision of taking my volunteer and charity work, as well as my business, to a new level. I knew it was going to be hard and I knew there was going to be meltdowns, disagreements and a lot of time on my therapist’s couch.  I made a joke while in a session telling her that the chair I sat in needed to be made of tissues. That way, I could grab one in any direction I turned while being comforted by the soft blanket of kleenex.

I was scrambling to get everything together. People started arriving and the video wasn’t ready. The fundraising coupons were not printed. The hospice coordinator called me at that moment desperately needing an answer on whether I could sit with a patient. People were trying to help me and I could not even verbalize what I needed.

In that moment I am almost certain that I heard God say, “Jowanna, you are doing too effin much.”

He spoke to me in a language that I understood best. He has been sending me whispers and even roars. As if I was not dealing with enough, God chose that moment to proverbially grab me by the shoulder, look me in the eye and say, “Slow the eff down!” and I finally listened.

A memory of my therapist telling me that she was driving and out of nowhere a vision or sense that I was doing too much popped in her head. I remember explaining that I was not. Days before the event my best friend gave  me a come-to-Jesus intervention that sent me toppling off my axis.  She was basically telling me that our relationship was more than just good deeds and work activities. As I sit here writing, I finally get what my spiritual leader has been trying to drill into me for the past two years.

“Jowanna, I know you like doing things but you need to know that I love you just for you.”  This was hard for me to get and perhaps even harder for her to get me to see what she was talking about because service is so embedded in me. It IS who I am meant to be. I just couldn’t see the unhealthy behaviors I attached to it. I now see that I need to fix the unhealthy parts to totally be in my service.

The signs that God sent me this year.

When my daughter went missing, the ground underneath me crumbled. My heart was broken into tiny little bits. Even in this, I knew that God wanted me to live out loud. I also knew that I could not get so self-indulged that everything stopped… or maybe everything was supposed to stop. Now I see that at work and everywhere else, people in my life were telling me to just take the time I needed to heal and find my footing again.

A couple of days before my daughter was found, I called my Senior (Mary Kay) Director with whom I have been a whirlwind soulmance with that is blossoming into a life long friendship. I was desperately in need of help and I was finally reaching out to those that God sent to me.  When I asked for prayer and support she told me, “Jowanna, not only will we be there for you, we WANT to be there for you.”

I asked Pastor Dave, another soulmate who pastors a church and serves as one of Sacred Journey’s chaplains, to host a prayer vigil at my house the week before my daughter was found.  He stopped whatever he had going on to be there for my family because he wanted to be there for us.  When I announced the desperate search for my daughter, the outcry of support drowned out the few that found some (if not joy) satisfaction in my pain.

Even yesterday, I rambled a vox to my Senior Director that everything is too much she responded that she along with leadership will hold my hand through this and fired off resources to make this possible.

My mind is filled with pressures. I have not taken much time to myself. The pressures of service, keeping people employed and keeping business going has been steaming like a pressure cooker at it’s pressure point.

I hear God and He’s way more cooler than you or me

Even as I write this, I am thinking that I need to have three points to share with you as appreciation for reading my blog. But in this moment I hear God (directly) and through the foot soldiers that have been so patient with me. I am doing too much. I am worthy even if I can’t do as much as I attempt to do.

I will not stop giving of myself but it is okay for me to pause. I thank God for allowing me to see that I unconsciously put all my service at risk for contamination. Unworthiness has no place in good deeds. Are you a silent carrier and unaware of it?

blogger’s note:

The cover picture is from my team’s kickoff party for the local Lupus Walk.  Find out why I walk to find a cure.