On Saturday, I wrote about loneliness and last week about friendship and the barriers I’ve built around myself.
Writing has always been therapeutic, but I hadn’t reached the end of that reflection. It’s been stirring around me constantly. A thought that’s become an itch that moves whenever I scratch it.
Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself carrying around a growing list of frustrations. On the surface they all looked unrelated. A difficult interaction. Leadership challenges. Questions about friendship. Feeling lonely. A sense of exhaustion I couldn’t quite explain beyond my normal issues with sleepless nights.
My instinct was to treat them as separate problems. They’ve been all consuming as such too, but the more I’ve reflected and prayed about them, the more I’ve realised they’re all connected.
Recently, a situation involving someone I support and advocate for left me feeling unsettled. I won’t go into details because the specifics aren’t important and the post I shared last week explores some aspects around it. What surprised me, however, was how deeply it affected me.
I’ve spent years working within disability inclusion and disabled communities. I understand support needs, barriers, misunderstandings, and the complexity of navigating relationships when disability is involved. I have written many disability justice posts.
What caught me off guard wasn’t what happened.
It was my reaction to it.
The situation left me feeling vulnerable in a way I haven’t experienced for a long time. It completely knocked my equilibrium. Even now, weeks later, I can still feel the effects. I am incredibly uncomfortable around that person, including the various roles we share.
That led me into another uncomfortable realisation.
During this time, several people who would normally share responsibility within church life were unavailable for perfectly understandable reasons. Family commitments, holidays, and life.
What struck me was not their absence but what their absence revealed.
I started to notice how much responsibility is often carried by a very small number of people.
Churches speak a lot about being a body with many parts. Sometimes the reality can feel more like a handful of people desperately trying to keep everything moving while everyone else assumes somebody else is dealing with it.
For the first time, I found myself appreciating just how much people have quietly carried over the years without recognition, but one distinction was still clear. Even though some carried these responsibilities, they usually did together. Whereas, I was alone.
I also found myself asking difficult questions about leadership.
Not my calling. Leadership.
There’s a difference.
The reality is that leadership can be frustrating. Sometimes you invest time, effort, energy and care into a situation only to discover people will do whatever they were planning to do anyway. Boundaries get ignored. Advice goes unheard. Responsibilities become blurred. What should be a co-operative working relationship becomes a battle ground of personal agendas disguised within personal ministry priorities.
I’ve realised that one of the hardest parts of leadership isn’t making decisions. It’s accepting that your influence has limits.
That has been a difficult lesson for me.
At the same time, another realisation has been forming.
Over the years my world has become smaller.
Not intentionally, as Saturday’s post highlighted.
Disability and becoming a permanent powerchair user changed far more than how I move around. Activities became harder. Travelling became more complicated. Friendships gradually changed shape.
Then blogging changed. Covid happened. Life kept moving.
Without really noticing, church became my main community, social outlet, and in many ways the primary place where I connected with people.
Recently I’ve realised that’s become a problem. Not because church is the problem, but because when the place you're serving becomes the only place you're connecting, every difficulty feels heavier.
I still love ministry, serving, and fulfilling my calling. I still care deeply about the people around me.
Yet lately I’ve realised I’ve been giving out far more than I’ve been receiving. I suspect many people in ministry, formal or informal, will understand that feeling.
You keep turning up, serving, and supporting others.
Then one day something relatively small happens and you discover you’re not reacting to that one thing at all.
You’re reacting to everything.
The difficult interaction. The loneliness. The loss of friendship. The leadership frustrations. The exhaustion. Carrying more than you realised.
What I’ve slowly discovered is that none of these things exist in isolation.
They’re all pointing towards the same reality.
I’m tired. Not tired of ministry, church, or my calling.
Just tired.
I can now fully understand why leadership has clear and defined days off work each week, have a “holiday church” they attend sporadically, and go to conferences. They need a space to be fed away from the “work.”
For weeks I thought I was dealing with multiple separate problems. Now I think I’m dealing with one issue showing up in lots of different ways.
I need replenishing, friendship, and things in my life that don’t revolve around responsibility, ministry, deadlines, meetings, or supporting everybody else. I also need to stop pretending I’m running on a full tank when the warning light came on a long time ago. It's time to pull over and fill the tank.
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