There’s a saying, “Wherever you go, there you are.”
It means that you can’t outrun yourself or your problems or the places where you find yourself struggling. You can change your location, your environment, your job, or the people you surround yourself with, but the common denominator between all those things, you, will still be there.
Wherever you go, there you are.
It’s both a beautiful and a terrifying idea.
I felt a lot of pressure to do everything well in my pre-Sydney life. I served as a part-time pastor, a full-time mom to two kids, and a first-time homeschooler. Sometimes I felt so rushed, as though there wasn’t enough time for everything to get done. And the reason I felt like that was often that it was true. There literally weren’t enough hours to do all the things I wanted to do well.
I must not be the only one who experiences this, because there is an actual name for it: Hurry Sickness. (Thanks to John Mark Comer for highlighting this in, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.)
Psychologists define hurry sickness as a behavioral pattern characterized by continual rushing and anxiousness, or an uncomfortable feeling in which someone feels chronically short of time, and so tends to perform every task faster and to get flustered when encountering any kind of delay.
I’ve experienced this for most of my life, I just didn’t know it had a name. I find myself believing that everyone else has much more time and that I am the only one who feels so stretched.
In high school, I wondered what it might be like to be some of my friends with more margin in their lives, jealous of what I perceived to be their lack of time anxiety. I imagined them watching Dawson’s Creek, painting their nails, and relaxing. Who knows why they were painting their nails in this scenario?! That must have been the ultimate dream for me.
Even today, when I see someone out for a midday walk or run without children, I think, “Must be nice to have that kind of time!” That knee-jerk thought reveals a deep longing inside of me.
Hurry Sickness is such a part of me that I believed that quitting my job and moving to another part of the world might be the cure to end all cures. And it was kind of. I no longer move from Zoom meeting to Zoom meeting, from congregant coffee to staff member coffee. I no longer spend hours wrestling with a sermon before coming home to prepare dinner, do bedtime, throw in laundry, and plan our lessons for the next day.
However, I’ve only been in Sydney for four months, all of them under strict lockdown restrictions, and I can feel it creeping in again.
Wherever you go, there you are.
The rush is inside me. The anxiety doesn’t come from the outside pressure or the environment I’m in. The anxiety and pressure and hurry must come from within.
As we walk to our weekly play date with the one friend we have in Australia, I worry we will be late. As we came home from the playdate, I’m afraid we will miss the window for naptime. During naptime, I rush to the grocery store, anxious that I’ll take longer than the kids will rest. Then, while they were less than enthused to play by themselves, I made homemade dough for our pizza night, with a gnawing sense in the pit of my stomach that I wouldn’t finish everything that needed to be done before our Sabbath evening started. As I was kneading dough, between helping the kids with their shower and vacuuming the living room, a single thought hit me.
The rush is inside me.
I am the keeper and the carrier of this pressure I feel. I am the author and the instigator of this anxiety. In lockdown, on the other side of the world, with no one to answer to other than myself and my family, with no deadlines other than those that are self-imposed, the hurry starts with me.
I think about the words of Jesus, “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
And I want that life. I want to recover my life. I want to discover real, restorative rest for my soul. I want to stay close enough to Jesus that I can say that I am walking and working with him. I want to learn the unforced rhythms of grace and learn to live freely and lightly. I want to pass this way of life on to my children.
And so, I sit in silence with Jesus today and say, slowly, with no rush, “Lord, teach me what I need to know. Teach me those things that have felt elusive in the past. Do for me what I cannot do for myself. Holy Spirit, heal the parts of me that I can’t heal on my own. I am ready for a heavenly exchange. I will offer you my anxiety, my self-imposed standards and ideals, my worry, and my hurry in exchange for your unforced rhythms of rest and your freedom.”
Do you long for that too?
Do you want to trade your hurry and your rush and your anxiety for the unforced rhythms of grace? Tell Jesus today. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and ask Him to show you the way, His way, that leads to life.
Katie Evans 