Every Burnout Is a Refining Fire
It must change the way you think
I have been burned out several times. Some were more pronounced and prolonged than others. Several, I didn’t realize then, were burning me out. All my burnouts have hopefully resulted in new and different courses for my life.
In my youth, I had no idea what I desired other than pleasure. I had no goals or personal vision I felt I needed to pursue. Sometimes, I wonder how I survived without stumbling down the wrong path because I had no path. I let the world and others lead me.
I burned out after graduating college. What the hell was I going to do with my life? At that time, I was living in my parent’s basement and working in my father’s business.
Eee-gods that hurt to write. I might as well tattoo a big “L” on my forehead.
I was burned out on studying. I didn’t want a career in my field of study. I needed to “launch,” as they say. I needed a change and not just any change. The Burnout I was experiencing was refining me. The change I needed would take me in a new and different direction.
My new direction provided a new desire to learn and grow. My values were being refined. There was more of a practicality about my life’s goals. True core values were being strengthened. Other values, which were superfluous, were being burned away.
Later, I burned out again. I had reached a certain level of the typical middle-class story of comfortable success. I wasn’t looking for trouble. And, yet, I was bored.
This wasn’t your typical midlife crisis. I had found religion. Bored with my career, I sought validation through my activities within the church. I was seeking a spiritual awakening. It was another refining period.
As a result, I made another change. Except, now, it wasn’t just me. I had a family. I had responsibilities. The decision to pursue a new path was not only affecting me, but it would also affect several other individuals. We all had to be refined.
I was going to pursue a new path with my wife. She was a valuable connection I would not break or leave behind. She, too, agreed; I had appeared to her burned out. She recognized this was a time of refining. Our desires, our goals, and our vision were being refined.
Each burnout we experience is difficult, some more than others. Some we recognize as necessary and become willing participants. Looking back, we view them as needed steps or corrections to help us become who we are today.
That doesn’t make each burnout less terrifying.
My latest and possibly deepest burnout occurred amidst COVID-19. Trying to make everyone happy is impossible, I know. Yet, during this time, I could not make anyone happy. Unable to truly minister to others while still feeling the enormous amount of suffering and anxiety everyone felt was overwhelming.
I was also helping a Mexican family immigrate legally. However, through confusing and misleading information, I unknowingly put them at risk of deportation. My sense of responsibility and ineffectiveness made me feel hopeless. I spiraled into depression and physical illness. Spiritually, I felt unmoored.
My wife was deeply concerned for my well-being. Unable to help beyond simply coming alongside me, she suggested my Burnout meant it was time to seek help.
I went to my doctor, who medicated me. I went to a counselor, who could only listen to me. I discovered a new spiritual path through a Freedom Ministry.
The medication made my hopelessness manageable.
The counselor, whom I often felt like I was counseling instead of the other way around, gave me back my dignity. I was reassured that not all was lost. There remained a path forward.
The Freedom Ministry opened a side of spirituality that broke me out of my own constructed confines. It was the path forward. It changed my course. I was being refined.
Scientist and theologian Ilia Delio has written about the image of fire to describe God’s presence in life.
“Love is a fire of transformation that constantly needs [fuel] to keep the fire alive. [Physical] fire is destructive; throw yourself into a fire, and you will be destroyed. God’s fire [Spiritual fire] is destructive, too, because it can swiftly eliminate all self-illusions, grandiose ideas, ego-inflation, and self-centeredness. Throw yourself into the spiritual fire of divine love, and everything you grasp for yourself will be destroyed until there is nothing left but the pure truth of yourself.” [1]
“Deep within the cave of my heart, a depth that belongs to me alone, I recognize a fire that burns brilliantly and glows with warmth. Through that glowing fire, I see the outline of a face, the face of Christ, but I also see my face, and then I begin to see Christ’s face as my face. Sometimes, I cannot tell Christ’s face from my own face, and all at once, I recognize a single face whose eyes are looking inward and outward. The word “God” simply doesn’t capture this infinite depth of my soul that stretches toward an endless horizon. By its sheer unlimited being, I know it must be divine life because it is life other than my own and yet entangled with my own life.” [2]
“Every human life is the cosmos winding its way into the future. Every life makes a difference to the life of the whole. I have come to know that the fire in my heart is the fire in the heart of the universe and that its flames will not be extinguished. This fire will destroy that which is not God and forge what is God into an ever-radiant new presence of God because God is forever being born within us. In this life, at this moment, I allow all that has shaped my life to be summed up in this seamless, mysterious breath of life. I let go over and over again and jump into the lap of God’s loving embrace. Every moment I am falling in love with God. For God knows me in a deep way, a way that I still hardly know myself; and it is this endless inscrutable depth where love burns brightly that I learn to trust my thoughts, my words, my actions…. I have a mission because every person has a mission — to be the truth of who they are so that God can be God in them. The path to truth demands patience and trust, and this path is an open road within every human heart.” [3]
Every burnout is a refining fire. It must change the way you think.
It will change what you believe. It will correct your path. It will destroy that which is evil. It will expand what is good within you. It will connect you to what you need next. It will provide you with a vision. It will fuel the fire that sustains you. It will inspire you to be better, do greater, rest easy, and have faith.
But only if you let it.
[1] Ilia Delio, Birth of a Dancing Star: From Cradle Catholic to Cyborg Christian (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2019), 155–156. [2] Delio, Birth of a Dancing Star, 202. [3] Delio, Birth of a Dancing Star, 210–211.