Leaving church Sunday after our services was bittersweet. Everything was wonderful-the music, the sermon, the flowers, the fellowship, seeing more friends come back. It was bittersweet because today I start on an unfamiliar journey-a Sabbath from being our Worship Chair (one that I have held since 2016). It has been a very challenging last 12 months. My sister joked with me last April when she asked me, “What did you raise your hand for?” When I said “yes” to Worship Chair for 2020, I, like everyone else, could not have foreseen the challenges that would arise all around us. Even if we couldn’t meet and have social gatherings, we still wanted and needed Worship. While most people were told to stay home to stay safe, I felt the added pressure to keep our members connected throughout the year in Worship. Yes, there were other people that helped, but I took on a lot because I didn’t want that burden to be on our Pastor only.

I have been reflecting more lately on what this experience has been like for me the past year. For me, my routine of work and church didn’t change much, unlike many people. Yes, there were changes, but not as drastic as others. I never stopped coming to church-maybe we recorded on another day, but it was still a weekly event. I felt the added pressure to get the video online, first just uploading it and then Livestreaming. Then we added the song lyrics back in. Oh yeah, did I mention that I also agreed to give the Elder meditations for the month of May, as we tried to make our online videos more and more like our regular service? At first, since it seemed like it would only be “for a short time”, it was okay. But as the weeks and months went on, the survival mode of “fight or flight” started intensifying for me. It wasn’t just to check off that we made it through another Sunday. It was sometimes even the very little things that would make me so frustrated and even angry that I wanted to scream. Or, there were moments that I just wanted to run away from the task without warning. I just needed to get away. I was losing the focus of the joy I had in this position. It was more of what I felt I had to do, not because I truly and honestly wanted to.

I can’t fully understand what those who stayed home for many months and now are starting to come back are feeling. It is so wonderful to see the church filling up, but for me (and maybe the others who have been there with me during these months), it’s also a reminder of what it was like to look up out into the Sanctuary and see no one except those who were involved in the production of it. It is wonderful to hear people praying together again, but I know of the days when there was silence. I hope that we will never have to come to an empty Sanctuary again. There may be other things that I haven’t fully processed from the last year because I just kept going and didn’t stop to look back. Even though I continued to go to church, it didn’t mean that I wasn’t having feelings of isolation-it just meant that I kept them bottled up.

This past week, during another long chat with my Pastor, he offered me a few weeks off as Worship Chair after Easter. I agreed because in looking at a checklist of signs of burnout, I found several of them fit how I was feeling. Probably for a few months, if I’m honest again. I had started seeking and receiving more help in the weekly tasks, but I was still in “fight or flight” mode. After the meeting and he let the other team members know of the plan, I started to feel some of that burden lifting off of me. So much lifted off in a few days that I started to wonder if that was all I needed to hear so I could just keep going. But, it was really the fact that I knew I was going to have a break- that was the burden lifted. It can be a huge challenge to first admit that you need help/a break, but then to openly accept it is the next step. That is where I am now. I have been given this opportunity to just relax, refresh and re-energize.

My hope is that if you haven’t taken the time to reflect on how your experiences have affected you, now is the best time. We may not have had the same exact experience, but I am pretty confident that we had many of the same emotions. It’s okay to feel them, it’s okay to talk about them, it’s okay to ask for help, it’s okay to admit you need a break. It’s the first step to getting back to the joy and hope of Easter.