Learning It's Okay

This past week I’ve been sick. Nothing major, but enough to make me feel really crummy and drive me to my bed. It took me several days of being ill to finally get bed rest, and I got there only after the worst had passed and I was talked into it. In the meantime, while I was feeling the brunt of the symptoms, I was at work, trying to do my job because I could not give myself permission to stay home.

I don’t know if anyone else feels like I do, but taking sick days is almost impossible for me. Not because my job or boss makes it difficult, but because I make it hard on myself. I always feel guilty that I am sick, as though I had anything to do with making it happen. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate occurrence that temporarily interrupts my life and being grateful that I have sick leave as a part of my job benefits package, I feel I have to make excuses for my behavior. Some will think that weird, but there it is. It’s as though my being sick is a sin.

In truth, I consider using sick days as a sign of weakness on my part. I should be able to muscle through anything and continue to do my job well. So if I cannot carry on, I come under a boatload of guilt—guilt because I have failed.

I’m not completely sure how those guilty feelings developed, but I do know that my father rarely stayed home due to illness and I almost never saw my mother sick. They kept going. My father was a military man and my mother had to run a household, corralling three children on her own while he was away on various missions. There was no time to be sick. Lest anyone misconstrue, I am not blaming, just making an observation and trying to work through possibilities.

A good and honest friend pointed out to me that I really am not indispensable (ouch!) and that it was up to my employer to figure out how to carry on at the job without me. That I am not indispensable to the praise team I am a part of at my church and they would figure out how to do without me if I was sick. I have a harder time with that one.

Somehow I’ve got to get past the guilty feelings and give myself permission to rest when I need to and not see myself as weak for it. Jesus had to rest from time to time and he recognized that his disciples did too. When Peter’s mother was ill she was in bed, not trying to carry on. It wasn’t until Jesus healed her that she was able to get up and go about her chores. She must have given herself permission to rest even though Peter had brought the disciples over for dinner.

I need to take myself less seriously and relax a bit more. I would imagine there are a lot of Christians who need to do that as well. I don’t want to be a slacker, but I do need to learn to recognize the symptoms of overdoing it (and working sick is overdoing it), and take a break. Believe me, I have built up a lot of sick leave.

Remind me about this next time I am sick.