The Engine that Drove Me

In the fall of 2019 I discovered a constant hum of anxiety that never went away. I felt like I was always working but always behind. I kept telling myself “Once I get that one project done, it will calm down.” I was working part-time for my church and I loved it. I loved the people I got to work with. I loved the work I got to do. In many ways, I was doing the job I had longed for for years.

But I also felt like I was half focused all the time - with my kids, a friend, in my work, even my time with God -I was only about 50% there. I felt my mind and heart was hovering just above my own life but not totally in it. That while I was doing dishes and making dinner I was thinking about the work I needed to finish for the church. While at the church in the back of my mind I was thinking about what I needed to do for the kids. I couldn’t nap anymore (I’ve always been a good napper); I couldn’t turn my brain off. Small errors, interruptions or changes threw me into rage and anxiety.

And so for several journal entries I wrote “I am weary.” “Weary” represents my feelings better than “tired”. When I’m tired, a nap or a good night’s sleep will set it right. But I felt entirely drained, drained from my bones, drained in my soul and it seemed sleep wasn’t solving the issue. I also had three children (at the time). The work to keep up with them, the home, our life, felt never ending. And in a way it is never ending. Parenting is a 24-hour-job. And so in this time it became easy to blame them which grew into resentment.

I zeroed in on what I was feeling and I told a friend “I feel like in every arena of my life, I’m just being driven by this engine that’s saying “You’re not doing enough, you’re not doing enough, you’re not doing enough.” Every arena of my life I was chasing the feeling of “doing enough” or being “done.” But I never arrived at “done” because there is always more work to do. There are always emails to finish, volunteers to find, dishes to clean, laundry to wash and fold, toilets to scrub, bandages to be applied and more. Overwhelmed by the engine and the never ceasing cycle of things to do - I bounced between anxiety and depression. Anxiety to try to work to arrive at “done” and depression that I’d never reach it.

I resented the cyclical nature of my life. Laundry is never done. The house is never clean. The kids always need me. There is always so much to do. It never stopped. I longed for the rest of feeling “done” but “done” never came.

3 years I felt all this, in varying strengths. I sensed a growing distance with God. I was still hovering over my life somehow. I prayed, I read my Bible, I did the next right thing but that engine was still driving me.

My life circumstances changed with a new baby, a pandemic, and quitting my job but oddly, the engine still remained.

Weary, weary, weary. Never doing enough. Worn out by the “over and over again” of life.

And then I sat on my porch to read Ecclesiastes because I thought to myself “There’s a book I don’t really understand”. And I read this:

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,

vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

What does man gain by all the toil

at which he toils under the sun?

A generation goes, and a generation comes,

but the earth remains forever.

The sun rises, and the sun goes down,

and hastens to the place where it rises.

The wind blows to the south

and goes around to the north;

around and around goes the wind,

and on its circuits the wind returns.

All streams run to the sea,

but the sea is not full;

to the place where the streams flow,

there they flow again.

All things are full of weariness;

a man cannot utter it;

the eye is not satisfied with seeing,

nor the ear filled with hearing.

What has been is what will be,

and what has been done is what will be done,

and there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said,

“See, this is new”?

It has been already

in the ages before us.

There is no remembrance of former things,

nor will there be any remembrance

of later things yet to be

among those who come after.” - Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

In the poem of Ecclesiastes 1, I saw my own life: toil, wearisome, cyclical, not satisfied. I felt like Solomon was on that porch with me reflecting and saying “Yes, it is all wearisome and there is no end - what were you expecting?” I guess I was expecting something else. Initially what as so shocking about Ecclesiastes was it’s affirmation of my restlessness. I anticipated God’s response to my weariness being more like a rebuke - that life isn’t weary (not if you’re doing it right), that I should be able to find a sense of meaning and significance in what I do, that if I were just better at walking with God I wouldn’t feel weary or restless. But life is wearisome. Life is unsatisfying. Life is full of unending cycles - in nature, in our own experience.

In reading I realized I thought relief from my wearisome toil would come if life weren’t so cyclical. If the laundry were done, the house were clean, and the kids settled with all their needs met then I would feel relief from that merciless engine. I thought if I jammed a wrench in the cyclical nature of life with fun, spur of the moment activities, time friends, time away from kids - if I threw excitement into the cycle - that would stop the engine in me. If I could do a new thing, a fresh thing, a thing I’m not doing over and over again. But life is full of cycles, and no one can change it, cycles aren’t the problem anyway, and new things aren’t the solution.

It would be a few more weeks until solutions presented themselves and truthfully, Ecclesiastes’ affect on my life is still being worked out. But I felt compelled to share my journey in little pieces because I know I’m not alone in a quiet desperation with life. I also know the work God does in me is likely one He will multiply. So, I pray you read Ecclesiastes and let it shock you and together we’re liberated from that merciless engine of doing enough.