If it is to be, it's up to...someone else.

The birth of my daughter Emilia last week was a huge victory for me.





Not because of anything I did to create her. Let's be honest: I made a deposit 9 months ago and I was just taking my wife to the hospital to make a withdrawal.

For me, Emilia's birth marked a monumental step in an almost 4-year struggle that went back to the birth of my 2nd daughter, Renee. When Holly went to the hospital to be induced with Renee, I began to feel light headed. I got dizzy, nauseous, and shaky. I thought I must be getting sick or something. The next thing I knew I was in the emergency room one floor below my wife's room. Something was definitely not right. After a month of tests, my family doctor began asking me questions about what I was doing leading up to these feelings. At this point I had lost almost 25 pounds. I was weak. I could barely function. To make matters worse, Christmas was coming. For pastors, this is generally considered a pretty busy time.

I told my doctor I had been doing the usual: working a full-time schedule, going to school full-time, being a dad and a husband. I had actually stepped up that pace a bit leading to Renee's birth, since she would be born around exam time. He looked me square in the eye and said, "do you think it could be stress?" I started crying right there in his office.

I had been living by the motto: "I'd better work myself to death while I'm young enough to have the energy to put in crazy hours." More though than the hours was the pressure I put on myself. And I was totally the one putting the pressure on. Sure, other's had expectations of me, but their expectations were nothing compared to mine. I wanted the church to grow. I wanted to get done with school. I wanted to preach and visit and lead. God needs people like me to be in the game, not on the sidelines taking a breather.

Unfortunately, my body and soul couldn't keep up with my heart and mind, and so if I wouldn't take myself out of the game, they were going to do it for me. And I was so focused on getting back in the game, it took me a month of feeling like death to realize what was really happening.

Right then I began the process of getting myself healthy again. And it started with a confession. I've never been as nervous to preach as I was that Sunday. I stood in front of my congregation. I had no notes and only a vague idea of what I was about to say. I don't remember exactly what I said but it was along these lines:

"I have a confession to make. I've failed you as your pastor. The sickness and everything that I've been dealing with the last month has been a direct result of the anxiety that has formed from putting too much pressure on myself, not taking care of myself and my family, and being a terrible example of what a life of balance and discipline is supposed to look like. I'm going to get better. I'm going to be better at this. I need your help and your prayers."

Almost immediately, I noticed a difference. Life was somehow lighter. I disciplined myself to an 8 hour day at the most to begin with. I always stopped for lunch with my wife and kids. I exercised. I spent time every day with God. And most importantly, I began to understand the truth that God isn't reliant on me, I am reliant on God. And it was with that understanding that I felt God smiling and saying, "ok...NOW you're ready for some BIG stuff!"

Everyone has a need to be needed, but what God needs most from me is to let go of stuff and rely on him. Let him use others. Let the stuff I don't really have time for fall through the cracks. If it is to be, it is up to...someone else.

So last Sunday, I began my paternity leave - 2 days before Holly would be induced to have Emilia. I wanted to spend some time as a family before chaos hit our house again. We went to the zoo. We went out to eat. We laughed and relaxed together. And on Tuesday, Emilia was born.

I joked with Holly that I was starting to not feel well again. She didn't think it was funny.

Somehow, in these two weeks, the Christian religion has survived without me I have a great staff and great leaders in my church who have kept the ball rolling. This Sunday I'll be back in the pulpit, refreshed and renewed despite a new baby and new, shorter sleep patterns, and we're going to launch our life groups. We have 75 people signed up to begin really doing life together.

Make time for what's important. Take care of yourself. Rest in God. Remember you are the one who is relying on Him and not the other way around. Allow things you don't REALLY have time for to go undone. Enjoy life. Turn off your brain for a while and just be still and know that He is God. I promise you, when you jump back into your work, life will have still been able to go on without you and you will be way more productive than when you've worked yourself into the grounnd.