“I have occasionally heard sad tales of you that by the loudness, length and frequency of your public discourses you are lighting your candle at both ends. I cannot blame your zeal, you serve a good master, who is well worthy you should spend and be spent for his sake. You have likewise a sense of the worth and danger of souls, and this makes you earnest and importunate. Perhaps too you think you are immortal till your work is done (which I shall not dispute) and therefore think it is less needful to be careful of yourself.. However as the Lord usually works by means, if it is his pleasure to prolong your life for the good of many, he will perhaps dispose you to listen to a word of advice on this head.
I should account him more generous than prudent, who to show his heartiness in entertaining his friends should in the course of one year, exhaust an estate which if properly managed might have supplied him and them for 40 years to come. Your case is something similar. You are young, hardly attained yet your constitutional strength, and perhaps if you over exert yourself at this period of life you never may.”1
I’ve always found the idea of self-care wildly unhelpful while simultaneously realizing that the term is attempting to diagnose a felt problem I know personally and I’ve witnessed in the lives of those I love.
A few years ago, I was introduced to the term of self-stewardship (a term I first learned from Tasha Chapman), which has proved not only more practically useful than “self-care,” but also echoes a theology of care (for self and others) that I see in Scripture. And in my recent coursework, I was offered the metaphor of viewing myself as a private foundation that requires both a steady stream of income to endure and grow so that there can be regular withdrawals for good. And to build out the analogy, the more that’s put in, the more interest accrues.
Imagine my delighted surprise when, upon revisiting John Newton’s early letters to Ryland, I found a variation of the private foundation metaphor (see above) when Newton young John Ryland to think wisely about his own sense of self.
Newton writes than a man who depletes his estate (or savings account) in a year by showing hospitality for his friends is likely generous, but most likely not wise. Instead, Newton posits, if that man had prudently considered what was in his possession and managed it instead of merely spending it, the estate would have blessed and served his friends (and subsequently been a source of joy to the man himself) for 40 years instead of one year.
A charitable foundation without withdrawals is useless. An estate hoarded is plainly similar to the man who buried the gold in Jesus’ parable of the talents.
Obviously, there are many applications to literal money here that are worthwhile to consider, but I’m also interested in the non-monetary aspects of our persons that we must steward.
I spent many years burning both ends of the candle of my life; Netwon’s paragraph describing Ryland echoes my mid to late-20s so very well. However, at some point in the throes of working in a church while being the primary caregiver to my young children, I realized if I continued on with that double-ended burning, my “estate” would be gone, the foundation depleted.
Over the past few years, I’ve quietly accounted for the withdrawals and deposits in my life, and adjusted them in conversation with the Lord and my community.
Deposits now look like defined work hours, Bricking my phone, no social media, a ruthless commitment to my days-off, practicing the Sabbath, cultivating hobbies like quilting and growing flowers in my garden, having fun with friends, (attempting to find) an exercise routine, eating lunch, disciplined reading of things I care about and pleasurable reading for delight, building in time for study, building in time for prayer, collaboration with other women in my denomination, regular connection times with my kids, connection times my husband, family dinner.
These are things that are my deposits in my account. And like a lot of deposits, most of them feel quite small. Yet, done imperfectly but consistently, the account grows, interest accrues.
My withdrawals are what you might expect… I make a lot of meals for a lot of people each month, we host in our regularly, I write and teach, I facilitate discussions, I visit with people to do the work listening, I meet with co-workers, I try to show up for my extended family, I create a haven of a home for my kids, I cultivate friendship, love and partnership with my husband.
My withdrawals aren’t all that different than they were 10 years ago, but making them feels different because of the study flow of deposits and growing interest… I’m not afraid that one unplanned withdrawal will put me in the red.
I want to note that these practices of depositing and withdrawing aren’t ways to armor oneself up for the suffering and the hardship and the grief that come from living in a broken world; that’s another topic that’s interesting to explore in tangent with the topic, but worthy of its own essay.
Rather, these interests and withdrawals are ways to steward the small bag of gold I feel I’ve been given to do the work I love (studying and teaching the Bible, shepherding women, offering leadership in my context) and respond to the enduring, beloved vocations of my life (marriage, motherhood, family, church, neighboring) for as long as today is called today.
Grant Gordon, ed., Wise Counsel: John Newton’s Letters to John Ryland Jr. (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2009), 30.