This year I’m trying something different with the blog. Once a month, I’ll be sharing both something I’ve newly written and one of my most-read posts from the past dozen years. Hope you enjoy this new format! –Elisabeth

NEW POST: I Don’t Know What I’m Doing

I remember being about 27, sitting in the dining room at my cute little brick house on New York Street. My daughter, Sara, was a baby. I had my Bible, journal and a book or two all sprawled out around me, and I was working through the process of determining my life’s purpose. I’m sure if I looked through my journals from that time, I could find it, but I believe the first iteration was something along the lines of: love God by loving my husband, my children, my church, my friends and my home and serving the women in my ministry through my gifts of leadership, organization and creative communication.

I’m now 53. That home was four homes ago. I don’t have that same husband. That church was three churches ago. I’m not in leadership at my church. A majority of my friends are different. And my children are grown.

But this was what I wrote three years ago as far as my purpose or values go…this is what is on the front page of my journal and what I transfer over every time I start a new one:

What I want for my life:
to tend an intimate relationship with Jesus
to be spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally & relationally whole
to be a kind, authentic, accepting, supportive, fun wife to Richard
to be a healthily loving and fun mom/stepmom/mother-in-law/gramma to our nine children and four grandchildren
to be an encouraging, fun friend
to be a praying woman
to continue to keep a peaceful home
to help the women God brings across my path

Umm, I don’t know about you, but those things sound eerily the same as 25 years ago.

Okay, so, I’ve been revisiting all this. My husband is retiring soon and we watched a TEDtalk by Dr. Riley Moynes where he shared the four phases of retirement and I thought it was fascinating. I’ll just sum up what he said:

The first phase is vacation, it’s what people typically think of when they think retirement, no routine, doing what you want when you want and going wherever you want. He said this lasts about a year.

But then you head into phase two which is losses and feeling lost. He said the five losses are routine, identity, purpose, relationships, and power. He said it can take some time to notice these things are lost and to process your feelings of lost-ness without these things.

Phase three is trial and error. This is where you sort of get tired of feeling those feelings and you realize there must be something else to retirement and you start trying new groups and activities and adventures.

And then phase four is when the contentment and meaning settle in, and it’s usually because you have regained the five lost things by finding activities you love and people to be around and it usually involves some kind of service to others.

At first I was listening through the lens of my husband and what this transition might mean for him. But then I started thinking about me.

I have lived an intentional, purpose-driven life, long before I knew who Rick Warren was. I was 27 creating that mission statement. I went on try to love God and my husband and my children and my church and my friends and the women in my ministry with everything in me.

Specific to women, when I was the women’s ministry leader. And to moms when I co-created our church’s first mom group. And to moms when I wrote my monthly mom column and then my first two devotional books for moms.

And then I delved into social justice, caring about clean water in Africa and AIDS on that continent and in our city, and I traveled to Haiti and Sierra Leone and led a team to Liberia, and I joined the board of the local AIDS clinic and served leading a Bible study, and started the AIDS task force at our church.

And then when I went through my divorce, I refocused my ministry on women in difficult marriages and those going through divorce and single moms, with books and blogging and coaching and courses.

And then when I got remarried, I created more resources for remarriage. And you maybe see where this is going.

Every season of my life has been driven by the purpose of trying to love God, trying to love my husband (each of them), trying to love my children, trying to love the women God has brought into my life.

That mission statement that I wrote at 27 has been my throughline. 26 years and 15 books and 20 courses later and now a podcast and my kids launched and almost nine years into my remarriage and here I am.

And then something happened, something I’ve mentioned before – my ministry that had been growing and growing and growing, that if money were the barometer for success showed me having two amazing years in 2018 and 2019 and then it all practically evaporated in 2020 with the pandemic. And it never recovered. I pivoted and took courses and pivoted and listened to podcasts and made every change I could think of and pivoted (did I mention that I PIVOTED) and it’s like I now don’t exist. I am invisible.

It’s only in my more whole moments that I remember that the Kingdom of God’s view of success is not money and numbers and that I’m fully loved and I don’t have to prove anything to anyone.

And also, something my Dad said to me when I was have a self-pity party. I had made the comment to him that I felt like my books were collecting dust and my courses were collecting virtual dust and he said this to me (that you better believed I wrote in my journal and then in my Notes on my phone):

You see your books collecting dust. I see stardust. It’s all the people you’ve touched. What you do matters. God sees you. He knows you’re still there. You are an asset. And he’ll tell you what’s next.

But so I realized that in those four stages of retirement, I’ve been in phase two for a couple years…okay a few years…because I’ve been in denial… phase two being losses and feeling lost. Again, the five losses are routine, identity, purpose, relationships, and power. He said it can take some time to notice these things are lost and to process your feelings of lost-ness without these things.

And I’ve been struggling to gain any traction into phase three – trial and error, trying new things – I think, for several reasons:

1, as I just mentioned, I am still in denial and grief that my ministry has basically ended, at least that variation of it

2, I still cannot believe that my children are adults. I cannot believe it. My heart and mind just cannot seem to catch up with reality. I loved being a mother so much and I grieve deep down pretty much all of the time that those years are over. I guess I’m in retirement from motherhood as well.

3, Like I said, I feel invisible and unneccesary.  From what I understand, many women my age can feel this way.

4, I’m on about year two of insomnia, which means I am physically and mentally tired a good portion of every day, leaving me uninspired to start or even try new things.

5, I’m still mentally and physically recovering from a year+ of daily fatigue and/or pain from the 8-10 things I had in 2023.

and 6, I’ve talked about this one before in episode 23 of my podcast, and it’s actually perhaps a bit opposite from what I hear many women say…what I hear is the trope that women either raised their children and now don’t know themselves at all and forgot about ever dreaming or they worked full-time out of necessity and are eager to try something new that they enjoy. This was not my experience in my 20s, 30s and 40s. I genuinely believe that my every personal and career dream came true, and I legitimately cannot think of another frontier I want to explore. I’m all out of dreams.

But I’m feeling listless and I’m recovering from my year of bad health and my husband’s retiring and I’m trying to figure out what’s next for me.

Let me first share some quotes:

Revel in the smallness of your life.
This is who you are.
This is what you have to give.
Tend the small stream that is yours to nurture
so that you can love your people well.
My life is better when it’s smaller and slower. -Shauna Niequist

I am free to dream small. -Emily P. Freeman

I am doing enough. I am in God’s will.
Lord, please help me believe it and
live my life authentically and in freedom. -me

Only you and I need to love your life;
only you and I need to be okay with your choices.
-Jesus, to me, on a walk, 10.13.2022

And there is a part of me that genuinely believes I hustled enough to earn enough crowns to lay at Christ’s feet…and what I mean by that it is this: if I sat on the couch every day for the rest of my life I’d still be loved and enough as a human being.

And yet, I mean, I’m still breathing. And I’m healthy enough. And I’m only in my early 50s. And I may have 30 more years to go.

So I think I’m straddling the grieving phase of my work fizzling out and my daily mothering ending, which remains so painful because I just want to help every woman in the world who is in a hard marriage or who is going through a divorce, but I just can’t seem to find them anymore and they just don’t seem to know I’m here anymore…again…invisible…and I still want to be so up in my kids’ business every single day but I can’t because, you know, unhealthy… But so I’m straddling the grieving phases and the what-else-is-out-there-for-me phase because I don’t really think I’m done-done, right?

So I grabbed a book called Women at Halftime by my former Redbud Writers Guild buddy, Shayne Moore, and that was helpful.

And I’m trying things like the food pantry at our church. And I tried a mentoring group last year but ended up tapping out because of my health. And I met with my pastor and a connections director to share my story and to offer my services to women at our church.

But mostly, I’m asking God.

One question from the Women at Halftime book that stood out for me the most was this: Can I believe God has a deployment for me?

I had an idea what the word deployment meant but I looked it up and the Oxford definition is: the action of bringing resources into effective action

I love that.

And for me, I think the question I have to grapple with is can I believe God has a redeployment for me?

He had a deployment for me. Actually, many many deployments. And I’m so very grateful for this ridiculously meaningful and purposeful life I’ve lived so far.

But did I use them all up already? At my age, with my low energy levels and increasing social anxiety and increasing desire for solitude and just being at home pretty much all the time, does he want to still use me? Can I get over all of those humps that I listed before…all those reasons I think I’m stuck and all the things that I tell myself about my body and energy and personality? And also maybe it’s okay that my life is smaller now and the things that are what I consider to be impediments are actually how He’s created me for this season of my life?

I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not in phase four of the rest of my life yet.

And it’s okay if you don’t know either. You’re so not alone. I feel kind of alone in this so I wanted to share all this as vulnerable as it is to say you feel invisible and unnecessary because I don’t want anyone else to feel alone in this either.

So here’s what I’m doing.

I get up every morning. I drink my water and make my smoothie and spend time with God in Scripture and journaling and I do my pt exercises and go for my walk and try to be a good wife and mom/stepmom/mil-via-text and friend and gramma, and I’m doing the things in front of me, and I’m reading some books and listening to some podcasts and I’m going to keep asking God, what’s next? Because that’s all I know to do.

And I recommend that for you too. Keep doing the things in your life that you know you should be doing. Ask God if there’s anything you can stop doing. Ask God if there’s anything he’d like you to try. Tell a friend you’re trying to figure all this out. And keep walking.

REPOST: All the Hard Things I Need to Say But Don’t

“You are not your client’s friend.”  I’m not??

“Say the things that no one else is saying to her.”  But I don’t want to. I want to just tell her she’s amazing and to keep going and Jesus loves her and I think she’s cute. 

I’ve had a few clients who have made choices I wouldn’t make, who made choices I thought were not just wrong but really, really wrong.

I’m not the best coach for clients like this because I’m not great at saying those super hard things that I know they won’t want to hear.

So, I thought it might be helpful for me to say a few things that I’ve wanted to say over the years here in black and white to get it all out of my system.

1. No, you do not have biblical grounds to divorce.

Because not being quote-unquote happy or not feeling like you can quote-unquote be yourself with him or he doesn’t do your honey-do list or take you on dates (et cetera, et cetera) are not biblical grounds to end your covenant of marriage.

2. I’m sure the man you’re dating is great, but…

You’re not divorced yet, which means you are still married, which means you are being unfaithful.
or
You just got divorced and you are nowhere near ready to move on yet and dating too soon will hijack your healing and put your heart, your children and your future relationship in jeopardy, no matter how okay you already feel.
or
You’ve done zero work on grieving or processing your first marriage and your hope that some man can come into your life and make everything better will only hurt you (and him and your children) in the long run.
or
He doesn’t share your faith, which means you two would be unequally yoked, which Scripture warns against because God loves you and your heart matters to him and it will be more painful than you’re imagining now; even if he treats you better than your last husband.
or
No, just because you had sex already with your first husband or you’re a grown-up doesn’t make the “do not commit fornication” Scripture invalid. You should still not be having sex if you’re not married.
or
The point of your life is not to find a (good) man and get married or remarried. It’s to fall in love with Jesus and let him lead you and fill you up and transform you and use you to be a light.

3. Happiness is not the point of life.

Happiness is great, but happiness (root word: happen, happening) is fleeting. Instead, pursue Jesus, pursue holiness, pursue wholeheartedness (spiritually, relationally, mentally, emotionally, physically), and joy and contentment and, yes, even happiness can follow.

If you aim your arrow towards happy, you’ll rarely hit the target and spend your life in disappointment and even resentment. If you reach for Jesus and his love, he will walk you through everything and bring a depth to your life that you will never regret.

If you’ve been a client and I’ve ever left you off the hook with some watered-down message, I’m so very sorry. I will have to account for all the words I’ve said but also for all the words I’ve withheld out of fear.

And if you’re in need of some support, coaching and prayer – and you’re still willing to work with me after reading all this harshness!, start by filling out this coaching questionnaire.

Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm. -Proverbs 13:20

 

FREE (OR SUPER AFFORDABLE) RESOURCES:

wholeness help:
*my podcast – All That to Say: https://anchor.fm/elisabeth-klein
*Facebook group for all women: https://elisabethklein.com/join-wholehearted-group/
*NEW 5 questions to ask when feeling stuck: https://elisabethklein.com/5-questions-unstuck/
*top 10 tips for taking care of you: https://elisabethklein.com/top-ten-tips/
*Rumors of You (never-before-released) book: https://elisabethklein.com/rumors-of-you-book/
*Sixteen guided meditations: https://elisabethklein.com/guided-meditations/
*ALL COURSES now PAY WHAT YOU WANT: ⁠https://bit.ly/PAY-WHAT-YOU-WANT-FOR-ALMOST-EVERYTHING
*fill out this coaching survey and I’ll respond with a custom coaching proposal: bit.ly/how-is-your-life-working

in a difficult marriage?
*if you’re not safe or if you or your children are being physically or sexually hurt, please set up a safety plan (http://www.ncdsv.org/images/DV_Safety_Plan.pdf) and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233)
*my podcast – All That to Say: https://anchor.fm/elisabeth-klein
*marriage assessment: http://bit.ly/marriage-assessment
*Surviving in a Difficult Christian Marriage e-book: https://elisabethklein.com/books
*14-Day Marriage Challenge: https://elisabethklein.com/marriage-challenge-2/
*my 3-month e-course, Marriage Methods (now PAY WHAT YOU CAN): https://bit.ly/marriage-methods-pwyc
*if you’re in a difficult marriage with biblical grounds to divorce and you’re trying to decide whether to stay or go: my 5-week e-course, Decision Time (now PAY WHAT YOU CAN): https://bit.ly/PAY-WHAT-YOU-WANT-FOR-ALMOST-EVERYTHING

separated or divorced or single mom?
*my podcast – All That to Say: https://anchor.fm/elisabeth-klein
*grab my book, Unraveling: Hanging Onto Faith Through the End of a Christian Marriage: bit.ly/UnravelingMarriage
*Lies We Tell Ourselves webcast: https://elisabethklein.com/lies-we-tell/
*Surviving as a Christian Single Mom: www.elisabethklein.com/books
*my 3-month e-course, Heartbreak to Hope (now PAY WHAT YOU CAN): https://bit.ly/Heartbreak-to-Hope-pwyc
*Are You Ready to Date quiz: https://elisabethklein.com/partner-quiz/