Should know better, but...

Yesterday was a fourteen-hour work day. Got home at 11:30 p.m., having started with an 8:30 a.m. Bible study, with an hour off or so for dinner. And today's weariness is nobody's fault but my own.

Granted, there was a lot to do: conversations with people, phone calls to return, a worship bulletin to finish, appointments to set up, an annual report to finish, a couple of meetings to attend, to say nothing of the prep work for Sunday morning. Sometimes I wish sermons and lesson plans would fall out of the air, but they don't. And I refuse to steal them from the internet.

Last night I had three hours of complete quiet at the office after everybody else was gone, and I was able to get four hours of work done. Three piles on my desk were reduced to two. Ah, the arithmetic of overwork!

And in my business, nobody sees the invisible stress that accumulates. If you are blessed to serve a church where people have a lot of opinions, you have to listen to them all. If the members of your flock stop by to confess their heart-break, you gotta pay attention to each one. I confess that I am weary. One friend had surgery, another is coping with serious cancer treatments, and two wonderful friends are having deep trouble with their marriage. The trick is to care without becoming consumed. Even so, the load feels heavy.

So this morning, I slept in until 8. Actually it was more like 6:30, with a bit of snoozing and snoring for the next hour and a half.

After a couple of snorts of Starbucks House Blend, I'm back at it. Spend an hour with a book, catch up with some e-mails, and work on a slide show for the church's annual meeting. I know it's my day off, but if I get it done by noon, maybe I can chill out for a while in the afternoon.

Oops, forgot I had a haircut scheduled today! Guess I was too busy doing the Lord's work.