I feel like this is going to be a hard post to write.
I think I've said that on here before, but this post's subject matter has been a huge regret for me for a long time.
March 21st, 2018 was the day that I chose to resign from New Hope Uganda, the place that had been my home for four years.
To be honest, I had to look up the exact date. But the emotions of this anniversary season have been swirling and churning in me pretty hard the past week or so. And that's probably a big part of why I slept little the last two nights.
So, to back up a bit - as I said at the end of my last post, the psychiatrist in town suggested extending my sick leave by two more weeks, into mid-March. Six weeks is more than New Hope usually allowed for sick leave in a year, but they made a special allowance in my case.
Again, I tried going back into the office around the 14th of March ... and it was a real struggle for me. Words like "feeling incapable" and "it's a fight with the enemy" are in the journal pages I looked back on briefly this morning. From the time of my breakdown in the end of January to the middle of March, I tried going back to the office and getting back into my old normal routine three or four times - and every time it resulted in a crash of mood and emotional energy.
Finally, on the 20th, Geoff and Mary, who were walking with me most closely through the whole thing, sat me down and had what I'm sure was a hard conversation for them to initiate.
'Esther, you're not getting any better ... Esther, we can't just keep pushing out your return to work date by two weeks ... Esther, maybe you need to go back to the States where you can have easier access to the professional help you need."
Knowing them, I'm positive they didn't say this lightly or without much prayer.
They had been walking with me through the ups and downs of the roller coaster ride I was on for six weeks. They knew more than anyone else just what I was dealing with.
I have to be careful here, because what they said and what I heard are probably two quite different things. I don't have exact quotes for what words they said, but I'm pretty sure the above paraphrase is accurate.
But what my fragile soul heard was more like "Esther, you're a burden. You're a drain on our ministry, and you need to resign and leave so that we can move on."
The thing that still galls and hurts me is that it felt like nobody fought for me to stay. Not those top leaders who supposedly loved me, not my supervisor, not my mentor, not Geoff and Mary. It's like they were all tired of wrestling with my mental health journey, and wanted me to go be somebody else's problem.
And yes, there's a bitterness there that I haven't found healing from yet. Well - I know what my counselor and I will be talking about in our next session!
I could end this post there, in the midst of the hurt and the tears ... but I don't believe that's the full story. I choose to believe that those brothers and sisters in Christ did/do love me, that they were doing their best to listen to God and advise me in making decisions that would be most helpful to me in the long run.
But oh, my - the short-term effects were painful.
So Geoff and Mary talked to me about it on the 20th, and they asked me to take some time to pray about it. I didn't journal anything about it in my main journal, but I think maybe I did in my quiet time journal (yes, I have lots of journals).
In sharing with a friend this week about what I was dealing with emotionally, I realized that I couldn't remember for sure if the resignation step originated from me or from Geoff and Mary. I think it came from them, but I'm just not positive anymore.
Because that is what has been my #1 regret (other than the whole mental breakdown situation happening at all) - why did I have to resign? Why couldn't I have just come back to the States for a few months of more intensive counseling/psychiatric care and then gone back? Why did it have to be all or nothing?
Mentally, I believe I know the answer to that. January 2018 had just seen me return from my longest furlough (over four months) in the four years (New Hope encouraged singles to go home every Christmas, so I had been back in the States at least six weeks each year). The recently appointed member care person in the States and his wife had met with me in June 2017, and they knew I was stressed. They were the ones advocating for a longer furlough (four+ instead of the three months I originally planned). But, to be honest, the follow through/assistance wasn't great there, even though they very kindly opened their home to me for several days in December 2017.
Realistically, looking back, I can see that probably a quick turnaround wouldn't have worked. Reality is that it took me an entire year from major breakdown to eventual settling.
But emotionally, it's still very hard - that my mental/emotional struggles cost me the family and life in Uganda that I loved!!!
I HATE being a burden to people. And so when my soul heard that in what Geoff and Mary were, I'm sure, trying to say in the most loving way they possibly could, well ... I wrestled with it some, but I was done. The next morning they came over to my place and we talked it over a little more, and then I went into the office and talked to my supervisor and wrote my letter of resignation. Even the writing of it was so hard, I didn't want to do it, even though I knew it's what I needed to do so that I wouldn't be a burden anymore.
As I told my counselor the last time we met, I feel like I ruined my life by what happened in 2018. Even though I know that's not true, even though God has so graciously brought me back into a work-family and job that I LOVE, at this point in my life it feels like I'll always regret resigning from New Hope. Saying goodbye to my home of four years was painful!!
I'm sorry this post is so heavy and negative. But there is a wrestling with the effects of mental illness, and this is the weightiness of that.
This post also wouldn't be complete without saying that I got to see Geoff and Mary again, just recently!!! It was *amazing* to see them again, to give them big hugs, and to just sit and talk in person and catch up. They were in the Dallas area just for a couple days for a wedding, and very kindly took a couple hours to stop and see me at my office :) So no, I'm not debilitated by bitterness towards them. But there are painful questions that I didn't ask ... but that I probably need to.
All that to say ... I didn't know what song I was going to put on this post, but as I wrote this one came to mind. Even if, worst case scenario that I doubt is true, Geoff and Mary and everyone else really did cast me off, there's a greater ONE who will never stop fighting for me. His love is boundless, and He never grows weary. Praise Him!!
Written March 24, 2021
P.S. I'm about to "release" this post on my Facebook page connected with this blog. But I couldn't let it go as is without adding an addendum. Because before I visited Uganda in August, I did have a long Zoom chat with Geoff and Mary - and I did ask those hard questions that I hadn't mustered up the courage to ask in person.
In a way, I didn't get a definitive answer. They couldn't remember either whether they suggested that I resign or whether that was my idea. But they did communicate clearly in that most recent conversation with them that what they did was out of love. And I found healing in that.
I also found so much emotional closure and healing from my visit back to Uganda. But that is the subject of a future blog post; one that I have already written but that will be published here when its chronological turn comes!
Written Oct. 30, 2021
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