Efforting
written by Felicia Schneiderhan
I left our meeting for So Big feeling out of sorts, a general uneasiness within. I love our group. I love what we read and our discussions. This is one of the most valuable things I do right now. But I’m never quite comfortable being a leader of a group of twelve wonderful women. I often leave feeling like I haven’t quite lived up to my responsibility to these women who read the books each month with such care, such depth, and then come together in friendship. We share our experience with the book, yes, but also with life. Every month, these women show such vulnerability and depth. Who am I to lead such a group? What am I even doing there, anyway?
To be honest, it’s a common feeling that takes away from most of our monthly meetings, more than two years into leading this group.
This time, rather than ruminating, I did something different: I reached out to Jamie Carlson, Director of Group Leader Development. She generously scheduled a phone call with me later that week.
Jamie asked me to tell her about our group. We range from our forties to our seventies. Most of us are Catholic, though not all. We open with prayer, listen to the audio, then each woman shares something of her experience with the book. We talk casually, following the flow of discussion. We wrap up on time, closing with the audio and a final prayer. We share our journeys through some tough situations. We laugh a lot. We have become prayer sisters. So why do I feel like I’m floundering? What am I missing?
I truly expected Jamie to give me a ten-point list of to-dos. Just do this, and you will be a glowing success and feel good about all your work to make this happen.
Instead, she said, Well, it sounds like you’ve created a place of belonging. Would you say that’s true?
Yes, I said. I did feel it was true.
Well, maybe that’s enough, she said.
Wait, that’s enough? It can’t be. Don’t I have to be doing something more? Don’t I have to be efforting?
And yes, efforting is a verb for people like me, and maybe for you, too. Overachieving women who do a lot. We effort. In all this efforting, we forget to step aside and make room for the Holy Spirit. I mean, who’s really doing all the work here?
Efforting also falls under the category of: I need to earn my way into heaven. I need to earn my way into God’s good graces. I need to earn my right to be human.
I forget every time that it is a gift to receive.
And like many things I’ve come to experience through Well-Read Mom, that simple, lovely conversation with Jamie contains a much larger spiritual lesson. The false belief is that if I just try harder, I will somehow achieve enoughness. That, too, is a word among us overachieving women. And if you know it, you know there’s no way to ever achieve it. Because it’s a lie. A dangling carrot to make us keep striving for something that is simply unattainable. The real heartbreak is that I can fall into the trap of believing it’s God who dangles the carrot. If you just do this one more thing, you will be enough and get the prize. I forget that the prize is already here; it’s already been given. The prize is God’s mercy and love, the gift of our Lord, and in order to receive it, I must admit my brokenness. My imperfection. My humanness. I must ask to be made whole through and in Him. There is only one way for me, and this is it.
And so here I am, a broken group leader. An imperfect, self-conscious, not always the smartest, and a little too vulnerable leader of twelve women. Twelve beautiful women who inspire me daily, whether they know it or not, because every time I pick up this month’s book to read, I think of them reading it, too. What will be different when I go to this month’s meeting? I’ll still pray before I go. I might still feel really, really nervous. But with this new perspective, truly rooted in the One who is doing the real efforting, I wonder if I’ll feel more relaxed. If I’ll leave with a sense of feeling whole and enough.
Because there is only One source of enough, and His belonging is for all of us.
About Felicia Schneiderhan
Felicia Schneiderhan is an award-winning writer, editor, and teacher. Her memoir Newlyweds Afloat, tells the mariner’s tale of living aboard a thirty-eight-foot trawler, Mazurka, in downtown Chicago with her husband, Mark. Today, she and Mark live on Lake Superior’s North Shore (on land) with their three tsunamis.
About Well-Read Mom
In Well-Read Mom, women read more and read well. Our hope is to deepen the awareness of meaning hidden in each woman’s daily life, elevate the cultural conversation, and revitalize reading literature from books. If you would like to have us help you select worthy reading material, we invite you to join and read along with us. We are better together! For information on how to start or join a Well-Read Mom group visit our website wellreadmom.com
