Sent Back to the Couch

I have a joke I make whenever my body decides it's had enough of me.

Fifteen surgeries. Sepsis. More hospital bracelets than I could ever begin to count. And when I end up flat on my back again, I usually say, "Well, here we go. Sent back to the couch."

It usually gets a laugh. Honestly, sometimes you either laugh or you throw a pillow across the room.

But it's taken me almost fifty-eight years to understand what was hiding underneath that joke.

During chemo, I remember standing outside the bathroom, holding onto the doorframe because I didn't have enough strength left to walk the last few feet to the toilet. A few feet. That's it. And I had to stop and catch my breath like I'd run a marathon. There were days I was too weak to shower by myself. Couldn't make dinner. Couldn't fold laundry. Couldn't take care of a single other person. Couldn't do one single thing I'd always used to prove I was needed.

And I remember thinking, as clearly as if I'd said it right out loud:

What good am I to anyone like this?

I wish I could tell you that's a dramatic line I added later because it makes the story stronger. It isn't. That's what I actually wondered, sitting on a bathroom floor, with a body that had stopped listening to a single thing I asked of it.

Cancer was already taking plenty from me. But what I didn't understand yet was that it was also digging up something I'd been carrying for a very long time. Somewhere along the way, I'd tied my worth to what I could do.

How much I could get done. How well I could take care of everyone else. Basically — how useful I could make myself.

And when I couldn't do those things anymore, even temporarily, I honestly didn't know who I was.

Maybe you know that feeling too. Maybe illness changed what your body can do. Maybe grief took the energy you used to have. Maybe you're caring for someone you love, and by the end of the day there's simply nothing left. Or maybe life just got heavier than you expected, and the person you used to be feels very far away right now.

When our worth gets tied to our productivity, losing the ability to produce can feel like losing yourself.

It has taken me years to untangle that one.

Counseling helped. Coaching helped. Prayer helped. And apparently I needed to circle the same truth about four hundred times before it finally started sinking in.

I am His.

That's the whole sentence.

Not, I am His when I'm productive. Not, I am His as long as I'm helping everyone. Not, I am His after I answer the emails, finish the laundry, make dinner, and become a generally pleasant human being again.

Just this:

I am His.

And that's enough.

I'd love to tell you I learned that lesson once, on the bathroom floor, and never struggled with it again.

That would make a lovely ending. It would also be a flat-out lie.

Old beliefs are stubborn, and we live in a world that never stops telling us to do more, try harder, wake up earlier, and apparently drink something green before the sun's even up. (Yuck.)

So yes — I've had to learn this lesson again. And again.

A few months ago I got the stomach flu. Not a cute little twenty-four-hour bug. I mean the kind that puts you in the recliner for four days and turns walking to the kitchen into an athletic event.

Normally, even sick, I'd have tried to keep things moving.

I'd have answered "just one" email.
I'd have decided I could probably throw in a load of laundry while I was up anyway.
I might have tried to make something for dinner, even if that something was toast.
Because apparently laundry and feeding people have always been my own personal measure of whether I was still contributing to society.

But this time...I didn't.

I stayed in the recliner. And I mean stayed. Didn't work from the chair. Didn't sneak in a few little tasks. Didn't try to prove I was still useful while looking green around the gills.

I was sick. And for once, I just let myself be sick.

Not failing. Not falling behind. Not disappointing one single person.

Just sick.

Somewhere around day two, I noticed something that surprised me.

I didn't feel worthless. I felt held.

I knew I was still loved. Still mattered. Still His…even in the same pajamas for an unreasonable number of days, accomplishing absolutely nothing.

That might not sound like a big victory to you.

For me, it was huge.

Because the woman in that recliner wasn't the same woman who once sat on a bathroom floor during chemo, wondering what good she was to anybody.

That woman had done some healing.

Not perfectly. Not all at once. And certainly not without relearning the same lesson roughly four hundred more times.

But something had changed.

I still don't enjoy being sent back to the couch. After fifteen surgeries, sepsis, cancer treatment, lymphedema, and every other surprise my body has handed me over the years, I would honestly appreciate God teaching me a few of these lessons somewhere else. A beach, maybe. With snacks.

But I'm beginning to understand that rest is not punishment.

Needing help is not failure.

And a body that can't keep going is not a body without value.

I don't believe God caused every painful thing that's happened to me. But I do believe He's met me in every single one of those places.

He keeps reminding me I don't have to perform for His love. I don't have to earn my place with Him. I don't have to prove my worth by wearing myself completely out.

I am already His.

Maybe today you're the one who's been sent back to the couch. Maybe your body made that decision for you, and you are not happy about it. Maybe there's so much you want to do and so little energy left to do any of it. Maybe you're watching everyone else keep moving while you feel stuck in one place.

And maybe you need someone to say this plainly, because I know exactly how fast our minds can go somewhere else:

Needing rest doesn't make you lazy. Needing someone else to make dinner or carry the laundry or take care of things for a while doesn't make you a burden.

Your best might look different right now. That doesn't mean it counts for less.

Your worth was never measured by how much you can carry, how fast you recover, or how useful you make yourself to everyone around you.

You are loved right here.

In the unfinished work.
In the body that won't cooperate.
In the season you never would have picked.

On the couch. In the recliner. Sitting on the bathroom floor.

You are His.

And even on the days you can't do one more thing — that's still enough.

Has life ever forced you to rest before you were ready? I'd love to hear what that season taught you.

Ps. If you're currently sending your own body a strongly worded complaint letter, I've been there. Try the couch instead. It usually wins.