This week’s podcast is about the value and need for sabbaticals. There’s just no doubt that the past few years have drained us! Who isn’t exhausted? Who isn’t depleted?
If we think that a weekend away Is enough to help us return to our former selves, then we are in for a crash and burn!
Steve talks with Mary Vandel Young and her husband Jason, about their journey of needing, planning, and taking a sabbatical. This is not a “ how to” podcast. It’s much deeper than that!
Mary Vandel Young’s passion for transformational ministry and soul care has guided her participation, study, leadership and ministry in the area of Christian spiritual formation for more than 20 years. God blessed Mary’s life with Journey Mates in 2006 and has served as Executive Director since 2012.Mary graduated from Baylor University in 1990. She served on Young Life staff nationally and internationally until 2000 and completed a M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary in 2003.
Dr. Jason Young has been working as a psychotherapist since 1997, and has worked in full-time private practice since 2005. Dr. Young has extensive experience, academically and clinically, in the integration of Psychology and Theology. His areas of therapeutic expertise are men’s issues, anxiety, depression, sexual trauma, marital conflict, crises of faith, stressors related to pastoral ministry, and sports psychology.
Mary and Jason live in Raleigh, NC and have two teenage sons, Luke and Tobias, and a precious Shi-Tzu named Petey.
When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight,
The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laboursome events of will.
Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.
The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.
You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken for the race of days.
At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.
You have travelled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of colour
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.
Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.
Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.
We depend on your support to carry on the ministry of Potter's Inn. Each of our ministry staff also raise their own financial support for salaries to serve with our team.
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