My Spouse is Thriving in the Risk Situation, but I Am Not!

This statement is not an uncommon experience typically of women in ongoing risk situations. While both men and women have a much higher susceptibility of burnout in risk, it's more often found that a husband thrives in his responsibilities, even as the physical risks increase. The excitement, adrenaline...these all make his work feel all the more significant and important.

However, often in risk, women and children have a harder time.  There are usually more restrictions on movement, less freedom in decision-making (the security situation does not allow you to go there), and the pressure of threat against them and the possibility of the children being negatively impacted weighs heavily all day long on the wife as she cares for the children. Because she has more restrictions, she may feel less significant than her husband, also decreasing her normal resiliency.  

For those who haven't lived long-term in risk, it may be easy to become judgmental of her lack of thriving.  However, living long term in a place being impacted by terrorism, persecution, government intrusion can be life-draining for many.  Even if someone is thriving in this type of circumstance, it is still exhausting.  It is not uncommon for workers to take a short weekend break from this type of situation (a break in a neighboring country, for example), to sleep the first 15 hours away.  

If she is unequipped to process her emotions, (confusion often surrounds the risk situation), if she lacks clarity on their combined calling, if there is a faith crisis, or simply, she has become exhausted from the ongoing struggle to do well in risk, (risk is exhausting) she often has an increasingly difficult time thriving in the risk situation.  Once mom isn't doing well, children begin having a harder time, and then the work of the husband is detrimentally influenced by the negative spiral in the family home.

Learning to "strengthen oneself in the Lord" as David did is a skill we don't often teach or model well.  Also increasing the skill of discerning spiritual reality - what she does and how she does it in the risk situation has an incredibly deep and long-lasting impact on all the locals and expatriates watching.  While she may "feel" less significant, that is definitely not the reality.  How can a wife learn to these skills of strengthening oneself, discerning spiritual reality, and seeing her impact while thriving joyfully in risk until she is called out?  How to we come along side someone struggling in risk, without sounding judgmental or superficially spiritual?

Often times, it is best simply to listen and empathize, and wait to be asked for input, especially if we are providing pastoral care to someone in this situation but we ourselves haven't lived it.  Affirmation is a significant tool to use, and when the time comes, practical advice on how to have bigger margins of time, energy, cultural capacity, and mental/emotional reserve for risk and crisis.


What I mean by this is we often take either the SYIS (Sharpening Your Interpersonal Skills Workshop) or Henry Cloud's material on Boundaries and simply discuss margin in the areas of time, energy, and money. But the risk situation requires even wider boundaries than normal, because the risk and accompanying crisis require their own reserve.  In such places, the culture is not the easiest because of the terrorism abounding. This means workers need to increase their margin for cultural interaction, so that they can be gracious, loving, and wise in time allocation.

Yes, this will mean less "work" will be done, but in reality, workers are often more effective tools in the Father's hands, because they become more focused on what he really wants them to do, and they have less energy for all the extraneous activities. The "excellent" replaces the "good."

A lot of times we tend to be too spiritual and even concerned about theological correctness when caring for someone in risk, when instead, what is needed is a party and a way to relax. In a relaxed atmosphere, when a sense of normalcy is felt, people often naturally refocus and better hear the Holy Spirit speaking inside them or through another in the community.

Having regular periods of relaxation increase resiliency, even though there is more to be done with less people.  We actually increased the number of parties we held as the risks increased, because we needed to spend time with our "sheep" to see how they were doing and help them relax. 

We did something crazy - we chose to pay for an above-ground swimming pool during one difficult time in Afghanistan.  It probably cost us $1000 over a 10-week period for all the chemicals and materials needed to maintain the pool for the children during a long season of restrictions.  However, we reasoned that $1000 was a lot cheaper than years of paying for clinical counseling for our children.  To this day, my children view Afghanistan as FUN and HOME.

I enjoyed sitting by the pool watching the kids - it gave me time to relax and easy entertainment watching their antics.  I invited other moms and children every afternoon from 1-4pm to come and hang out at the pool, so that we could together decrease the sense of isolation we all felt. It helped us to refocus ourselves, be in community, and simply relax and enjoy what was an extremely stress-filled situation. We talked, shared, laughed, and encouraged each other - there wasn't heavy counseling or theological discussion, but a shared sense of significance that we were making it through for His Name Sake.  We were all pretty aware we were not leaving without paying a huge price - many in the community were running a low-grade situational depression, but it didn't mean an absence of joy, it was just HARD.  But it was joyful - and we saw people coming to Christ in numbers never-before seen.

The risk moment is an honor to steward, and it is that - something to steward carefully. Because it is a significant way He pushes His kingdom forward, we need to become men and women more aware of His leading in the risk moment so we can thrive joyfully as circumstances become more challenging.