There are seasons when choosing yourself feels almost like betrayal.
You have spent so much of your life being available. You answer the phone. You show up. You fix what is broken. You carry what other people put down. You pray for everybody else before you ever get around to saying, “God, I’m tired too.” And because you love people, you can convince yourself that constantly giving is the same thing as being faithful.
But sometimes God will interrupt that pattern.
Sometimes the door that keeps closing is not rejection. Sometimes the relationship that becomes uncomfortable is exposing how much of yourself you have been abandoning just to keep the peace. Sometimes your body gets tired before your mouth is brave enough to admit that something has to change.
I used to think choosing myself meant I was becoming selfish. I know now there is a difference between selfishness and stewardship.
You are also someone God entrusted to your care.
You can love people and still have limits.
That sentence sounds simple until you have built an identity around being needed.
Women are often celebrated for how much we can carry. We are called strong when we keep going, dependable when we never say no, and faithful when we remain in places that are draining us. Eventually, strength can become a costume we are afraid to take off.
But a boundary is not a declaration that you do not love someone. Sometimes it is the most truthful thing you can offer.
You can say, “I love you, but I cannot keep doing this.” You can forgive someone without giving them the same access to you. You can pray for a person and still stop allowing their chaos to become your daily environment. You can be a woman of faith and admit that something is affecting your mental health.
None of those things cancel your relationship with God.
There are times when obedience looks like leaving.
We talk a lot about staying. Staying committed. Staying faithful. Staying the course.
And there are absolutely seasons when God calls us to remain.
But staying is not automatically holy.
There are also moments when God is trying to lead you forward and you keep returning to what He has already shown you is unhealthy because it is familiar. Familiarity can feel safer than freedom when freedom requires you to become someone you have never been before.
Choosing yourself may mean disappointing people who benefited from the version of you who had no boundaries. It may mean becoming comfortable with being misunderstood. It may mean no longer explaining every decision to people who have already decided how they want to interpret you.
That part can hurt.
But peace sometimes comes with a price: you have to stop negotiating with the very things that keep taking it from you.
Your mental health matters to God too.
Faith and emotional wellness should never have been enemies.
Prayer is powerful. So is admitting that you need rest. Scripture is powerful. So is having an honest conversation with someone you trust. Worship is powerful. So is counseling when you need help processing what you have lived through.
Needing support does not make your faith weak.
There are wounds we pray through, and there are wounds we also need to talk through. There are moments when the most spiritual thing you can do is tell the truth about how you are really doing.
God does not only care about what you produce, who you help, how well you lead, or how much you can endure. He cares about you.
The whole you.
Maybe choosing yourself looks quieter than you expected.
Maybe it is going to bed instead of answering one more email.
Maybe it is making the doctor's appointment.
Maybe it is saying no without writing a paragraph explaining why.
Maybe it is returning to therapy.
Maybe it is spending an afternoon doing absolutely nothing productive and refusing to feel guilty about it.
Maybe it is finally admitting that a relationship, environment, position or expectation is costing you more than you are willing to continue paying.
Maybe it is learning to hear your own voice again.
I am learning that choosing yourself does not always mean making a dramatic exit. Sometimes it is simply making a different decision today than the one that kept hurting you yesterday.
And sometimes God requires it.
Not because He is teaching you to care less about other people.
Because He is teaching you that love was never supposed to require the disappearance of you.
You can be generous without emptying yourself. You can serve without sacrificing your sanity. You can forgive without returning to dysfunction. You can love God deeply and still protect your peace.
And when the season comes when God requires you to choose yourself, do not confuse the guilt you feel with a warning from Him.
Sometimes guilt is simply what it feels like to break an old pattern.
Choose healing. Choose honesty. Choose healthy boundaries. Choose the help you need. Choose the life God is calling you forward into.
And this time, do not leave yourself behind.
— Kristal Parks
The Voice of a First Lady