She pressed a key into my hand.
There were tears in my tired eyes. “What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s how I’m going to help you,” my Senior Tutor replied. She led the way across the corridor from her office to a small room and motioned for me to unlock the door.

“No-one knows you have this, but it’s yours,” she smiled. “Use it wisely.”

The senior tutor at St. John’s College was a great friend of mine. She was one of the most intelligent women I had ever met, but certainly never dwelt within some ivory tower of academia. We used to roar with inappropriate laughter in the local tea rooms and occasionally cry on riverside walks. She was a very special woman. And, as it turned out, a great ally.

She could see I needed help.
I’d got myself into a damaging rut.
The thing is, I love people. But I had allowed myself and my life to become so full of others and their needs that I had become utterly swamped.

At one stage, I had chairs outside my room for people ‘waiting’ to see me. (No joke) It got around.
All sorts of people came. Students from other colleges started turning up to talk to me.

At first, I enjoyed it. It felt good. I mean, who doesn’t like being appreciated? I chatted to people with depression, aggression, repression, you name it. I even had a number of conversations with a rather eccentric girl who claimed she had a guardian angel called Saul. That she could actually see. Oh… and hear. Yup. I had all sorts.

The funniest one was a young guy who asked me to teach him how to kiss by practical means. Cheeky blighter!

But I soon began to resent that most of my day seemed to be spent with fairly miserable people needing love and encouragement. No-one really seemed to want to be with me, for ME. But I carried on, thinking it was my Christian duty.

In the end, my Senior Tutor stepped in. She was worried about my health. She even wrote to my department, explaining how much pressure I was under and could they please be lenient if I failed my exams. (She was too kind to say it was all self-imposed.) She gave me a room to hide in, if ever I needed it.

The truth is that I needed those people to need me. It gave me value and worth to think I could help others. Deep down I didn’t rate myself all that highly. Needy people pushed my self- worth button.

I wince a bit now to think how much I brought on myself.
I’ve learnt alot since then. Primarily that I am not ACTUALLY Jesus. (or even a secret member of the Trinity!)

God doesn’t need me to run things for Him on a ‘fast news day’. Yes, I can be useful to Him, but I have to serve from a place of worth, rather than worthlessness. I need to be able to say no, and to distinguish those He wants me to help, from those He does not.

I have learnt that I need to be ‘kneaded’ by God first. Let me explain:
When you knead bread you do three things to it:

1. You distribute the yeast
2. You develop the gluten
3. You introduce air

Yeast is, of course the active ingredient in bread that allows it to rise fully. Gluten enables it to stretch and air gives it lightness.

Translating those principles into life, God needs us to ‘rise’ to our full potential, to be even- tempered and consistent in our reactions and responses. He needs to give us the ability to stretch in the directions He choses for us, giving us all we need to do so. Finally, He wants us to be filled with the lightness that only His spirit brings.

I am no longer a burden to anyone because I do not collapse under the weight of other people’s trauma, or my own. I live in lightness, even on days where people share deep and painful things with me.

I just need to be regularly kneaded.