Anne Marie Miller

Author: Anne Marie Miller

Do You Feel Tired? Do You Need Some Joy? Maybe This Will Help.
I was shocked by her reply.

“I’m beyond burned out. I’m apathetic. I don’t even care if I can get healthy anymore.”

I’ve researched and studied about church health since 2007. I’m still requested to speak about staying healthy when you’re in the church. It should be easy: the church is the safest place in the world, right?

But when I step off a stage and talk to people, I’m learning that more and more people are going through the motions.

They’ve lost joy, they’re afraid, they’re tired, they’re sick. And it breaks my heart more than ever.

As much as I talk about staying healthy, I often find myself walking the fine line between being balanced, consistent and falling off a cliff into a hole of apathy myself.

When the holidays approached last year, my anxiety skyrocketed. I tripled my anxiety medicine. I went on a strict diet. I did all the right things just so I wouldn’t have a breakdown. Lots of time with God. Lots of time with others. And I survived.

In that season, I felt compelled to write a devotional. Something short but deep. Something based on scripture and the grace that we don’t need to DO anything for God. Practical application of what the Bible says about our health: spiritual, relational, emotional and physical.

What does the Word say about rest? About prayer? What is one teeny, tiny thing we can do each day to help us focus and return to a healthy path?

Beating Burnout: A 30-Day Guide to Hope and Health is what resulted. Mostly written in our car as we drove from Tennessee to Texas, Texas to Iowa, Iowa to Tennessee over Christmas and New Years.

It was written in real-time. The day I struggled with anger and apathy, I dug into Scripture and wrote what I felt God pressing into my heart about anger and apathy.

Today, this book officially releases. It’s my very first self-published attempt. (Side note: Self publishing is not for the faint of heart. Thank you to those who carried me through the last month when I wanted to give up seventeen times.)

But here’s what this book is:
- It’s 30 days of short reflections on all aspects of your health and a focused prayer time each week.
- It’s founded fully in scripture, and I believe that spending time in the Bible each day can only strengthen our relationship with God.
- It’s my heart to see those who have been hurt or who are hurting for and by the church healed and full of joy.
You can buy the book three ways:
- For $4.99, you get all the eBook formats: Kindle, Nook, PDF, iBook…PLUS you get the book FREE on audio. I read all the chapters so you can listen to each one for 30 days if you’d rather listen than read. This is an immediate download after you pay.
- For $7.99, you get a paperback copy (which will ship in a couple of weeks) and an immediate download of the free audio book.
- Or, for $9.99, you get all the above: the paperback in a few weeks, and instant access to the eBooks and the audio book.
All of the proceeds from the book directly go to support Tim’s and my ministry efforts of speaking, writing, and storytelling.

Thanks for letting me share this with you. If you don’t like it, I’ll give you your money back. If you love it, I hope you’ll share it with anyone you know who could maybe use a little joy and rest.

(A special thanks to Tim Miller, Lindsey Hartz, Justin Paschal, Rebecca Cooper and Alex Moore for the time you poured into this with me!)
February 4, 2014
When Joy is Hard to Come By
I’m a little late in the game (no pun intended).

My husband and I just started watching Friday Night Lights. For the longest time, I refused to lay eyes on the show. I grew up in West Texas, and the Odessa Permian Panthers (the Dillon Panthers in the show) were probably our biggest rival. My sophomore year, at a basketball game, as I was going up for a lay up, a very fast Panther power forward threw her arm into my back and slammed me into a cinderblock wall which messed my knee up badly enough I had to go to physical therapy for a year and couldn’t play basketball competitively anymore. Not watching Friday Night Lights was my boycott, my personal commitment to not give anything Panther related a second of my time.

But then we started. And you guys, if you haven’t watched Friday Night Lights and you have Amazon Prime or Netflix, just go. Take a six-week leave of absence and dive in.

Enough of that.

(But really, go watch it).

Last night, one of the characters (the QB1, or starting quarter back), Matt, had a really bad day. I won’t go into it all, but everything that could possibly go wrong, did. I think we’ve all had days like that. You maybe don’t feel the best, you get the phone call that something bad has happened, you don’t get any sleep, you were so late for church you ended up staying home, you drop everything on the floor, you lose your keys, a friend isn’t responding to you, your dog is sick, you feel like you’re a fake at your work, you take it all out on your spouse with angry crossed arms and irrational accusations.

If that isn’t you, I can assure you that the things I just described happened to me in the last three days.

Please don’t hear that as a pity party. I had my pity party. I’m okay.

But you are not alone when you’re so stressed, you want to change your name and move to Malaysia.

My mini-crises ended up with my husband loving me so beyond what I deserved, that my façade of toughness and meanness broke. Tears spilled out with words of my perceived truth. And I use the phrase “my perceived truth” because once I actually spoke my fears, my hurts, and what the voices in my head were telling me, I started to see them as the lies they were. And if I didn’t see something as a lie, Tim was there to gently direct me back to find truth again.

I was lucky. I haven’t had someone with me every time I’ve found myself so far away from joy, but in the last few years, I’ve learned something about when this happens.
- Don’t ever drink more than a couple of glasses of wine
- Talk to someone anyway
The death of a brilliant actor looms over us all, a life cut too short by an addiction to something that brings a deep sense of peace. That’s why we escape. When we look in our faces and minds and spirits and hearts and we’re far away from the God who loves us and His truth, when the pain feels like a red-hot black hole inside our chest, we want to escape it. Some do it with needles, others run into the arms of a one-night stand. I’ve used alcohol and food and sleep to run away before.

In 2011, I was physically sick from my anxiety. I layed down on cool tiles of a hotel bathroom floor in Orlando at 3 am, finally finding the courage to reach out a couple hours later. A few weeks earlier, I asked a small group of people to be my friends. It sounds clunky and unsexy, but it’s one of the best decisions I made.

Asking someone to be a friend is one thing. Telling them when you’re lost and hurting is another.

Pushing through awkward words and my greatest fear of rejection, I reached out. I got help. I was a weighty, heavy, burdened and hurt girl and I needed to be carried. My friends carried me. I could lean on them.

If you’re in that place today where you can tangibly feel the pain of lost joy searing you, or perhaps you’re so far beyond hurting that you’ve numbed yourself into apathy, please reach out.

We worry that we’re going to be a burden to someone. Here’s the catch. Not one of us is a burden.

Are the things we’re going through burdens? Maybe. But you, a person, are not a burden. You are flesh and blood and skin and bone and pain and hurt and yes, even joy. There is joy for you and you may have to fight through ten thousand armies of evil to see it again.

But you don’t have to fight alone.

***

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February 3, 2014
Struggle with Shutting Other People Out?

“God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God” (Matthew 5:9).

Stress and burnout can cause us to project our pain and exhaustion on others — usually those closest to us. Some people respond to burnout by lashing out in anger and storming around in a rage as their lives are falling apart.

Exhaustion can cause us to shut down and stop communicating with our spouse or our friends. And by “communicating,” I mean both talking and listening. We no longer feel connected to those around us, and we begin not to care about nurturing those relationships that God has placed in our lives.

After not communicating for a while, resentment can develop. Our spouses or friends may not feel comfortable opening up to us anymore, and bitterness can be formed and directed toward us, toward the church, and even toward God.

Reflect:

In Matthew 5:9, Jesus directs us to be “peacemakers.” It will take effort and intentionality on our part to bring balance back into our relationships. We are to make peace and strive for unity.

Have you cut off communication with people because you’re feeling burned out? Write down their names and a trait you admire about each one of them. Then write down a date you will contact them, making amends if necessary.

***

The above post is an excerpt (Day 9) of my book Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope and Health. It releases next Tuesday, and I’m crazy excited to share it with you!

January 31, 2014
What Questions do You Have about Church Burnout or Staying Healthy?
As many of you know, the next month or two promises to be exciting!

I’m releasing a thirty-day devotional called Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope and Health (which will be an eBook, a paperback, and a free audio book) in addition to releasing an expanded edition of my first book, Mad Church Disease: Healing from Church Burnout (as an eBook and a paperback).

It’s been so great (and yet, so heartbreaking) to write the new material.

I continue seeing how burnout is affecting sons and daughters of God.

In no way are either of these books focused on church bashing, negativity, or cynicism.

It’s my hope that they’re full of light, practical steps, and overflowing with how much God loves you and you don’t need to earn His love.

The expanded material includes:
- new chapters
- an expanded study guide
- a more in-depth burnout assessment
- plans you can print to help you get healthy
- …lots of fun things!
If you’d like to find out when Beating Burnout and Mad Church Disease are available to buy, just sign up here! (use the link if you don’t see the form below).

Healing from Burnout

*(I won’t use your email address for anything else!)

As part of the resources I’m providing, we’re shooting video interviews with pastors and leaders (and not just the ones who speak at conferences!) but local pastors here in Nashville and the surrounding area. If you are a pastor or have served in a church and have a story about burnout and health, we’d love to chat and potentially interview you, if you’d like to share your story. I married a professional videographer (lucky!) so we can come to you or you can come here, whatever works best! Just contact us.

We have a couple of interviews this week, including one with Dr. Thom Rainer, who’s the president of LifeWay Resources and has often shared about staying healthy in ministry in his own communication.

If you have a question about church burnout you’d like to have answered, or have questions about getting or staying healthy (spiritually, relationally, emotionally, or physically), it would be great if you’d leave your thoughts in the comments here.

I realize it is not easy to talk about burnout, but here’s the thing. If you’re close to it or in it, you need to talk to someone. If you know someone who’s close, you need to talk to them, support them, offer help. It’s amazing to me how, when I go somewhere to talk about burnout, people come up to me before or after my session and say, “I can’t come to your session. I’m here with my team and I don’t want them to know how close I am to losing it.”

As Christians, we feel like we have to have everything together in order to be effective for the Kingdom. This is not the case.

If we had everything together, we wouldn’t need the Cross. We wouldn’t need Jesus. When we say, “I need help,” we’re inviting in more of His love, and we’re reaching out in faith for others to help carry us.

I need you to help set this example.

May you have an amazing day and just know how much our Lord loves you!

***
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January 29, 2014
For When You Feel Overwhelmed and For When You Feel Small

First let me begin by saying, wow, you guys. The flu is a terrible, terrible thing.

I thought I caught the flu the day after New Years. I was sick a few days, then I was okay for a couple.

Then sick a few more days, and fine for the next four.

Last Sunday night, my body hurt so terribly and I felt just so awful, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I set up a doctor’s appointment. I was running a low fever and my flu test was negative. My doctor said I had pneumonia. My chest rattled when I breathed and I couldn’t stop coughing. Antibiotics, make-me-loopy cough syrup, good to go.

I woke up Tuesday afternoon and could not stop shaking. Not shivering. Shaking. I took my temperature. 101. 30 minutes later, I felt even worse. I took my temperature again. 103.3. I was on Advil and my temperature was still 103.3? A phone call later, I was on my way to the ER where I learned I didn’t have pneumonia, but I did have the flu.

This is really me at the ER. Super awesome mask!

I don’t remember much of last week, but I think I’m on the mend.

I’ve never had the flu before (and I will be getting flu shots from now on) so I had no idea something could make me stay still the way it did. I didn’t touch my computer all week. All I could do was think.

Thinking for a week is not necessarily a good thing for me. I tend to get wrapped up in layers of self-doubt, self-pity, and even some bitterness and jealousy. Even if I try to refocus my thoughts on what’s good, my tendency to reflect in everything I’ve done wrong or that I’m not doing as well as I’d like takes over.

I was tired enough because of the flu, and with my mental defenses destroyed, I found myself in a big puddle of giving up.

I wanted to give up.

No, I want to give up.

I still do.

One thing you don’t want to do while sweating through all of your clothing because of a fever is go online. If you do, and if you’re like me, you’ll end up feeling like everyone has their life put together. They hustle and you don’t want to even get up to get a Powerade, much less do any work. They post about the great people they wine and dine with, and you forget to find gratitude for the friends who rushed to the hospital to pray with you, who brought you meals and medicine.

You feel so overwhelmed and you feel so small all at the same time.

I don’t know if you’re like me, but I tend to have so much to do…I try and prove myself or reinvent myself or tell myself that if I do this or that maybe-just-maybe I’ll feel like I’ve made a difference, that I’m worth something to someone, that I’m contributing whatever it is that God gave me to contribute to this world. I preach a message that tells people about the beauty of simply being, about rest and about health, yet if I think about my to-do list, I feel sick to my stomach. I feel small and overwhelmed and because I’m not as popular as this person or because some other person who has an important title doesn’t email me back, that somehow I’m a failure.

THAT IS JUST NOT TRUE.

Maybe you’re like me (I can empathize). You work so hard to write, to share, to be a mom or a dad or a wife or a husband or a good friend and your heart burns with such fury to do just one thing that makes a difference. All the while every message you take in from the outside world, from the voices you respect (and maybe the ones people tell you that you should respect) tells you it’s not enough. If it was enough, you’d have that viral blog post, that book deal, or just one single comment or message about that super-important thing you shared with the world. You feel small and overwhelmed.

This – by all industry standards – is not a good blog post to write. I have no answers for you. No three-steps to finding peace in chaos or security where you feel frail.

This is just me saying (to the both of us):

YOU are NOT alone in this.

The chaos you feel is a lie from Satan that wants to draw you away from your identity in Christ.

It is not your job to save the world.

It is not your job to even save one single person.

It is your job to delight and worship your creator.

To walk the path he set for you, even if it’s not glamorous, or exciting, or what you expected.

Rejoice in Him.

Cry out to Him.

Strangely, as we become more desperate for God, that sense of desperateness leads us to great peace.

January 28, 2014
We Need Your Story! The Un-Fine is God Beautiful

A few months ago, sweet Lisa-Jo Baker sent me an email asking to share my story that would be compiled with other women’s stories for the (in)Courage (in)RL 2014 – (in) Real Life Conference.

Why does anyone need to hear my story?

In filming for this, I got to meet so many women. Hear so many stories. I needed to hear theirs. They needed to hear mine.

Who knew?

Here’s the thing. We need to hear YOUR story.

The conference is free. You don’t have to travel anywhere. Get your girls and snuggle up with some tea and coffee and watch and share.

Registration begins today. And again. It’s FREE. Over 6000 women participated last year from 20 countries.

A little bit about (in)RL…

Born out of two years spent listening to women in the comments here at (in)courage craving local, real life community, (in)RL is an invitation to share what we’ve learned about community and encourage women with stories and suggestions for connecting deeper in real life.

(in)RL is the combination of outstanding online content that encourages, moves and inspires women as they watch in the comfort of their own homes and local meet-ups where small becomes the new big and women connect, in person, beyond the comment box.

This year we’re unpacking the power of story. No matter how much life you’ve lived or what you’ve walked through, you have a story.

And we, as a community, are less without your story.

So, please register and join us. I can’t wait to hear your story.

January 15, 2014
Is Burnout Beating You?
I’ve been in the process of adding some helpful stuff to the 5th Anniversary Expanded Edition of my first book, Mad Church Disease which launches next month (woot!)

In that journey, I realized people were needing something NOW. Something to help NOW.

The emails I get daily show me that burnout is still epidemic in ministry and in the church world and if anything has become more taboo in the last five years, which breaks my heart.

Over Christmas, I sat down and wrote Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope and Health that covers
- rest
- spiritual health
- emotional health
- relational health
- physical health
- and prayer.
Rinse and repeat for five weeks and you’ve got yourself a 70-something page book.

Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope and Health releases as an eBook this week! (The print will follow shortly!)

Each day has
- scripture
- a short and meaningful reflection
- and a section for practical application and a page for notes.
It reads fast because I know you don’t have much time, but I pray it takes you directly to the heart of our Father with no fluff, only grace, and gives you enough action when, after thirty days are over, you find yourself in a healthier and more intentional place than you are now.

Can you do me a favor?

If this book sounds like something you need, can you give me your email address so I can ping you when it comes out? I won’t bother you for anything else. And, if you’d like to spread the word ahead of time, I’ve made some tweets to help you do that!

You can sign up for the email notification here!

Share about it below!

[Tweet “Burned out? THIS > @girlnamedanne’s “Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope & Health” #BeatingBurnout”]

[Tweet “Had enough? > @girlnamedanne’s”Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope & Health” #BeatingBurnout”]

[Tweet “2014 = HEALTH! @girlnamedanne’s “Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope & Health” #BeatingBurnout”]

I am SO GRATEFUL for your support and I truly pray this devotional can help you find hope and health!
January 14, 2014
Why I posted My Ugliest Wedding Picture on the Internet

Tim and I have these photo frames behind our couch. There’s about twenty of them, all arranged in a fun little pattern.

Problem?

They still have the photos that came with them inside them.

Y’all, we’ve lived here since August.

Last week I had the flu, and on a particularly quiet day, figured we might as well select and print some photos to go in the frames. (We have guests coming this weekend, let’s be honest.)

As we went through our wedding pictures, one popped up on the screen that had us both in hysterics. Why? Because I’m wiping my nose. Very clearly wiping my nose. And somehow my nose has morphed into a pig-like shape.

It was late and I thought it was cute and funny so I posted it thinking the few people who would be on the Interwebs so late would get a kick out of it, and it would be buried before morning came.

An hour and 10,000 views later, I realized people are on Facebook way too late.

But you know what? I’m glad I posted my ugliest wedding picture on the internet. One, because I think we often try to post the best versions of ourselves – never the ugly cry ones. And two, because this was the moment after we read our vows to each other, our hand-written, self-made, God-fearing vows. It was just the two of us on that beach, and the preacher, and the photographer. And a homeless man. But it was one of the most intimate and sacred moments I’ve ever experienced in my life.

There’s no reason I am ashamed of having an ugly cry and wiping my dripping nose before being pronounced husband and wife. And no regret in posting in on the internet in a moment of silliness.

(In a related note: I love you Tim Miller. And I will fight every day to honor and love you the best I can.)

January 13, 2014
Your Anxiety is Not a Sin
The Texas Rangers just walked the bases. It wasn’t that exciting of a baseball game. I was doing my Algebra II homework with the TV playing in the background.

I’ve never been good at math, but this particular assignment was tough. While trying to assign some numerical value to letters (a concept as a writer I will never understand: letters are for words. Numbers are for nerds. Just kidding. If it weren’t for the numbers people in my life, I’d be in jail.), my heart started palpitating.

I placed my hand on my chest and could feel each beat through the muscles under my collarbone. What was happening? Was I going to have a heart attack? I was only 14. This can’t be happening.

I didn’t realize it, but my breathing became fast and shallow. I got lightheaded. My muscles tensed. Not wanting to alarm my parents, I quickly went out the front door unnoticed. I climbed on the top of my mother’s car where there was nothing to trap me; I could simply look out into a big, west Texas sky full of stars.

But my heart kept pounding and my head kept spinning and I wondered what they’d say the next day at school about the freshman who died on top of her mom’s car last night.

My dad came out a few minutes later and asked what was wrong. I sat up on the car’s top and gave him my symptoms, interrupted by punctuation marks of tears and sobs. He put his hand on my dangling knee and told me he felt this “irrational fear” before and it would soon go away.

It did.

For a little while, anyway.

But for the last twenty years, it’s stayed. It hasn’t been just a season, though sometimes I find relief in weeks or months. Anxiety is the weakness that can either boast Christ’s strength or it can break relationships. It’s either managed or I let it run wild. I’m almost certain it’s here to stay, and with spiritual help, counseling, support from friends and Tim, and even medication, I’m usually okay. I’m functional and happy and it lays dormant in the chemicals and synapses in my mind, hushed by medication that knows when it starts getting too loud.

I went to speak about sex one time at a college. I’m fairly certain my parents are uncomfortable every time I say that, but hey, it’s one of the things I get to do with my time. Normally after that talk, I get a few girls and maybe a guy or two say how they now feel like they can talk about something they’ve wrestled with sexually.

At this one school, I learned from the Dean that most trips to the counseling center have to do with anxiety. Interesting. In my talk, I mentioned anxiety in a sentence or two, not really going off track. Afterward in the chapel lobby, multiple students came up to me – not because of their questions about sex or pornography – but because they felt so free when I talked about my anxiety.

Really? I thought. I didn’t think there was such a stigma about it anymore. I guess I’m wrong. Noted.

Two weeks later, I logged into my blog and there were two comments from someone I’ve never met, or even heard of online. A google search revealed little. I’ll save you the lengthy comment, but one thing stood out:

You are a false teacher.

Your anxiety is a sin.

Wow.

My anxiety is a sin?

I get it. I’ve heard the lectures on worry as a sin, and trust me, it’s something I lean into my God for every day. And I believe that not trusting God consistently or even rejecting the desire to trust Him, yes, is sin.

But, Mr. Commenter…and those who think like him, let me clearly say to you my anxiety is not a sin.

And here’s the thing. If I speak to 800 college students and ten of them tell me they’re wrestling with true, clinical anxiety, I’m sure there are a hundred that didn’t say a word who are also living in that shaky, unescapable landscape. Statistics tell me that there are a lot of you who struggle, too.

Anxiety presents in a lot of ways: panic, physical symptoms like a rapid heart rate and shallow breathing or lightheadedness, upset stomachs, tense muscles, and insomnia. It can also have emotional and relational symptoms too: anger, isolation, and irritability.

Wondering why you get headaches all the time? It may be anxiety. Notice you’re lashing out with some built up anger at someone you love? It may be anxiety.

You may have heard the reason you have anxiety is because you’re living in some secret sin, or maybe you’ve even been told the anxiousness in and of itself is sin. The first may be true, and if it is, you know it.

But if you’re certain you’re right with God and others, your anxiety is not sin.

I’m not a doctor or a counselor, in any official sense anyway. However, I’d like to share a few things that have helped me manage my anxiety.
- Routines: Morning and evening routines help start my day off right and help put me in the right place to sleep soundly.
- Bible study and prayer: A constant one-sentence prayer I pray in moments of panic is “He keeps in perfect peace whose mind stays on Him.”
- Talking about it: I have my husband and a group of friends I know I can reach out to in my “craziness” and I know they don’t see me as crazy. They pray for me and offer truth and help me refocus my thoughts.
- Counseling: It’s expensive, but I’d rather have it than cable, a smart phone, or food at times.
- Healthy Stuff: Eating right and exercising work wonders for anxiety. They really do.
- Medication: Yes, I believe we are over-medicated but I also believe if you need it, you need it. It took me probably six or seven tries to get the right medication and even now, I have to adjust the dose depending on the season of life and stress I’m in. Some people need SSRIs or SNRIs and some need benzodiazepines (which is what works best for me). There are always risks, but work with a doctor and find the best balance for you.
Anxiety sucks. There’s really no other way to say it. In the church world, let’s speak freely about it and help others in their journeys by owning up to our own. And if someone says your anxiety is sin, shake your head and walk away confidently, knowing God made you in His image and that you can let your greatest weaknesses show His strength.

Recommended Reading: The Anxious Christian: Can God Use Your Anxiety for Good?
January 8, 2014