A Savior No More
But I help a little when I can
In the midst of the attack on Ukraine, someone living in the United Kingdom reached out in my facebook group and said the government is allowing residents to host a Ukrainian refugee. In order to do this her family would have to go through significant upheaval, shuffling kids around in rooms, so she has her reservations but she is also wrecked by the thought of missing the opportunity to give shelter to someone going through war. “I’m losing sleep over this,” she lamented.
I’m not exactly sure when I developed a savior complex, although I suspect being recruited as a kid to reach the world for Jesus may have had something to do with it. In college, during mandatory chapel, a world renowned evangelical speaker told us the story of the boy who offered his five loaves of bread and two fish to Jesus who used it to miraculously feed five thousand people. She used the story as an example of how if we offer up our talents and gifts, no matter how insignificant, God will use it to do great things in the world. “I have a hunch, He wants your lunch,” she implored a room full of bright eyed, young adults searching for their place in the world. Somehow, God was omnipotent and yet really needs us, one of many teachings within evangelicalism that required cognitive dissonance to sustain. Nevertheless, I was eager to offer God all of my lunch, so maybe it was right there during that chapel service my Sophomore year of college, that I began to believe if I didn’t give of my whole self, the world would somehow crumble. I would upend my life to do whatever it takes, because saying the word “no" to people felt like it would actually end my life.
It is a lot easier to deconstruct doctrines and habits from our born again life when they are blatantly harmful and anti-social. It’s much harder when what is unhealthy for us is something as benign and even beautiful as living in commitment to one another–to help serve our neighbors, rescue a refugee, care for the sick. Is deconstructing community service to one another throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Isn’t it a good thing that despite all the toxicity of our upbringing, we were raised with the instinct and practices to care for one another via meal trains, casseroles and moving trucks?
When I began to be born again, again, I shifted from trying to evangelize the world for Christ to getting involved with a non profit to end global poverty. I was starting to doubt the tenets of my evangelical faith and my baby step away from it was trying on the humanitarian hat. I wasn’t quite ready to throw away my faith altogether, but I wanted to embrace a faith that at least had tangible evidence in the real world, that had statistics and numbers of people whose lives are impacted, instead of vague spiritual growth that was starting to make no sense to me. “300 girls will receive menstruation products for one year so their education does not have to be interrupted,” felt like it was doing more good than missionary newsletters I used to write that said, “we ministered to a couple, they seem to be growing in the Lord.” I went from trying to save people’s souls to saving people whose lives were mired in poverty. I do think I moved in the right direction, and that I did have a more positive impact as a humanitarian than as a missionary, but my fundamental posture as a savior remains unchanged. I still measured my worth based on the impact I had on others, on how much I gave of myself. My neural pathways were still wired to empty myself, to sacrifice, to give more than I am able.
My recovery began in conjunction with learning to draw boundaries. As I paid attention to what was okay or not okay with me, I began learning to say no to people, no to taking on projects, no to solicitations to help. What happened next wasn’t nearly as catastrophic as I thought it would be. I realized I wasn’t needed near as much as I thought I was. I’ll admit it’s a bit humbling, that the world doesn’t, indeed, end absent my services is a blow to the ego. But once I pushed past the mild sting, I began to see not so much that I’m not needed as a savior, but that I am needed as part of a community. The world doesn’t fold in on itself when I say no, other people fill the job, take on the task, carry the burden. I remember learning about the model of child sponsorship in humanitarian organizations like World Vision. When a donor sponsors a child, it’s not exactly a 1:1 distribution channel where the exact dollar amount from one sponsor goes directly to their one child. The funds are pooled together and used in the most efficient and impactful way to serve the children in a whole community. The sponsorship model is a marketing tool, to help give sponsors a face to their donation and feel a connection to the impact they are having. I think it’s a great model, because the organization isn’t deceiving the donor–their money is being used to help a child. But the child is not dependent on whether that sponsor continues to give. If at any time the sponsor withdraws their sponsorship money, their sponsored child doesn’t get left to fend for themselves, she is still cared for in the community even if it means the organization will need to ramp up donation efforts to balance their budget. When you stop giving, other people’s funds fill the need, the organization pivots and finds other ways to help, and the child will be fine. Now, when I need to stop helping, I tell myself, the child will be fine.
Even in my most savior-like job as a mother, I am not needed as much as I think I am. My kids when they were young were not as vulnerable as I believed them to be without me. When I had my first baby, I watched her like a hawk 24/7 because mother knows best. (There’s a reason this is a line for a villain in the Disney film, Rapunzel.) When the second one came along, I relaxed a bit and gasp, hired a babysitter so I can take a part time job. Imagine my shock when I came home after work to see my baby smiling, happy as can be. In fact, he seemed happier because his babysitter sang him different songs, played fun games that I didn’t know, and loved him beyond my own resources. Bit by bit, I began to learn that all the jobs I thought only I can do, can be served by others, and sometimes even better.
Ouch, but also? This means I actually have time to rest and breathe and decide to go not where I’m needed, but where I want to be.
This was the game changer. Because when I decide where I want to go, the people and places I find myself in no longer become my projects. I finally stopped being a missionary when I refused to see folks as a mission but as my fellow citizens. They are no longer the source in which I find my identity–my worth is not in how much I can help. All the people I said no to deserved better. They didn’t deserve to have me there treating them like they are charity cases, needing them to affirm my worth, helping them so that my ego can be boosted. They don’t deserve to be my project so I can have an instagram picture and story to tell. Saying no was a gift to them as well as a gift to myself.
To that woman from the UK in my facebook group, I told her it is okay if you don’t take on this refugee, it sounds like it’s going to be hard on your family. Having done some work to dismantle the savior complex myself, I encouraged her, “you don’t have to rescue everybody.” She immediately replied with relief. It was clear her body was giving her the answer to her dilemma, she just needed permission from a random person on the internet.
I tried to save the world but realized the person who most needed saving was myself. Without a robust sense of self, helping others came often at the expense of my own burnout. And yet at the same time, I felt compelled to help in order to matter. The purpose for my life was consumed by a drive to help others, instead of simply to be. To be born again, again, I had to sacrifice being a sacrifice. I had to reparent myself and tell my inner child: hey, it’s okay, you are not needed. You are wanted.
It’s clarifying the people who remain in your life when you start to draw boundaries and not sacrifice yourself for their cause. It’s the people who want you in their lives without you doing anything for them. They like you for who you are, for the way you exist in this world, for how you honor your boundaries and love your own fullness. These people are in your corner, they want you to listen to your body and be a part of their lives with enthusiastic consent. These people will fill your tank right up so that you can reclaim the heart of community service from our born again days, this time, emerging out of self agency.
A few years ago, an acquaintance texted me out of the blue and said that one of her friends happened to be traveling to my city when her husband fell gravely ill. They are halfway across the world, dealing with a medical emergency while navigating a hospital system in a different culture and language. I leapt right into my savior impulses and stood by her side while she sent her husband into the hospital, got on the ventilator, and fought for his life in a foreign land. I skipped work, family dinners, and free time in order to make sure she was supported, standing in the gap of her entire network from home. For several weeks I was consumed with the intensity of this tragedy, for someone I had never met. By then, I was starting to be born again, again. I was aware of my boundaries, aware that my body was protesting at keeping up with caring while living my own life. But there was also a surge of energy and adrenaline that pulled me towards the orbit of this family in need. In the past, I might have said God was calling me to reach out. But now I knew, even if I believed in God or any divine energy, that God calls me to care for people only as much as I can care for myself.
Rick died in October of 2015, and I sat watching Kim sing and whisper her last words to him while they stopped treatment. I went from translating for her in the hospital to translating with funeral home services, and then I had to say goodbye and send Kim, her 16 year old boy and his father’s ashes back to America. I’m not certain that my story intersected with theirs because I had a residual savior complex in me, and my instinct was to jump into service. That’s very possible, because I know the programming of my childhood is deeply embedded. But I also know that I have been finding my power. The things I choose to do with my life these days are increasingly my choice, and less a response to my indoctrination. I serve my fellow humans in need that are in alignment with my values, not in knee jerk reaction to fulfill external obligations. “I have a hunch, He wants your lunch.” No, I’m keeping my lunch, but I will joyfully host a banquet for those invited to my party.
I am not Kim’s savior, but I voluntarily enlisted myself to her community of support at a time when she and her boy needed it. She and her family are invited to my party. I hope to have opportunities to cross paths with many others for whom my services can be of help, whose projects I can partner with that align with my values. I want to care for the people in my life, even if they are sometimes strangers and foreigners. I want to love extravagantly, even if it costs me sometimes. I want to give in service out of an abundance of my own well being, in accordance with my values, out of enthusiastic consent.
I choose to help out of my own self agency, and I am a savior no more.
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