Last weekend, my mom and I were at the right place at the right time. We stopped by my sister’s coffee shop after church and found a single employee there, a young girl in her early 20’s. Her coworker needed to leave for a medical emergency at home, so she was by herself, clearly very stressed.
My mom and I sat at a table to relax for a bit after we got our drinks. But after a few moments, I looked towards the girl behind the counter and… didn’t see her. Instead, an older couple (who were originally in line behind us to order) held up her limp body behind the cash register. She passed out. I yelled to my mom that she needed help.
It so happened that the man in the couple was a doctor, and my mom is a retired nurse. Both of them tended to her while I closed the cafe and called my sister about what was happening.
The girl regained consciousness but was extremely upset, shaky, and ashamed. “I’m gonna get in so much trouble. I’m gonna get fired,” she cried. I helped her to the couch and calmed her down. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re not gonna get fired for passing out.” I called her parents to pick her up. While we waited for them, I sat with her and got her to talk about happy things. She told me about her dreams of owning a restaurant someday and showed me photos of her cats.
I’m over 10 years older than her, and I’m always sad to see when girls in their 20’s have lost their childlike sparkle. They’re overburdened by the pressure to get all their life decisions exactly right, and ALL AT ONCE. They make themselves commit to big things they aren’t ready for and haven’t had time to think through. They pressure themselves to reach unreasonably high expectations. And that’s how they end up passing out at work.
The cafe employee wasn’t the only overburdened girl in her 20’s whom I’ve sat with on a couch recently. I have a co-leader at Gateway, who’s 22, who was preparing to lead our creative worship night (Arts Watch) for the first time a few weeks ago. She told me that she was having a hard time focusing because she was grieving over issues within her family.
I told her, “When my parents were going through their divorce, my sister and I had these next-door neighbors who gave us a safe haven. They gave us fantasy books, let us play video games, and took us to our community pool. That’s honestly how I came to love reading and swimming as much as I do today. …So in your grieving and processing, how can Arts Watch be a safe haven for you? What does adventure look like for you?”
She said, “Right now, adventure is the unknown of getting into ministry leadership…”
I chuckled. “That sounds very… grown up. Too grown up. Let’s try this: Imagine your 7-year-old self. What lit her up with joy and wonder? I doubt it had anything to do with ministry leadership.”
She wound up reading three chapters of a fairytale to the Arts Watch crew. That’s what her inner child needed to feel safe and preserve her wonder.
Something I’ve learned in my 34 years of life is that true maturity allows space for rest and childlike wonder, especially when we’re burdened with grown-up pressure and responsibilities. When you feel like the world is crashing in all around you, find your safe haven–even if it’s a young adult fantasy book, a 90’s pop playlist, or going for scenic drives. One of my safe havens is a fantasy/comedy podcast called Hello From the Magic Tavern, where a shapeshifting badger, a wizard, and a regular guy from Chicago interview fantastical creatures in a magical land called Foon. For a couple of hours, I can forget about my upcoming bills and being single at 34, and just wonder if Usidore the Wizard will ever defeat the Dark Lord.
Sometimes, we need to go to Narnia and watch Aslan defeat the White Witch, so we can come back with renewed hope and strength to fight our real-world battles.
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