Facebook. Post after post. Picture after picture. Television. Commercial after commercial. Worthless show after worthless show, especially if you don’t have cable. Cell phone, book, email, magazine, bed. Exhausted and seeking rest.
Tonight, I am exhausted. Last night, I was exhausted. And tomorrow night, you guessed it, I will probably be exhausted. And yet tonight after putting my son to bed and before writing this post, I opened up Facebook. Will this give me rest? Will I find the rejuvenation I am desperate for to fuel me for another day of laundry, cleaning dishes, vacuuming, loving my son, cooking, running errands, game playing, diaper changing, serving my husband, picking up toys, walking the dog, and all the projects I currently have begun with no end in sight of finishing? What does it mean to truly rest?
As women, this is difficult for us to know, to rest, especially if we have children. We believe we need to sacrifice every little bit of ourselves for our children. Our children are better for it, right? Ironically, this feeling of “need to sacrifice” interrupted a night of rest I had planned. Tuesday night. My night of rest. A blessing and gift from my husband begun in the form of a question, “Babe, what would give you rest on Tuesday night?” My answer landed somewhere between confusion and my to-do list as I thought about an evening without cooking dinner, doing dishes, bath time, and bedtime routine. Confused because I had just spent a weekend of rest with my girlfriends at the lake, and I feel rested and rejuvenated. Answers flowed inside my mind. I needed to write this blog post. I needed to fold a load of laundry. I needed to unload the dishes from the dishwasher. I needed to send out a few emails. I wanted to get my nails done. I wanted to take a warm bubble bath and read. I wanted to get a massage. I wanted to lay drenched in suntan lotion (uh, I mean sunscreen ha!) on a warm beach somewhere. Hmmmmm. “I don’t know,” I answered him. Upon further discussion and searching, I was reminded of a sermon one Sunday about working from our rest. Backwards thinking in my mind. Strive and strive and strive and then rest, right? No. Rest then work. God created Adam and Eve on the sixth day and on the seventh day, the first full day of “our” existence was a day of rest. God rested. Adam and Eve rested. “God saw all that he had made and it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning- the sixth day….and so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.” Genesis 1:31-2:2. We are to work from our rest. And my husband was pointing me towards building a rhythm of doing so. Building time into my schedule for rest daily, weekly, monthly in order to avoid working on overload all the time and arriving at a point of desperation for rest. Hence, my Tuesday night.
The place? Barnes and Noble. The purpose? Finding a new novel. God’s plan? To wrestle and be unsettled about taking this time for myself in order to have material for this blog post. Ha! A struggle to look forward to my evening with joy and not doubt. A battle to resist every excuse to stay home and care for my son. I even called my husband to express this weird feeling of selfishness I was experiencing which was keeping me from the joy I knew God had for me. This would feel weird since I’m not used to a rhythm of rest, but a schedule of doing and doing and doing and crashing. So, what gives me rest? Life giving rest. What will give me life?
Knowing the answer to this means knowing myself. Television: escape. Reading and writing: rest. Facebooking: escape. Worshipping and praying with scripture: rest. Figuring out what gives me rest means I have to identify things that make me think I am resting (Facebook). Examine what gives me energy and sets my heart on fire. Recognize what depletes my energy leaving me empty and worn out. Distinguish between a good idea and a God idea by creating a stop doing list. Stop doing? What? I have no time for that! Ha! Many things in life are great ideas, but not God ideas and could imprison us from what God has planned. Yes, we are called to be fruitful. And God wants us to do it from a place of rest. “…Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day to the Lord your God.” Exodus 20:9-10.
And so my Tuesday night of enjoying God’s written word first and then His creative artwork penned by fabulous authors on the bestseller’s list, empowered me for the next day to follow His lead even in folding a pile of laundry. And I continue daily to rest with God and be filled with His spirit because every day can’t be a “Tuesday night”. We have to build in a rhythm of rest. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30. And all throughout the gospel, Jesus made rest a priority. Before he began his ministry, he retreated to the desert for forty days to be with the Father. A priority for Him. To rest. And we are to follow Him. Right?
So what gives you rest? And how can you build rhythms of rest into your day, week and months?
- Tami I.
