Day 56 & 55. I have chosen to live intentionally toward the goals, dreams and desires God has placed on my heart for the last 90 days of this year, pressing past fear, excuses and discomfort toward fullness of life as we countdown to 2020. Day 56 & 55: receiving rest.
I entered day two with my son curled up on the couch, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching. It was our first cold of the school year, and our quick action to listen to his body and move toward rest meant he was experiencing a speedy recovery. Yes, there were projects he was missing at school, but nothing was more important than giving his body space to rest, heal and recover.
Yesterday, after getting him off to school, my body began to ache. By 3:00pm, I was vacillating between chills and fever. My throat hurt with each swallow. Immediately, I looked at my calendar. I have sooo much to do!!! What will I miss out on if I rest? How many appointments will I have to cancel? If I cancel that meeting, will the opportunity come again? By the time all those questions had tumbled around in my brain for a while, I had calculated how much medicine I needed to power through the days, how many weeks I could make it running on fumes and counted the days until Thanksgiving break when I could breathe and truly rest.
Sometimes we get sick, our bodies hurt, life is crazy, and we have to power through because it is just what the season demands. But often, if we are honest with ourselves, the things that will be put on hold to tend to our bodies can truly wait Often what keeps us from resting is a fear of missing out (FOMO). Sometimes it is a fear of missing out on an experience or an opportunity, but more often than not, the thing we fear we will miss out on is another moment to prove our value, our worth, our significance, our importance or our fortitude within an organization or relationship. More times than I can count, I have “powered through” because I felt as a woman in leadership, a mom or a wife, I couldn’t show weakness or let people know I needed rest…yes, I couldn’t let people know I was human, finite. It sounds different when I say it that way, “I couldn’t let people know I was human…finite.” How quickly we try to throw off our humanity and our God-given, holy, sacred need to rest and recover!
When we go to Genesis, we are given a glimpse of humanity before the fall. Men and women leading, subduing, stewarding the earth together in harmony. We witness this beautiful relationship between God and created humanity that is unfettered. But what we also witness is rest. Often when we think of the biblical accounts of creation, we mentally place rest as a result of the fall, as if our need for rest only came to fruition after we made some bad choices and all hell broke loose. When this thinking is the foundation of our theology(our understanding of God) and our theological anthropology (what it means to be human in relation to God), then rest and physical, emotional and spiritual limitation is something which we must then throw off and overcome…something we must power through. However, it is crucial that we remember the Sabbath was created on the seventh day. Before there is any talk of the fall of humanity, we are first given a day of rest.
Embracing Sabbath rest, or any need we have to rest, and embracing our need to delight, rest, recover, worship and enjoy, is a part of our God-given DNA. When we listen to the limitations of our body, set aside our fear of missing out, and truly believe we serve a God of abundance and not a God of scarcity, we can lay down our fears, our driving need prove ourselves or our driving need to be present for everyone and everything, we can learn to receive the ways God is present to us in rest.
So, as I downed some Nyquil, I sent a series of emails, knowing things can be rescheduled. The kiddos nibbled on store bought sandwiches, and I leaned into rest. The meetings and opportunities will be there when I recover, and I’ll have the energy I need. But for know, for today, I chill in my jammies, watch Netflix, and sleep, of beautiful sleep, as I acknowledge that nothing is more important than giving my body, my spirit and my mind time to rest, heal and recover.
ACTION STEPS: Reflect. Is rest or slowing hard or easy for you? What does it mean to you that in the creation account before humanity did a thing, God invited us to rest? Where is God inviting you to rest today?
Picture credit: Kelly Sikkema