rest

I've mentioned that the theme of the blog this week is restoration. I believe that a huge part of restoration is rest (I mean, it's the first part of the freaking word, so that has to mean something right?) Rest has become somewhat foreign to me. I’m naturally wired in a way that makes it very difficult. When given the choice, I’ve never really been one to lay in bed and binge watch TV shows all day. I’m that obnoxious "Let’s DO something” person. The one that wants to hike, adventure, go, play, try, or explore. 

I love being active, but it makes me say “yes” a lot more than I probably should. Sure, I can do yoga in the morning and work all day and meet a friend for happy hour and meet another friend for dinner and still have time to come home and write a blog post for tomorrow. No big deal. Only meanwhile, my house is a disaster (which heightens my OCD every time I walk in the door) and my pile of books to read grows taller (while I shame myself for not making time for them). I tell Siri to remind me of something every 5 minutes: 

Siri, remind me to take my car through emissions. 

Siri, remind me to roll my 401K over.

Siri, remind me to pick up my thyroid prescrip-- oh shoot that reminds me... I need to schedule my endocrinologist appointment. WHY do I keep forgetting to do that?

Siri, remind me to schedule my endocrinologist appointment for next wee- wait, I leave for Boulder all week on Monday. I guess it’ll have to wait until the next week, although I can’t on Tuesday because I’m going to that event with Kyle- SHIT I still haven’t paid her for that.

Siri, remind me to pay Kyle. 

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? I’m guessing it does. We live in a world today that celebrates busyness. We pat ourselves on the back for maintaining the balancing act of carrying 10,000 things- even though we’re trembling profusely, dangerously close to dropping it all. We smile a nervous smile as we try to keep it all together, to keep going even though we are overworked and overwhelmed. 

Last week I had one of the most stressful days I can ever remember. Work was complete chaos as I put out fire after fire after fire. I raced against the clock all day, failing to meet deadlines or finish things on time. My personal email was firing vicious reminders of bills I needed to pay or follow ups I’d forgotten to make. I didn’t have time to stop and eat lunch. Friends texted me asking questions they’d already asked but I’d forgotten to respond to. The work day was nearing it’s end and I had mountains of action items I wasn’t even close to finishing, unanswered texts, a HANGRY stomach and about 45 minutes until I was supposed to go to my personal trainer. At 5pm I closed my computer, cancelled on my trainer, threw my phone on the bed, poured the biggest glass of wine, grabbed a fistful of crackers and walked out my front door. I was literally shaking on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. Not to mention that along with everything else that was making me a nutcase, I had an extremely confusing and emotional night and only slept 3 hours the night before that I hadn’t even begun to deal with. 

If you’re my neighbor, I apologize for disrupting your family dinner on the patio or playtime with baby in the grass or effort to have a pleasant afternoon stroll with your pup, because I was the hot mess in yoga pants and flip flops with mascara under her eyes and a borderline inappropriate pour of wine in my glass (yes, I carried an actual wine glass on my walk. I didn’t even attempt to hide my crazy). But desperate times call for desperate measures. 

In this moment of coming apart, I took communion (which conveniently also let me justify the wine) and I started talking to Jesus. Luckily, I managed to keep that conversation in my head so my neighbors didn’t call the police and report the crazy wine lady who also talks to herself... I started telling him about all my problems, all my stress, all my craziness from the day and the night prior. “I just can’t do it all anymore" I said. "I’m so tired."

I don’t pretend to be that person that hears the voice of God all the time, and honestly- how could I, because my brain will never shut up. But on this walk, as clear as the water is in the tropics, I felt him tell me “I put you right here.” That was it. No long explanation as to why, no back and forth dialogue or drawn out conversation. For the first time in a long time, I felt some rest. I didn’t discover anything profound or have some deep realization that suddenly made sense of all my crazy. But I felt at ease, because even though I felt darkness all around me, I knew this was all part of God’s plan, and that HE was handling it all- not me. 

I kept walking, drinking my wine, smiling at neighbors that politely smiled back and at least tried to mask their judging eyes. I felt more and more and more at peace- able to rest. It was the best afternoon I’ve had in a long time.

Later that night I opened my computer to play a little catch up after letting myself rest all afternoon, and I noticed the worn Bible verse I had taped to the keyboard months ago. “The Lord will fight for you. You need only be still.” -Exodus 14:14 That has literally been taped on my computer since the end of January, and it took me this long to actually stop and read it and really let it sink in. 

I don’t know what you’re going through. I don’t know what’s on your list that’s different than mine- what the things are that keep you up at night or make your brain never turn off. But I do know that none of those things are accidents. No matter how crazy and chaotic life is, it’s not our job to handle everything. It’s not our job to prove our strength or that we “have it all together” by overworking ourselves.  It’s our job to rest. It’s our job to look to God and let him work for us. 

I'll let one of my devotionals from yesterday sum it all up for me:

“Once as I walked along the road of a steep hill, I caught sight of a boy on a bicycle near the bottom. He was pedaling uphill against the wind and was obviously working tremendously hard. Just as he was exerting the greatest effort and painfully doing the best he could do, a streetcar, also going up the hill, approached him. It was not traveling too fast for the boy to grab hold of a rail at the rear, and I am sure you can guess the result. He went up the hill as effortlessly as a bird gliding through the sky. 

This thought then flashed through my mind. “I am like that boy on the bicycle in my weariness and weakness. I am pedaling uphill against all kinds of opposition and am almost worn out with the task. But nearby there is great power available— the strength of God. All I must do is get in touch with Him and maintain communication with Him. And even if I grab hold with only one little finger of faith, it will be enough to make His power mine to accomplish the act of service that now overwhelms me."

-The Life of Fuller Purpose

restoration

The theme of the blog this week is restoration. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the topic, but I've been learning a whole lot more about it as of late. 

I’ve been known to be legalistic and self-disciplined. I’m committed to yoga 5 times a week. I'm in bed at a decent hour so I can get a good night's sleep. When you ask me what I want to eat, I always respond with "something healthy."  For a while, I ferociously chased the idea that a life full of all these things would really bring me happiness and value- that if I had a body like a Victoria's Secret model I'd be "good enough"... whatever that means. 

Fast forward through a season of over the top self-discipline, followed by a season of extreme grief, and I found myself weighing significantly less.  I stepped on the scale a few weeks ago and realized I had even dropped below my “I’ll be really happy when I weigh ____” weight. And you know what happened? I still didn’t feel very happy. 

The good news is, I have been happy lately.  But it didn’t come from a number on the scale. Yes, it’s great to be healthy and eat organic and go to bed early so you can wake up early and sweat and feel productive. I know all of that first hand, and a dose of that genuinely does bring me happiness. But I also know that sometimes it feels great to down a bottle of champagne and eat an entire bag of jellybeans and stay up til 3am watching Netflix. Or to have 4 margaritas on the porch with your friend while you smoke cloves and sit in the sunshine without sunscreen at 2pm. Or to cancel on your personal trainer because you were up all night and closing down the bar and laughing and taking shots and catching up and having the best time in a long time. 

A refreshing green juice is wonderful, but so is Jet’s Pizza with turbo crust. So is eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s half baked in one sitting. Yes, a life of nothing but sweet will rot your teeth and your soul, but a life of nothing but discipline is no life at all. For me, restoration the past few weeks wasn't about a juice cleanse, a diet, or bumping up the gym regimen. Restoration for me has been to return myself to it’s original condition of living a really joyful life. 

I’m learning that restoration doesn’t look one way for everyone. Some days I need to go out to the bar to meet my friends so I can laugh and let loose and have fun. Some days what I need is to shut the door at home, be alone with Jesus and spend some time in prayer. Some mornings I need yoga, and some mornings I need more sleep. Some days I need spaghetti, and some days I need to get back on track and pretend I’m just as happy with kale. But wherever I am, I’m learning to give myself grace and let myself be there. I’m learning that forcing that much discipline on yourself isn’t worth it. And neither is judging someone else for what they need today- because maybe on Monday you need kombucha but I need vodka. Whatever we each need, that's okay.

This week I want to encourage you to listen to what you need, and to not worry about anyone else. If you’re aware you need rest and your friends are all going out: let yourself rest. If you’re at lunch and all your friends order salad but you need french fries- for all that is good in the world, order the fries. Personally, I'm coming off a week that was full of cheesecake and wine and tons of sleep and margaritas, so restoration for me right now was joining Shakti Power Yoga's "Fully Committed" program of starting everyday with yoga and a smoothie. But I'm making that decision because it's what I want to do not what I should do, and that makes all the difference.

This week, love yourself where you are. Give yourself what you need. You are a multi-faceted human with complexities and that makes you fascinating. Don't wake up and bury yourself in expectations. Just wake up and be awesome. 

This week let's focus on returning to our original condition of being a whole, happy person. Rather than living a life of excessive discipline or excessive frivolity, let's find balance. Let's treat ourselves with kindness. Let's restore. 

hope

I’m afraid of a lot of things. I’m afraid of cockroaches, of being abducted, of suspenseful scenes in movies or TV shows. Sometimes I’m afraid of my plane crashing (I’m currently bouncing in my seat on a plane flying at 10,000 feet through a storm, so this one feels pretty real right now). 

I’m afraid that the economy could take a turn for the worse and I could lose my job. I’m afraid that someone I love could die in a car crash. I’m afraid that statistics will be right, and I’ll lose someone to cancer. 

I’m afraid of people seeing me a certain way other than how I’d like them to see me: that I’m not strong enough, or pretty enough, or cool enough. That I’m too boring, too complicated, or too needy. I’m afraid that if I let my guard down all the way, people will bail; that it will be too much for them to handle. I’m afraid if that happens, I’ll be alone. 

Fear can make you clench your teeth, forget to exhale, and become so tightly wound you become a nasty little ball that’s so dark and twisty it could never be untangled. It will make you ask “What if?” and respond with hundreds of terrible possibilities, because if you name them before they happen, at least you’ll feel somewhat prepared for whatever suffering you’re bound to endure. 

Fear can trick us into feeling practical. It tells us it’s the wiser choice; that people who live with naive optimism only can do so for so long, until they’re hit by a metaphorical freight train, and then they’re in the same boat as the rest of us: hurting, sad, and broken. 

Fear let’s us believe that God’s goodness is surpassable. That darkness is bound to surface, so all we can do is be ready for it the best we can. 

I’m learning that fear is a load of BS. I realize singing Kumbaya and pretending trials will never happen is an even larger load of BS, but my point is just that fear isn’t the badass it gets credit to be. The real power lies in hope. Hope is always stronger than fear. 

God’s love for us is infinite. There is nothing greater in all of existence that beats it. Name anything. Still doesn’t touch it. God wants to bless us in crazy ways. He wants to flex for us. He wants to pour favor and blessing and goodness and joy and “How is that even possible!?!” all over us. He can literally do anything. A-ny-thing. And he wants to. He wants to do things greater than we even know to pray for; but the problem is we’re so paralyzed by fear. We worry. We try to control. We map out what we think the road to God's goodness should look like. We let fear make us pull and resist instead of relax and trust. 

I realize that living in a place of trusting God and abandoning fear sounds warm and fuzzy, but that the reality is it’s not a switch that you flip. You don’t get to say “See ya never, fear. We’re through." Fear chases us. It means war. We have to abandon it over and over and over again. Sometimes we’re on a roll, and then suddenly it gets the best of us. Sometimes fear makes our prayers turn into ugly crying- into embarrassing temper tantrums we throw to God. Often our prayers sound a lot less like “Your will be done.” and more like “I just want it this way." If I'm being honest, I did all of those things tonight alone. Fear let’s us insult God’s desire to bless us abundantly by treating him like a cosmic vending machine that’s supposed to instantly spit out what we want. 

I once heard a story of a man walking his horse out of it's barn. He planned on taking him to a giant green pasture so he could eat the tall, lush grass and roam free. On the way, they came upon a small patch of grass, and the horse stopped walking so he could eat. The man encouraged the horse to keep walking, but the horse refused. Sadly, the man exclaimed "I'm trying to take you somewhere far greater than this. Why are you fighting me?"

Isn't this how we are with God? We fear his green pastures we haven't seen may not actually come, so we cling to what we can see with our limited vision that appeals to us most in the moment. We rush the process because we don't want to wait. We want the happy ending, but not the journey to get there. 

I’m continually humbled as I venture down this road of trading fear for hope. I’m reminded how much I suck at it. I’m reminded how desperately I need God to intercede and give me the faith I can’t come up with. But he always shows up. It doesn't mean I won't suck again tomorrow, it just means when I do, he'll supply me with what I need all over again. Because fear is no match for the hope that he offers. Fear is a weak little sissy that God will trample if we sit back and let him; if we stop trying to do all the work, and start looking to him to take care of it for us. I'm confident that each day I return to HIM with my neediness, I (fear) am becoming less and he (hope) is becoming greater.

 "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

-2 Corinthians 4: 16-18