Rest

Rest.

It is one of those words that seems elusive these days, imaginary almost. Definitely impossible. I am married. We have two kids. I run a business. And then there is the house. And dinner. And... there always seems to be something screaming for my attention, something demanding my need.

Rest. What is that even?

And, is it more than just sleeping in or sitting down for a few moments to read a book? Real rest. Rest that restores the soul. What is that?

Though there have been some eye-opening moments of my Open Your Bible study with my sister, the most poignant was the first response for this week, entitled "Rest in Truth." My avoidance of spending time with Jesus was summed up easily in this response reading, as it challenged me with a question I have dared not answer for a long, long time.

"Reflect on the idea of true rest in your own life. Why do you think rests makes us so uncomfortable? Why have we trained our adult selves to see rest as unproductive, lazy, even indulgent?"

I did not have to think about this for long to come up with my own answer. Rest feels deeply uncomfortable to me, because not doing anything screams to me... "you are not enough."

This thought is in accordance with another book I am currently reading, Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. One of the opening sections talks about how we, as a culture, live our lives with this attitude of scarcity. She uses a quote by another author, Lynne Twist. "For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is 'I didn't get enough sleep.' The next one is 'I don't have enough time.' Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our loves hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don't have enough of. Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we're already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn't get, or didn't get done, that day. We got to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack."  (From The Soul of Money, by Lynne Twist, pages 43-45)

I found that my own answer to why rest is so neglected in my own life is that "never....... enough" feeling.

• Not thin enough
• Not attractive enough
• Not a good enough wife
• Not a good enough mom
• Not a strong enough Christian
• Not happy enough
• Not at peace enough
• Not fulfilled enough
• Not organized enough

My lack of rest is not so much a true impossibility of finding time to rest, because I do have early morning hours before the kids wake that I could spend even ten minutes resting in Christ's Word before pressing on with my day. I have afternoon rest time, or some moments when Hudson watches a video, or the time after the kids go to bed. But, instead, my lack of rest stems completely from mere avoidance of it, because rest screams to me "you are not enough! You are not doing enough!" I have felt for a long time the need to do much, and that somehow, that proves my worth. 

Rest to me equals laziness, and laziness tops the list of my biggest pet-peeves. I am a firm believer that you only have one life to live and you had better make the most of it. I was taught the quality of hard work and do not intend to waste my life sitting around, waiting for things to happen to me. I don't want to reach the end of my life and say, "Man, I wish I hadn't spent my whole life saying, 'One day I'll do that...' or 'When this happens...'." 

That being said, I must recognize that rest and laziness are not synonymous. Quite the contrary, in fact. Rest is a necessary part of renewal. Every day, I require my now non-napping son to take a rest. This is much for my sanity as it is for his. He needs an hour to step back from a floor full of toys and learn to quiet himself. He sits in his bed and reads book. And when he allowed to get up, he returns to his toys with eagerness and excitement. Even more so, as an adult, why do I believe I do not need rest? Why do I believe that instead, I must be Martha.... always doing, and then complaining that no one sees all my hard work or thinks to help me. 

I fear coming to Christ in rest, not because of what I fear He will say to me, but because all of the outside voices are telling me, "You are not enough. And going to Christ isn't going to alter that. You need to be more, do more. Never stop. Don't stop to think. Don't stop to face Christ, to deal with that reality. You need to be more, do more. Then you will be enough." Being busy is my way of securing for myself that I am, in fact, enough. 

Friends, this is a real struggle for me. My life is so uncharacterized by rest these days that I feel constantly battle worn. I just realized the other day that my life's priorities are completely screwed up, at the sacrifice of my relationship with Christ and my marriage. 

I know that portion of Scripture in Luke 10:38-42 is so taught on in Women's Bible studies and various books, but at this moment, I cannot overlook it and say, "I've heard it all before." I have heard it, but have I allowed this truth to sink deep into my heart, my life, my very being? Jesus said that Mary had chosen the one thing that mattered, the one thing that was needed. Sitting at Christ's feet was not just something Mary was doing to get out of dinner chores. It was not just something she was doing because she was lazy. Sitting at this feet was what was needed. 

Instead, I say that what needs to be done every day are work assignments, business updates, dishes, dinner, laundry, bathing children, and generally making sure the children are still alive. Working out , taking a shower, and taking vitamins close my list of necessary things. But no where have I treated resting with Christ, for even ten measly minutes as a necessity of life. 

I am learning more and more that, although I can fabricate a life of freedom and happiness with my busyness,  I am incapable of living a truly free life apart from Christ. When he says we cannot bear fruit apart from the branch -- HIM --, He is speaking truth. That's not just some sappy little metaphor. That is truth. When he says that apart from him, we can do nothing, that is truth. That is not just saying that we need his strength to run a marathon or that we need his strength to be a missionary in a foreign country. That means that apart from him, we can do nothing. We may think we are doing everything, but if we are missing that resting in Christ part... we are really doing nothing. Our life is but a rubbish of doings after doings, so as to fabricate a persona that we are enough. 

I am learning... and so desiring to begin to make rest a true part of my life. And to no longer believe that busyness equals enough. 

I Am Not A Superhero

When I was growing up, I always wanted to have kids. But, when you're ten or twelve, that just sounds like a fun, cute idea... it's not reality. You see other women having children, and so it seems normal, but it's still not reality in your brain. Playing house sounds fun. Taking care of babies is cute. I mean, you get paid to babysit, after all...

When I became a teenager, I was head first into full-time figure skating, and body image consumed my life. I told people flat out that I didn't want to have children, because I didn't want to lose my body. What a foolish thing to say, but that's kind of where my fifteen-year old brain was. 

(In retrospect, and for anyone struggling with body image vs. having children, I can tell you 100% it doesn't matter. Now, I know I am naturally tiny, but still ... my body is not the same as it was when I was fifteen, and a super fit figure skater. But, these two children that have grown inside of me and that I have birthed are worth every bit of it. If you're concerned that you might put on some weight, be a little squishier around the middle, or not be as in shape as an Olympic athlete... seriously, it doesn't matter. Because, really, at the end of my life, I could care less if I stayed skinny with strong abs my whole life. I'd rather have the joy of a husband and children by my side... not everyone saying, "wow, she was so in shape." SIDE SIDE NOTE: this is something I do struggle with on a daily basis, so it's not like I'm just over body image. But, in the end, I know it really doesn't matter in comparison to the joy of these children.) 

Then I got married and having children sounded like a good idea, a welcome idea even. Now it was reality, and I had mostly gotten over the idea of gaining some weight and perhaps even getting stretch marks. So, we decided to have kids. I thought maybe three or four or five sounded good. But then it didn't go so easily as I imagined, and we lost two babies, and then I took months upon months upon months of negative pregnancy tests, tossed in the trash with tears upon tears. 

With immense joy, we welcomed our first son in December of 2013, after eleven days of waiting post due date. (horrible, I tell you. Horrible.) And I thought I was supermom. One kid was not so bad, and Hudson was just pretty chill. I rarely if ever asked for help. I knew we'd have at least one more kid. At least we would try. After such a hard time having the first, I was thankful we just had him. If we were never able to have more, my heart was bursting with joy just to have this little boy. 

So then, we decided to have another kid. And we welcomed a girl in November 2015. And then I told my husband, "I never ever want to have any more kids. This is too hard." I began thinking even having two kids was a bad idea. Way in over my head doesn't even describe how I have felt the last four months. Drowning. Overwhelm. Desperate. I began looking at other moms with more kids, just wondering in complete desperation, "How on earth are they doing that?" I began to think that these moms were superheroes. I could never do that. 

We had one boy, one girl. Done. Done. Done. I am not a super mom, I realized. I cannot do any more than two children. 

(As a side note, one should never listen to what a woman says in the first four months after a baby is born, because she is simply too exhausted and emotional to make any executive decisions about family or anything of importance.)

But then, over the last few weeks, I have realized that these moms with multiple children whom I so admire, the ones who actually seem happy, joyful with their kids, in love with their husbands, and at peace with their lives... well, those moms are the ones who trust Jesus, the ones who have peace with God. They have their heads screwed on right, they know to ask for help, and they are humble enough to admit their weaknesses. They are the ones who admit flat out that they cannot do this, that they are not super moms who have it all together. They didn't have several children because they believed they could do it. But they believed the Word of God which says children are a blessing, and they believed in the God who was able to equip them to be a mom to many children. 

I don't know what our future holds. I don't know if there will be more children or not. I am still studying and learning about what it means that children are a blessing from the Lord, and why this is. But I do know that I am letting go of this idea that I would need to be super mom if we were going to have more kids, or that the moms with multiple kids are super moms married to super dads. Instead, I am recognizing the God's grace is what sustains these families, provides them joy, and nurtures their marriages to produce fruit for the Kingdom. 

The best thing about having two kids, as far as I can see at this moment, is that it has forced me to ask for help. Even if it's something simple like asking my husband to hold the baby while I get food for the toddler or take him to the bathroom. While I do balance a lot on my own when I am home during the day, there is nothing more welcome than my husband coming home at the end of the evening -- not so I can burden him with a million needs, but because I know I can ask for help when it's really needed. 

If the first kid taught me how selfish I was, the second kid has taught me (and is teaching me) how prideful I was (am). This is not a one-man show. Actually, my husband and I are supposed to be a team, and I can actually ask other people for help, be it advice, babysitting, or whatever. Having a second kid has shown me that I am not, in fact, super mom. 

Now, I am going to try to learn that that is OKAY.... 

Empty Wells

John 4:5-15

[Jesus] came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, worn out from His journey, sat down at the well. It was about six in the evening. A woman of Samaria came to draw water.

“Give Me a drink,” Jesus said to her, for His disciples had gone into town to buy food.

“How is it that You, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked Him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would ask Him, and He would give you living water.”

“Sir,”said the woman, “You don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do You get this ‘living water’? You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are You? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”

Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again—ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life.”

“Sir,” the woman said to Him, “give me this water so I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

In the Bible study my sister and I are doing together, we recently studied the well-known passage about the woman at the well. She comes to draw water, meets Jesus, but does not realize whom she has met. He promises a water that will quench her thirst, and she takes it literally. “Give me this water so I don't have to come here to draw water anymore,” she says.

Part of our discussion last week was about the empty wells in our life. We come to well after well, yet we have to keep coming, to keep drawing. Yet the wells never satisfy our thirst. Perhaps, they even leave us more thirsty. Digging up the empty wells in my life was not difficult, though it was difficult to be honest about how frequently I race towards empty wells... I am sure you have these empty wells too. Where am I going to seek peace, contentment, joy, hope, etc? When I am feeling withered, where am I turning for LIFE?

My empty wells may seem like good things, and while many of them are God's gifts, they are not wells of living water. A common list of empty wells could include:

• Marriage: this is one of God's greatest gifts in my life, but for reasons I am discovering are very different than the ones I thought they would be. I thought marriage would make me infinitely happy. My husband would buy me flowers and write me love notes, we'd always get along, and we'd live happily ever after. In reality, marriage shows me how utterly selfish and fearful I am, so it turns out to be a mirror reflecting the very things I have been trying to avoid my whole life. Recently, I saw a blog post about how Christian girls should ultimately be looking for a man like Jesus, because really, all Christian girls want to marry “Jesus”. What nonsense. A husband will never be Jesus, and to have that type of expectation will cause you to be extremely disappointed and your husband to be very hurt. You are a sinner, and you will marry a sinner, and by this very fact, marriage is an empty well. Can it be full of joy? Absolutely. But there is no way a spouse or the marriage union can quench the deepest thirst of your soul.
• Children: after marriage comes children, right? My children are two of the most amazing blessings God has ever given me and my husband. I cannot imagine life without them. But, for all of my years of dreaming about kids, having kids is certainly not a living well of water. Being a parent is exhausting. It's full time. You rarely if ever get a break. Thinking that having children and being a parent would satisfy my greatest desires was foolish at best.
• A Successful Job/Business/Career: I run a business. I work hard at my business. My business is growing. But to think that if my paycheck is a certain size or if I have a certain number of students or if our newsletter database is growing, I will be infinitely more peaceful, satisfied, etc.; well, again, I will find myself continually disappointed.

Of course, all of these things are very common, and most people (myself included) would nod and agree, saying, “Well, of course these things will never fulfill, never satisfy, never quench your thirst.” But what about the empty wells that we don't notice? The ones we look to day in and day out for thirst quenching. The ones we turn to before we turn to Christ? My current list looks like this:

• A good night's sleep
• A clean, organized house
• A cup of coffee or tea (caffeine anyone?!)
• Everything checked off on my to-do list
• Being in shape & feeling attractive
• Time away from the kids
• Endless social media scrolling

I know these are my empty wells, because all of them end up coming before any attempt to pick up my Bible every day. If I don't get a good night's sleep, I am crabby (ask my husband...). If the house is messy or disorganized, I get frustrated and am ready to chuck everything out the window. If I don't at least have a cup of hot coffee or tea each day, I feel like I'm missing something. If my to-do list doesn't get completed one day, my life feels out of control. If I am not in shape, I am insecure. I think that if I get time away from the kids, everything will be all better, and I'll be happy again, but I still have to come home. (p.s. I LOVE my children, but if you're a mom, you know that sometimes, a trip to Target to try on a pair of jeans by yourself is the equivalent of perfect bliss.) If I don't spend minutes upon minutes (upon hours sometimes) of social media scrolling, I feel like I am out of the loop, missing out on life's greatest fun and all of the cool “friendships” I have. I run to all of these things constantly, and while getting good sleep or drinking coffee or having an organized house are not inherently sinful things, they are deeply empty wells.

I have been wondering why I feel so drained and withered, but how could I not when the water I am drinking is from the brand of “a good night's sleep”? I have a potty-training/toddler-bed training two year old and a 4 month old. I haven't had a good night's sleep in 4 months. If that dictates me peace and my ability to receive and extend grace in my life, then I am in big trouble. How would I not be withered when I am drinking water from the brand “everything checked off my to-do list?” I do try really hard to get things done. Part of being a wife, mom, and business owner is really managing time well. But let's face it, some days, things don't get done. Projects fall to the back burner. The kitchen floor doesn't get swept. I don't get to the store with the kids or we end up ordering pizza for dinner because I got so side-tracked with two kids and trying to finish work for the day that I completely forgot to pull the meat out of the freezer for dinner. An accomplished to-do list can result in a really great “high” today, with a really immense let-down tomorrow if I am basing my heart's fullness on big black checks.

I am sure you get it. All in life will be empty wells, even God's good and perfect gifts of people, relationships, things, etc. Christ is the only full well, the place where we drink living water, the place where we drink water that truly quenches our thirst.

What are your empty wells?

I am praying that I would begin to more quickly and more constantly turn to Christ's full well of living water, rather than to continually run to empty wells and wonder why I feel withered.

John 7:37-38

On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, he should come to Me and drink! The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.

Isaiah 55: 1-3

Come, everyone who is thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you without money,
come, buy, and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost!
Why do you spend money on what is not food,
and your wages on what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
and you will enjoy the choicest of foods.
Pay attention and come to Me;
listen, so that you will live. 

Withered

Psalm 1: 1-3

How happy is the man
who does not follow the advice of the wicked
or take the path of sinners
or join a group of mockers!
Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction,
and he meditates on it day and night.
He is like a tree planted beside streams of water
that bears its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

Ten years ago, I began wrestling with the “rules” of Christianity, the supposed things I had to do to be a “good Christian girl.” I was frustrated that I never seemed to measure up, so I found my outlet for control through an eating disorder and a lot of anger at my parents. Call it teenage angst, if you will, but I know deep down that it was a lot more than that. The rule-based Christianity I feel like I grew up with was making me feel withered, and I did not know what else to do.

Seven years ago, I found myself on the opposite end of the spectrum. I had thrown out the “rules” and had turned to a much more emotion-driven gospel. I got myself into a situation where I began praying and reading Scripture, and creating God's answers. I believed He had promised me something, and I found a way to turn every Bible verse and every life circumstance into proof of this promise. When things didn't pan out, I threw that emotionalism out the window as well.

And I have been struggling to find a middle ground, a true ground, since. Though there have been a few seasons of deeper closeness with God, I have ultimately been trying to sustain my faith by minimal watering here and there. Two years ago, my eyes were finally opened to the true gospel, that I am saved because of Jesus, and not because of Jesus and... and the grace of Christ has been at work in my cold, bitter, frustrated heart ever since.

Currently, I am doing a Bible study with my sister about studying the Bible, which is producing a lot of great clarity for me and helping me to finally realize many of the lies I believed throughout my entire life. Last week, one of the response sections was on Psalm 1, and it struck an intense chord in my heart. I read through to verse three, where it says, “...whose leaf does not wither.” For the first time in seven years, I was able to put a finger on exactly what I have been feeling... withered. Yes, I am a mother of a toddler and an infant, but this withered feeling goes far beyond just being physically tired. I am withered in every sense of the word. I have long sense thrown out prayer, because I don't know how. I have thrown out writing and singing, because those are too emotional. I have thrown out reading the Bible because I feel like I'm always missing the point or not doing it right. I look for emotional highs in a good night's sleep, a cup of coffee, or a worship experience, but deep down, in the every day, I feel intensely withered and broken.

Why am I writing? I had sworn off blogging before. I had sworn off writing altogether. But as I teach writing day in and day out, I am keenly aware that writing is the way in which I process things, and the place I can be truly honest with myself, God, and others. I know someone else out there must be feeling withered too. I don't have all of the answers, and honestly, I am just trekking back into finding the way to God's bringing this very dead plant back to life. Right now, I feel exactly like this one plant in my kitchen looks like. (I am terrible at remembering to water plants. That reminds me; I should go water my basil plant now...) I have neglected watering it too many times, so that most of the remaining shoots are brown and papery, with just a few green shoots left. I don't think there is a way to bring that poor plant back to life, but I know that I am able to come back to life, because of Christ. Because He is stronger and greater than all of the deadness in me. I look forward to writing again, to being honest, to seeing the work of Christ's grace in my own heart.