Struggle Strategy: Check Out on Aisle Mine

Me, stalling: should I write about gratitude or should I write about rest?

Twinkle, decisively: rest

The Man: {laughing} your mom’s strength…

And he’s not wrong! Rest is a touchy subject for me. I’m pretty sure I already wrote about it this year—which is saying something because I haven’t written about a lot this year. In fact, I’ve spent my “restful” summer blogging more than I have all year because I finally had some white space in the schedule and thought to myself: self, you know what you should do with that white space? Fill it up!

Totally reasonable.

If you need a reread (or a first read!) of the blog post on rest that I provided back in March, you can find it here. Spoiler alert: I’m not going to repeat myself here. At least, probably not intentionally. And now I’m trying to remember what I actually put in that last post…

Pause to admire this bird while I collect my thoughts…

Here’s the thing. I have a constant struggle with rest. I don’t always know when to keep pushing hard and when to quit. I don’t know what’s me checking out and what’s me actually resting. And I rarely know when the right times are to offer myself grace when we’re in these tough seasons. I almost always feel like I need to keep on keeping on.

Someone has to be the adult. Someone has to keep the train on the rails.

But—and this is one of the reasons why the last blog post on community is so important—that someone doesn’t always need to be me. And often, I need someone else to tell me when my need for rest has turned on lights and sirens and is giving me all the warning signs that I need to slow down and give myself a break before I crash and burn.

This summer, my sister and my husband decided I needed some time away. I didn’t really agree with them. It wasn’t that I disagreed with my need for a break. It was that I thought I didn’t think I could afford the time away. There were too many things on my plate, and it just wasn’t convenient for me to spend a night or two away from home.

So when my sister asked me to run down to the coast with her on a work trip, I stalled. And waffled. And over thought. Because I am a mature, healthy adult.

But eventually the Man and my sister lovingly told me to get over myself and pack my bags, which was actually pretty effective in getting me out the door.

I’m almost forty with five kids of my own, and I still function best when someone is actively telling me what to do. Go figure. Also, for the record, they both made fun of how many books I brought with me for a sub-48 hour trip, and they should’ve anticipated that on the front end.

Anyway, true story, once I was squirreled away in my sister’s rental car and headed south towards the Gulf of Somewhere, I kind of anticipated having a good howl, possibly a full breakdown, complete with heaving sobs and streams of snot. But that’s not what happened.

Instead, I gradually felt like life was a little lighter and easier to carry. I could breathe more gently, not the controlled exhales I’d been using to keep my system regulated. My brain stopped spiraling.

For a little over thirty-six hours, I didn’t have to make any decisions, didn’t have to boss anyone around, didn’t have to keep the show on the road, and I really, really needed that. I went for walks with my sister on the beach. We sat and watched sunrises and moonrises. I had my coffee and my quiet time uninterrupted. I took naps.

And then we drove home. And I remembered that I can’t take a vacation every time I may want one… probably. I feel like that wouldn’t go over well with the kids. Or my To Do list.

This is not an everyday option.

But what I’m trying to do (some weeks more successfully than others) is to be more purposeful with how I spend my Sundays, to let them be a real Sabbath, a weekly vacation where I can, at least in part, take a break from keeping everything on the rails. I’m leaving my phone on the dock. I’m spending time painting with the girls. We’re listening to music and cooking dinner without feeling like we’re rushing. We’re playing games. Some of us (okay, it’s me) are taking naps.

And it’s helping me find a healthier balance between pushing myself and cutting myself slack. It’s helping me surrender the battle between work and grace and to trust that God knows when each of those things need to happen.

One more bird picture because they were really working it that morning.

If you’re in a season of struggle, a vacation may not be in the cards. It might even make you more stressed out if you did manage to pull one off. But one day a week, or even one afternoon (or even fifteen minutes a week where you set a timer!), I hope you can find the time to slow down and be present with the truth we all need to remember: we are not God. We are not the only thing preventing everything from falling apart.

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,” says Julian Norwich. “For there is a force of love moving through the universe that holds us and will never let us go,” concludes Penny Stone.

We don’t have to check out. We don’t have to quit. We don’t have to give up.

We do have to rest. And we get to.