“If the Devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy” -Beth Moore
I was a brand new Christian the first time I heard Beth Moore say that. I was in the living room of my Mentor mom’s house (MOPS, Mothers Of Preschoolers, has “Mentor Moms” who are basically the sweetest women you will ever meet, and you get to have a whole year of having one of these ladies, who are usually grandmas, help guide you through those crazy, early mom years). So, there I was in Sue’s living room hearing Beth Moore preach about the “captivity of activity” and at the time, that concept seemed foreign to me. I was literally looking for things to do every day, to fill the chasms of hours that seemed to stretch on forever while my 9 month old son and I just waited for Daddy to get home so we could see another face.
Fast forward 9 years and now I’m looking to pump the brakes, but I literally can’t even find them.
My days have become jammed wall to wall with all kinds of things. Almost all of them feel necessary and good, but sometimes the sheer pace of it all feels like it’s sucking me dry. I’m talking regular things here: Going to the gym, going to the store, Doctor’s appointments, counseling appointments, volunteering at school, gymnastics class, piano class, church activities, date nights, small group bible studies, haircuts, playdates, orchard work…there’s literally nothing that I would want to strike from this list of things that currently squeeze out all the whitespace in my ginormous mom-binder-planner.
Last night, as I was thinking about how utterly tired I felt, and how I felt like my mind was spinning because I hadn’t been alone with my thoughts in quite some time, I was left pondering this question:
Is this pace a problem, or is God working something out in me here?
In the past several years I’ve come to realize that my default mode tends to be to over-schedule, to strive, and to always try to optimize every situation for maximum efficiency (translation: I’m frequently innovating and almost always running late).
So, as I’ve been trying to flesh out whether or not my life pace is a symptom of my natural tendency to spread myself too thin, OR if this is simply a season of life where there are just a lot of demands and a lot of “scheduled maintenance” that must occur to keep our family running smoothly, I’ve found myself looking at the even deeper issues that run across our society as Americans in 2018.
For starters, we do so love our comfort. Is this feeling that I’m “too busy” simply coming from a selfish desire to have more down time, more leisure, more comfort? Is it possible that God actually blesses our efforts to work hard and to feel spent at the end of every day?
But then, I flip to the opposite extreme and notice how our culture, and myself, totally neglect the practice of God-given Sabbath. Structured times of rest and absolute do-nothing-ness that were instituted by our creator to literally charge our batteries and keep us running. I do know that I internally fall apart if I neglect this. It’s often a slow fade, but I can usually sense the crash coming when I’ve been burning the candle at both ends for too long.
So, like most things there seems to be a tension here. Every good truth, everything worth doing, seems to exist in the often difficult to navigate tension of ideals. Yes, we are to be working hard, with diligence, creativity, and wisdom, BUT we are also to set aside time to be completely non-productive.
I guess for me, the hardest part is not the working hard, it’s the setting aside time to rest. The REAL rest that does not include Facebook, Twitter, or the Blacklist, but rather, naps, Bible reading, nature, journaling, praying. As a mom, sometimes it feels and really is impossible to even get a shot at the time alone, uninterrupted to accomplish this massively needed rest. And there again lies a tension. God made us moms, and he certainly blesses that role, so He must have a way to meet us in the middle here and offer a glimpse of Sabbath in the 20 minutes we manage to wake up before our kids, or in the 15 minutes we get alone in our room in the middle of the afternoon (on a good day).
This is something I’m just beginning to understand and I hope to continue developing this practice of rest in little pockets of time, but please tell me how you find ways to make this happen! What are your favorite ways to rest? What recharges you?
Motherhood is not easy, so we have to make sure we pay attention to self-care, and this issue of rest is no small thing!
Wishing you a glimmer of hope and a window of rest today.
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