Miles to go before I Sleep

Last post I shared with you all about living in the present and sometimes that means slowing down a bit and being okay with goals taking a little longer to accomplish.  Today, I want to talk about a subject that I feel it's very important. Yet, I have noticed that people have the tendency of brushing it off or speaking down upon it. It is a topic that applies to everyone, not just the ladies but the guys as well. The topic I'll be talking about today is REST. Yes, you read that correctly and I hope you join me as I talk briefly about this subject and the importance of it.

Right about now you might be asking yourself, “what in the world made me want to talk about rest?” The answer is simple, I struggle a lot with rest. I would wake up at 6 am and some days did not go to bed until midnight and even sometimes past midnight or if I went to bed early it will be 11:30. That will happen mostly Monday through Friday. On weekends I might sleep in a little and wake up anywhere from 7:30-8:30 but sometimes that was as a result of going to bed even later than midnight on the night before (not any more I’ve been working on it and hubby has been making sure I rest and even sleep in too).

How did I come to the realization that I was struggling with rest? If I'm honest I didn't know that rest was a struggle for me. I mean, I'm the person that once I settled down for sleep, I went to sleep and 99.5% of the times slept right through (unless the kiddos woke up in the middle of the night). So how is it that I struggle with rest? Towards the end of last year I started a book called, "Glory In The Ordinary," by Courtney Reissig. It's a great book for all the wives and mothers, I learned a lot from this book and was faced with many things I needed to work on in my life. Yet, one chapter in particular caught my attention very much, so I decided to name this post the way Courtney Reissig called her chapter, "Miles to go before I sleep".

I remember seeing the title to the chapter and saying, "Yes, for real!" Affirming that was exactly what I had in my mind day in and day out. I had unconsciously embraced this unhealthy hustle mentality. The mentality that tells me “you have a lot to get done before going to sleep”. The mentality that would tell me "if I want to accomplish something, I need to do both, wake up as early as possible and go to sleep as late as possible”. I would mentally give myself a hefty list of to-do that will keep me running for miles before I'm able to rest and God forbid if I went to bed without getting things done, it would disappoint me.

If I want to be fit, I needed to wake up at 6:30 and work out, if I wanted to be "super mom" and cook breakfast for the boys I had to wake up even earlier (6 am) so I had time to wake up, work out, take a shower, cook breakfast, wake up Caleb, get myself ready, get him ready and be out of the house by 8:10. So, it's that unhealthy hustle mentality that keeps you pushing yourself while brushing off rest and that can even make you believe that sleep is for the weak or that resting is not wise because you are wasting your time. If there is something that I am learning is that sleep and/or rest is not a weakness or a sign of not having wisdom or a waste of time. It takes strength and wisdom to admit that you cannot do it all. It takes strength and wisdom to know and admit that you have limitations. There is a reason why God who doesn’t have human limitations like you and me in the beginning showed how he worked and rested for 6 days and on the 7^th day he dedicated it to rest.

Rest is a gift from God for you and me. And yes, you read that correctly I wrote that rest is a gift. Courtney Reissig stated this in her book, “Rest is a God-designed gift meant to point us back to the One who created us and sustains our weary hands in our labors. Sleep is actually his gift to us. If the God of the universe, who wants for nothing, rested, then we his image bearers, who are in want of everything, need rest."  When I read that it blew my mind. There is nothing we can do on our own. We depend on the One who created everything and doesn’t have a need for anything. If that is the case, if we understand that we can’t do anything on our own regardless if we rest or we don’t, then my question to myself was and to you is: why do you push yourself beyond rest like if what you accomplish is solely from your doing, from your strength and your ability? Why not do your part and work like He work and take advantage to rest like He rested at the end of the day? Isn't He the one who sustain you when you’re working and when you’re resting?

Rest is not only needed for our well-being or for our self-care but it is also needed for the well-being and the care of those around us. Stay with me, I’m not going crazy. Courtney Reissig describes this as, “Rest is a means for loving my neighbor”. When I read that I was like, “okay, I thought rest is just good for me how can my rest show people that I love them?”  She says this, “By embracing time in our Sabbath rest we are free to love others in our resting. We are not bound to productivity or a schedule, so people are not a hindrance to those things.” Wow, by setting time aside for rest you open yourself up for people to not become or be a bother or burden to you.

Think about it, how many times have you been on the go with little rest day after day and stay with a good attitude? How many times during you pushing through with no rest have someone given you a call and you end the call bothered because it got in the way of you doing something? How many times have your child or your spouse have asked you to sit with them and you say not now and the now doesn’t seem to ever come to them? I remember one day I was on a roll since I opened my eyes it was in a bad season of no rest and it was already late afternoon and Carlos says to me “Baby come here sit down, rest, watch this with me.” I answered him “Give me a minute let me do …” he cut me off and was like “that can wait, just take a minute watch this with me and rest.” You might think this brought me to a moment of realization of the importance of rest but it didn’t, I sat down and wasn’t happy to be sitting down with my husband hugging me watching something, at that moment he was being an obstacle to me being able to do things in my list. That is so sad to say and admit, I feel horrible, but it is the truth. Yet, that is why it is important to make sure you make time to rest.

I’m going to wrap it up with this quote from Courtney Reissig that says, “Rest gives us the chance to value the people we labor for on a daily basis.” Just as we work so hard and push ourselves so much to get things done for the people we love lets make time of rest also a priority so that those who we do these things for can feel and see that you value your time with them. Life is not meant to be lived with “miles to go before you sleep.”