I’ve been thinking a lot about rest/sabbath/time for myself recently. It seems to be a recurring theme, and I’m not sure if it is because I’m hyper-aware of it or if it’s because I actually am stumbling across other people’s thoughts about self-care and rest more. In Shauna Neiquist’s new devotional book Savor, she talks about rest being a good thing and a holy work of sorts, not necessarily just because we are tired, but because it prepares us to do the other things in our lives. Resting helps us to be more caring with the people we love; it helps us to be more productive with what we have to do. Coming to everything in life exhausted and depleted isn’t fair to anyone.
Saturday night, after a frustrating day that was not at all the Saturday I had hoped it would be, I told Gerrit, “I feel like everyone needs so much from me and I’m running out of resources.” And then I sat down to read a new book, The Fringe Hours by Jessica Turner, and I read the chapter on feeling like you have to be everything to everyone. Ha. Ok then.
The truth is, I don’t have to be everything to everyone, but at the same time I feel like just about everything I do right now is necessary, either for me or someone else or both. I’m not sure what I can take off my plate to create more space for the other things I need, including rest.
I guess the answer might look different each week. Sunday I stayed home from church and sent Gerrit and Evelyn off so I could do yoga and fold clothes and just have some peace and quite alone. Next week it might be saying no to something else. But I do know and have realized recently that it means blogging less often and cooking things that are simple and returning to my tried and true recipes that require little fuss (like this pizza dough obviously, which takes 3 minutes to put together in the morning and is ready when we get home from work).
There’s no such thing as perfect balance all the time (this is a hard thing for me to accept), but I’m at least trying to find a different balance each week. And when I end a Saturday in tears because my day went nothing like I had hoped, I’m trying to learn the lesson in that.
[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:66]
I’m struggling with this too, in a different light–more like there are so many things I want to accomplish that I’m inevitably disappointed when I can’t do them all in one weekend. You’re right, it’s important to rest, even if it feels like wasted time. It’s never wasted time. Especially if we can then come back to those we love feeling refreshed. Thanks for the reminder.