Lord, I Need Your Rest

I have a strange tradition at the end of each day. After I put all of the children to bed, I stand at the kitchen counter and empty my pockets of the alarmingly strange assortment of candy wrappers, miscellaneous paper, plastic dinosaurs, matchbox cars, pencil erasers, and baby socks that have found their way in there throughout the day, usually because I found them in their landing spot and intended to put them away but was interrupted on my way to do so. It’s like a Mary Poppins bag, in that the contents of my pockets must be larger than the space available within the pockets themselves, but yet, by some miracle that breaks the laws of nature, it all somehow fits. It is actually a refreshing moment, as I empty them, reclaiming the freedom, unweighted down by the day’s challenges in the form of my children’s rogue toys. Somewhere in this ritual there is a fun board game idea, I’m sure. But, truly, it is a reminder of just how busy and distracted and chaotic the majority of my day is. Who picks up a toy and doesn’t have time to put it where it goes? A mother of five, whose potty-training toddler just exclaimed that they are finished what they were doing, but they don’t need you to help clean them, they’ve “got this.” That is not something that can wait. Trust me.  

 

Mine are not particularly difficult challenges or heavy crosses (though I admit they feel heavy to me, but that’s more a reflection on my spiritual out of shape-ness than their objective weight). I do not live in the Ukraine right now, worrying for the safety of my family; we are not on the verge of homelessness or wondering where our next meal is going to come from. I know exactly where my next meal is coming from (hint: it is in the refrigerator somewhere, and I am going to make it). I recognize that I am beyond blessed and have a very easy life comparatively speaking. Yet, I often find myself weary and very much in need of rest. It is part of human nature, and in fact, it is built into the creation story in the Book of Genesis. Man was created with the beasts on the sixth day, but he was created FOR the seventh day, to rest with His creator. In resting with God, we discover who we are, we find the meaning of our existence, as well as the purpose for which we were created: to be loved by God and to love Him in return.  

 

Jesus, in response to hearing about the apostles’ incredible work in ministering to those in need, does not praise their success or their commitment to the ministry. He does not focus on their impressive preaching or healing abilities. Instead, he invites them to go away with Him to take time to rest and pray (Mark 6:30-34). He echoes His calling to all of us with the invitation: “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

 

Two years into this pandemic, I imagine most of us feel weary and in need of rest. With airline prices sky high, vacation rentals in unprecedented demand, and rental cars in short supply, a tropical getaway may not be feasible for many of us (though if you’re offering, I won’t turn it down). We need to find rest - REAL rest - right now, and right where we are. This isn’t to diminish the value of warm weather or sunshine, those are certainly helpful tools when we need to feel refreshed, but their lasting effects are limited. Burnt out, tired moms who are buckling under the weight of the mental load are encouraged to order takeout and pour themselves a glass of wine, only to find the bottom of that glass too quickly, and rarely leaving them satisfied, rested, or recharged. More than a few bloggers have brought the ever-growing issue of mom burnout to light, encouraging their readers to recognize that women today need more support, not more wine. They are very right. But I would add that we also need space, support, encouragement, and direction toward opportunities to find rest. REAL rest.

 

But where do we find peace? How do we unwind? The answer is obvious but not easy: in Jesus. We find our peace in the heart of our savior, the source of all peace and joy. I think the difficult part, at least for me, is having the discipline and self-control to not fall prey to the quick, easy answers of the world in my weariness. Rather than zoning out in front of a rerun on Amazon Prime with my favorite treat, I need to have the discipline to spend twenty minutes in the presence of Jesus. A good friend gave me some great advice to “tithe” a percent of my free time to Jesus. It was overwhelming to think of giving up every minute of my own, so I try to take the first ten percent. Unwinding can take as many forms as there are individuals, and can even differ from day to day and vary during different seasons of life for each person.

 

Some people do best to wake up 30 minutes before their children and give Jesus that time of the day. I have often tried to do that, only to realize that I apparently love sleep more than I love Jesus. Ok, not really, but waking up early, when I have a newborn and am getting only a couple of hours of sleep, just doesn’t work for me. Some offer Jesus time after work or once the children are in bed. Some offer the first half hour of their children’s nap time or even their middle of the night feedings. Depending on if I have a new baby, how much sleep I’m able to get, whether I’m experiencing morning sickness, unpacking from a move, selling our house, or any of the other many life stages I have been through this year, I try to offer Jesus different times of my day with varying success. The most successful strategy for me has been to take ten minutes from each of those times - ten minutes before the kids wake up, ten minutes at the start of naptime, and ten or twenty minutes after the rest of my family is sleeping. This might be the most effective for me because it offers me the most chances to actually do it. Sometimes, my husband and I will use the evening time to watch an episode of The Chosen, which we highly recommend, or a Lectio series on the website (or app) Formed.org. If you get a chance, watch a lecture by Dr. Brant Pitre; we’re big fans of his.

 

Finding pockets of time for prayer also requires the discipline to be extremely good stewards of the free moments between the chaotic ones. If I whittle away those precious moments scrolling Facebook or filling online shopping carts only to realize that I don’t need enough to qualify for free shipping and thus never placing the order, rather than placing the grocery order we need or calling the dentist to make the kids’ appointments, then it seems like I have no free time to offer to our Lord in prayer. However, if I am intentional about that time, and I do dinner prep and make my phone calls before I pick up the school-aged children, then I can be more intentional about the focused time and attention I offer my children, as well as the time I devote to prayer.

 

For my prayer time, I try (TRY being the operative word - let’s be honest, these are life goals, and I am very much a work in progress) to say a decade of the rosary, read a page of a good spiritual book (“I Believe in Love” or “Imitation of Christ” both provide good fuel for meditation with minimal reading at each sitting, as I am unable to sit and read for long periods of time without nodding off), and then just sit quietly and reflect on what God might be saying to me, how He is working in my daily life, and all the blessings He has given me. During particularly challenging times, I spend the time laying my struggles at His feet and pouring out my concerns, which, often to my surprise, is the very best way to find relief from them.

 

The surest way I have found to experience true rest is to spend time in front of the Blessed Sacrament in Eucharistic adoration, even if it is just ten minutes (more if you can find it - I suggest bringing a few toys, a book, or a bag of Cheerios to coax just a few more seconds of quiet out of the squirmy toddler who you might need to bring with you). There is no place I have found that can compare to sitting in the presence of Our Lord, nowhere that so promotes peace, where our weary hearts can find the heart of our Lord in which to rest. 

 

I can only get to adoration at best once a week, so I have to supplement with other ways to spend time with Jesus. I am incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to attend daily Mass, where my toddler and infant are welcomed with open arms by the community, even if they add their own commentary to the worship, but at other times in my life, that has not been possible. We only recently took the advice we had heard for so long and established a prayer space in our home. We are finally unpacking our new house, and I am eager to make that a very special space for our family to pray together (and hopefully for me to find some time alone to pray as well). My current challenge is to reclaim the “prayer room” before it permanently becomes the “clean but unfolded laundry room.” The benefit of having a prayer space (even if it is just a corner of a tiny apartment) is that it is available any time of day, under any circumstances, and it brings the peace of prayer into your home. Also, it offers a home for the myriad of broken rosaries I keep promising to fix and holy cards I am forever finding all over our house.

 

One key to Jesus’ invitation to His apostles is to come away with Him. For my husband, finding a way to relax and spend time with the children is very challenging at home because of the thousand house projects and the ever-growing to-do list at home. If going away isn’t feasible, then perhaps we can take time to pretend we are away, to forget the list of things that need fixed, and to instead focus on quality time with Jesus and those whom Jesus has placed closest to us in our life. We try to alternate “fun” weekends and “productive” weekends, so that we can recharge our batteries without the house falling down because we never got around to fixing that thing. Or that other thing.

 

Finding - rather, MAKING - time to rest is essential to our ability to thrive. It is challenging to put aside the myriad of things we need to do, and it seems rather contradictory to think that taking time away from our to-do list will lessen our stress, rather than accomplishing the tasks we have to do. But God has not made us for our successes, He has not made us for to-do lists, He did not create us to merely be productive, but rather, He created us for Himself. We were not made to spend our lives working or focused on the daily grind, but to set aside the earthly distractions and turn our hearts toward Him. In Him we find our lasting peace and in His heart we find rest.

 

 

 

 

 

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Written by the Holy Rukus