“I love it when you rest!” Dr. Jade Teta, my online trainer, hollers over the music, and I don’t feel guilty for waiting a beat before taking on the next burpee. His short rest-based workouts seem too good to be true, but after months of following him, I see they work.
I mull over the concept. Rest is a tool for increasing intensity. Add some breaks into workouts, and exercisers can work harder when they go again. It’s the answer for the body, so what about the mind?
One evening last week, I bawled my eyes out in front of the family. It’s been a year of feeling stuck in our circumstances (no, we’re still not in the new house—even though our move was supposed to happen nine months ago—and I feel wronged. And that’s only one of the sticky situations in our lives right now.)
Daily, I strive in the things I can control and mourn the ones I can’t. I sleep at night, but do I rest? Not so much.
In a house full of ladies, Husband’s smart; he knows even the best advice can’t fix everything. He also knows a getaway here or there can work wonders. After witnessing The Crying Jag, he arranges two hotel nights for me alone, mid-week, in a suburb not so far away. The purpose, he says? To rest.
I pace the hotel room floor—might as well log steps while I’m here—but I remember the goal of my stay. My phone pings. A friend’s words pop up on the display. She’s battling anxiety. Her struggle is continual, her wait endless. Sounds familiar. But she feels called this week into a mental oasis of calm—a place of rest.
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
I put down the phone, replacing the digital word with the one on onion-skin paper. I surrender to what I read—to the One Who speaks it—and in come peace and rest. And maybe I practice that until it becomes as sticky as my circumstances.
I can’t master it, even in a lifetime, but I can rest trying.
*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.