Learning to Really Rest

 Do you know how to rest?

Really rest?

I'm not talking about sleeping each night.

I'm not talking about your time off work or school.

Rest can, and often does, include those things, but in and of themselves they're incomplete rest. They're not the important things that refresh us and restore us.

I've been learning a lot about this recently. It's easy to not be at work, but still be thinking about work, planning things for work, checking emails and chat messages on my phone. Or to be planning the next evening for the Bible study I lead - what we're going to study, the details of each night. Or to be looking after family stuff that isn't always as urgent as it seems. Or to just be busy cleaning, laundry, errands.

None of those things are bad, wrong, unnecessary. They're part of life and important parts of life.

But, if they're all we ever do, we'll quickly find ourselves in trouble.

It may all look good on the outside. We get things done at work. We lead or serve at church well. Our family knows we'll be there whenever they need us or just ask us to do something for them. Our house is always very clean and organized.

But, we come home and collapse on the couch. Too tired to do anything but numb ourselves with binge watching a favourite show or scrolling social media before we crawl in bed to try to get some sleep. Morning comes and we do it all over again. Hoping for the day where we won't feel so exhausted and overwhelmed - the day when we'll do the things we used to do that brought us joy.

If we can actually get to the point where we admit it's not working, we can learn what real rest is. We can learn a different way to live. But, it means we have to be intentional about it.

This is where I found myself almost six months ago. I took my vacations from work, but all the notifications still showed up on my phone each day. I took the scheduled breaks between Bible studies I was leading at church, but I spent all that time putting together the perfect plan for each upcoming night we would meet - even though I knew most nights would likely not go exactly according to my detailed plan. I'd decide to take some time to do something I wanted to do, and a family member would phone or text with a request, and I'd drop everything to help them out immediately - even if it could have waited. My house always had to look perfect, even thought I was the only one who was going to see it.

And I thought I was resting regularly. Except coming home from work or whatever else I felt I needed to do and zoning out in front of the TV for a few hours wasn't really rest. But, it was all I could do with the way I was living.

I knew something had to change, but I had no idea how to make that happen on my own. I needed help to figure it out. I still need help figuring it out some days. I needed someone to help me see how I could make those changes.

And I sought that out. I found that help and began to make those changes. And I began to learn what real rest looks like.

It includes sleep. It includes time off work. It includes what I called rest before. But, it's so much more than that. It's meant boundaries around my time. It's meant intentionally scheduling time to do the things I enjoy and protecting it.

I can't tell you exactly what it should look like for you. We're all different. And what's restful to me, might not be to you.

But, I know for me, it meant setting quiet hours on my work apps on my phone so the notifications only appear when I'm supposed to be working, and turning them off completely when I'm on vacation. It means leaving my phone behind on purpose, or turning it off when I'm out for a walk or coffee with a friend (have you ever thought about how much our phones interrupt us when we're with other people?). It's meant learning to only drop everything for emergencies with family and making plans for another time when they phone with non-emergencies.

More importantly, it's means doing things I enjoy more often. Sitting in a coffee shop with a good book. Going for a walk with a friend. Playing a game with my niece (and usually losing to her). Reading that book that's been sitting unread for too long. Getting together with friends for games, food, conversation. Regularly phoning a friend just to talk about the last week for both of us. 

Really, it's been rediscovering what brings joy. What makes me smile. What energizes me.

That's been what learning to really rest has been about for me.

And as I watch people in my life and people around me, I wonder how many more of us need to learn how to really rest. How to make space in life for what really is important.

So, how about you? Do you know how to really rest?

When you look at your calendar, is it just filled with things you feel like you have to do? Or are there things on it that refresh you, restore you, leave you feeling energized?

How can you make sure you have these in your life consistently?

How can you learn to really rest?

The Assumptions we Don't Realize we're Believing

 Going back to places often brings up a lot of memories. And it can make you think a lot about life.

I was recently back at the college I graduated from. I spent two years at Briercrest. I learned and grew a lot in my time there. We arrived a day early for the reason we were there, so I had time to explore the community . . . 17 years after I finished school there.

I wandered the once very familiar streets of the small town - noticing what what had changed and how much was still exactly the same. As I did, memories of friends, the crazy things we did as college students, classes, profs, and dorm life came flooding back.

After a bit of walking, the flood of memories slowed and I started thinking about other things. I started reflecting on how things have gone in my life both when I was a student there and the time since. Specifically about some of the things to do with circumstances in life.

If you've read what I've written about the last few years, you'll know I've written a lot about singleness in the church. And this is where my thoughts were again.

When I was growing up, going to a Christian school for any amount of time for post-secondary was seen as basically a guarantee that you would find the person you were going to marry. So spending two years at Briercrest and not having gone on a date with someone was seen as strange in the circles I was part of. In fact, it was a bit of a joke in my family that I had "failed" Bible college because I came home single.

It was this experience that made me realize how easily we believe things without thinking them through and make them a part of our assumptions. If you had asked me why I was going to Briercrest, I would have given you a lot of reasons, none of which included finding someone to marry. And all of them were absolutely reasons why I chose to go.

What I didn't realize was that I'd bought in the assumptions that gave Bible colleges the nickname "Bridal College" and made the quip "ring by spring or your money back" so popular in places I was. All these things were said in jest, but there was a degree to which everyone also assumed they were true and believed them.

I never would have said these things out loud or acknowledged I believed them, but they had become a part of what I thought, believed, assumed. So to graduate after two years still very much single and hear jokes about failing because I was still single was harder than I was prepared for. It revealed the things in the church culture I had grown up in that I had just taken in without thinking about it.

And I think it's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the assumptions we believe without even realizing it. Especially when it comes to singleness in the church.

So, what do we do with those assumptions?

How do we become more aware of the assumptions we're believing and how they impact our lives?

And what do we do when we become aware of them?

I think we have to start with asking ourselves why we believe the things we do. That's how we might begin to see where these assumptions are in our lives. 

And when we become aware of them, we can choose to see them differently.

In my case, I realized as I wandered the streets and buildings at Briercrest, I was finally in a place where I didn't feel like I had failed or that something was wrong with my because I graduated Bible college single. But, I also know it took me a long time to get to that place, because of the assumptions I had believed.

The Hardest Sunday to go to Church

 Some dates on the calendar are difficult ones for all of us for a variety of reasons.

As I flipped my calendar to the month of May yesterday, I realized we were fast approaching what I would call the hardest Sunday of the entire year for me, and many others, to go to church.

What is that Sunday?

It's Mother's Day.

When I tell people that, some have a list of reasons why I might not want to go to church this particular Sunday. But, many others have no idea why.

Let me tell you why . . .

Most Sundays I go to church and I sit surrounded by couple and families. Some Sundays, I feel acutely out of place as a single person with no kids of my own. Other Sundays I hardly notice that.

But, on Mother's Day . . . that feeling of being out of place is amplified. 

I can't tell you the number of Mother's Day Sundays I've sat in church where mothers are celebrated - applauded as they're asked to stand, given gifts as they leave the service - & I've wrestled with how it makes me feel. The way I feel ignored again.

I know that there's nothing malicious about it. There's no plan of making me, and others like me, feel ignored. I see the desire to honour mothers for the very important role they play, for all they do. And I know it's needed. I watch my sister as a single mom and I don't think she gets enough recognition for all she does.

But, I do wonder if there's a way to honour mothers without making it incredibly obvious who doesn't have kids. I wonder if there's a way to celebrate and acknowledge the role of mothers in our lives that doesn't leave some feeling like they're ignored, or unvalued.

Maybe, as we return to what feels more like normal after a couple years of not being able to do this, we can change the way we do things?

Maybe, we can look for ways to give gifts that don't mean people are basically asking if you're a mom as you leave the service. (Yes, I've had this happen. It was one of the worst feelings in my life.)

Maybe, we can celebrate the way even those of us who aren't moms still play a role in the lives of kids and others in our lives alongside mothers - at least in the public parts of what we do.