Rest with me

I have uncommon amounts of fatigue. When I work more than I should, stretching myself thin, I become weak. At these times I am very susceptible to discouragement, lies, and general bad attitudes. One specific time that I found myself exhausted, I chose to rest. Let me tell what happened.
I was deeply tired, though not overwhelmingly tired. I had short energy. I could easily muster myself up to do things. But I didn’t have a good store of energy. There are times when you push yourself hard knowing that you will recover and be stronger for it. That is not the situation that I was in. I knew that pushing myself to do too many things would tear me down.
So I began to rest. This was very difficult for me. Ideas popped into my head. I remembered tasks that needed to get done. Each of these things came with a strong sense of urgency. “Quick, go sew the button on Jeff’s coat before your forget.”
My rule was that I couldn’t do any of these things. I could watch videos, listen to music or the radio. I could write things down that I needed to remember but I couldn’t do them. Also, if I was able, I would try to just sit there.
I rested this way for about three days. Afterwards I felt refreshed. It is wonderful when resting achieves healing and restoration, but what I didn’t realize what was happening was that I was practicing. The next time anxiety came, I rested on the spot. Later when I couldn’t shut my mind off, I did what I had been practicing and relaxed.
Oh my goodness, I gave myself a sabbath and I didn’t even know it. In resting, I honored God by not overusing resources, I honored God by treating my body in the proper way by giving it needed rest. But what I also did was practiced something that can be used every day. I had thought that a sabbath was so that I could recover from 6 days of physical work with one day of physical rest. What I learned was that at least for me that that one day of total rest could be practice, so that I could rest mentally and emotionally within the other 6 days.

One of the things that kept coming into my mind was a societal notion that I need to work, work, work, bigger, better, faster. It was the idea that I always need to be achieving. I had to force it out of my head. Well to be honest I didn’t force it out of my head. For me believing the truth starts with not believing the lie. I find that if I fight or resist something in my mind it gets stronger. If I say don’t look at such and such, I have a harder time resisting than if I just stop looking altogether. When the lie that I had to be productive all of the time entered my mind, I ignored it. I denied its power over me by not giving it the time of day. Then I just though of something else.
It is an ongoing thing. I need to keep practicing. But I am glad. It is fun to rest when I truly can and it makes resisting discouragement and the like, easier.