A Season of Rest

It’s been a long year, guys.

So far in 2014 we’ve listed (and sold) a house For Sale By Owner. We downsized from that house to an apartment. We helped clean up our community after a tornado. We’ve taken a youth group on a mission trip. We spent every Wednesday night (and many a Friday and Saturday) with that same youth group. We taught Sunday school for a while. I halfheartedly launched a blog and wholeheartedly landed my first regular freelance client. I also started a new job. Scott got a promotion and worked 10 hour days all summer. And we have made countless Big Life Decisions.

It’s not a wonder that we are exhausted. 

We’ve been running at too fast a pace for far too long. It began long before this year, but this year we hit a tipping point, physically and emotionally. This summer especially.

So we are making more Big Life Decisions. We are learning to say “no.” 

Starting September 1st, we are stepping down from helping out with your church’s youth group. We love the kids and are going to miss them, terribly, but we have to let go of something now if we don’t want that something to be our marriage later on.

It might sound overly dramatic, but Scott and I never just have fun together these days. We can’t remember the last time we spent intentional, relationship-building time together when it wasn’t about sitting down to make yet another exhausting Big Life Decision. We are always rushing off to the next Must Attend Event, checking off the next Very Important Task. There’s no recovery, no reflection. Just more busy, more do.

We’ve been saying “yes” to too much – all good things – but too many of them.

My body and my soul have been craving rest. Space to breath.

I know I’m not alone in this. As I’ve pondered what this looks like for us, I’ve stumbled upon blog after article after book this summer all discussing the idea of rest, of margin, of slowing down. I’m sharing a few of these here with you, in case your soul needs permission to rest, too.

Breathing Space Reads

Myquillyn Smith, The Nester, writes on the intentional choice of absence. Her words have encouraged me that claiming rest is not selfish:

Sometimes you need to do the crazy busy for a time. That can be part of life. But once you do that, you have to recognize the need to be crazy unbusy.” 

Emily Freeman reminded me that rest means saying “no” – even if it is in response to good things:

Saying yes to rest means saying no to good things. But taking regular time off is not a punishment or a dare or a rule. It’s a gift.”

Joshua Fields Millburn, one half of The Minimalists, eloquently differentiates between “busy” and “focused”:

The difference, then, is that I don’t commit to a lot of things, but the tasks and people I commit to receive my full attention … This year I’ll do only a few things—publish a book, embark on a 100-city tour, teach a writing class—but those efforts will receive all of me.”

I want to say – and feel – that I am focused in the coming months, not distracted like I have been, too busy to eat right or exercise regularly or even floss on a consistent schedule (shameful, I know). 

I love how Alicia Johnston at Jaybird reminds me that taking care of myself in times of stress is a priority:

If you’re hemorrhaging energy and focus, these are the tasks you have to prioritize … Remember, too, that your health and well-being fall into this category.“

A Season of Rest

We always say “When [insert Big Life Event] is over we will be able to slow down.” And it never happens. We just rush ahead to the next event and never take the time to savor, to enjoy.

So, rather than wait for the “busy” to sort itself out, Scott and I have chosen to take a season to rest. I don’t know how long this season will be, but I’m not going to give it a deadline or rush it along. I think we will know when we are ready to jump back in. We are going to say “no” – and without guilt. We are going to say “yes” to ourselves: to grocery shopping and lifting and yoga and writing and reading and taking long hikes together and spending evenings with friends. 

I’m still struggling with how to say “no” to things, though. I’m sure we will stumble at this. We like to say “yes.” We like to fill gaps and meet needs. But we need to give ourselves some space to breathe for a while, so that we can focus on what is best, and not what is just good.

Have you ever taken a season to rest? How were you able to carve out the space you needed?