rest Archives - Page 3 of 3

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I feel the space heater warm my nose while I tug the blanket ever closer. Today, cold air is the price I pay for half an hour of stillness.

I sneak away to the part of our house where the thermostat reads 60. I lay open my Bible along with my anxious mind and discouraged mama heart.

It’s worth the frigid toes—this rendezvous with Jesus.

And always in these moments I ask myself why I don’t purpose this quiet more.

Most days Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know I am God,” feels like an accusation. I want to be still and know. So I work harder to create rest time, but rest never comes.

But always when I work from a posture of rest, I’m amazed at what I accomplish.

There’s a type of prayer we yell in frustration. And another we whisper to ourselves, but the best prayer of all is the prayer when we stop to listen.

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This God of ours longs to speak life to us. He pines to abide in us—to spill his life out of us.

It’s easiest to listen in the stillness, and I seem to only find these tranquil places out of desperation.

When my heart breaks, I come. When fears ransack, I seek out this solitude. “Here I am,” I whisper Isaiah’s ancient words. “Send me.”

So much of my time I spend searching for my calling “out there somewhere” I can never seem to reach. All the while taking for granted this greater calling that’s much closer to home.

Stillness helps me embrace motherhood, to rest into this calling of diapers and dishes. The practice of quiet grounds me with God’s purposes for me in the present.

Waiting on God helps give birth to the fruit of the Spirit in me. Show me a home that can function without love, joy and peace?

I’m learning to rest in this calling of motherhood. I’m learning to look past the work and the exhaustion of a job that never ends, because in the serving I catch a glimpse of the kingdom of God.

You know the one that appears sideways to us turned-around sinners? The one where the humble are exalted and the foolish teach the wise.

In the bowing low of motherhood I see how we’re most alive when we’re dead to self. I see how the real work is not in the doing, but in the quietness of believing.

Do you remember what Jesus told the over-zealous disciples who were eager to find out how to do the “greater works?”

“Jesus told them, ‘This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent’” (John 6:29 NLT).

Stillness can give birth to a beautiful belief.

And when we purpose to listen somehow we carry the stillness with us back into our chaos.

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Media consumes my day, scribbling in the margins of my life.

I know I’m not alone.

An October study found Americans swallow up a whole 11 hours per day of various forms of media ranging from texting to radio. This same study predicts American’s appetite will average 15 hours a day by next year.

I feel the effects on my attention span. My young children tax my brain enough already, so I decided to take a drastic step to reclaim my mind. I set aside the remote and started a one month media fast.

Could you do it? I struggled through, and I already feel myself thinking clearer and praying more.

I feel a little like Cinderella once her fairy godmother poofed onto the scene, but instead of a gown and carriage, I’ve been given the gift of time. Three hours more per day descends on me like a package out of the sky in the form of no television, movies, Facebook or fiction.

So with this newfound gift of time, I accomplish more. I have even started this blog I’ve been meaning to get to for years. Without the distraction of TV, I brainstormed a book I want to write.

As a reward in itself, I study the Bible and exercise once the kids visit lullaby land. Quitting my media routine redeems 8:30-11:30 p.m. Every. Single. Day.

Replacing a bad habit with a good one is the only way to avoid returning to the foul habit, so I read every day, juggling between two or three different books.

Reading sharpens my thinking and speech. Conversations come easier, and I pause less often to think. My language and vocabulary have improved, and all the reading sharpens my writing.

I don’t check my Facebook feed five times a day anymore. This hones my focus to accomplish the tasks before me. You might still find me wondering around my kitchen trying to remember what I was doing, but my memory improves daily.

As far as TV goes, I don’t miss it at all. Most of the time I only sit in front of the tube to spend time with the Kenyan. He winds down. We hold hands and laugh with each other at the jokes. Sitting with the Kenyan I miss, but the mindless TV I will skip in the future.

Movies I definitely miss. A good movie is art. I will add movies back into my schedule once I make more progress on the blog and book.

Fiction I will add back into my media diet but avoid the meaningless novels cluttering my library. Instead I’ll focus on classics, bestsellers and historical fiction.

I pick up fiction second only after my head goes numb to nonfiction. This is when AMC’s Walking Dead would tempt me, but I will turn to fiction much more after seeing the benefits I’ve reaped so far.

Have you ever gone to sleep Sunday night and wondered, what happened to the weekend?

Before quitting my media habit, I often asked myself this. So the next weekend I would set out to rest more intentionally spending more time on the couch with my remote, but rest never comes.

Instead, TV arrests me and I end up serving it. True rest comes from erasing the extra media scrawled into the margin of my life.

No longer a slave to media, my mind can rest, explore and think freely. I bless the day I found the freedom to turn it off. Now I can rest.

How Stillness Leads Us to Worship

Quitting My Media Habit Cold Turkey