Rest Assured

It's hard for me to be patient, to sit still, to rest.  I'm one of those people who would much rather stay busy 24/7 than actually have the downtime to sit around and do nothing.  The problem with that is we, as Christians, are called to rest.  We're called to pause, reflect and refocus.

Earlier this year, I had a plate much too full.  I was overcommitted to the maximum degree, and rest was the last thing I was willing to do.  How was I supposed to make time for rest when I had huge goals to accomplish alongside working and volunteering?  There was simply not enough time to pause.  So my days went by, one blur after the next.

At that point in time, I knew I needed to let something go.  I knew I was juggling one too many things.  There was teaching, coaching videos (soon to be my first year of coaching softball), leadership at church, marathon training, working on a novel, family time, friend time, etc.  Throw into that mix two bible studies and a few other weekly commitments.  It all seemed so good - so worthy of my time.  I knew I needed to cut something, but how do you cut a "good" thing?

The more I prayed, the more I knew something had to go.  Instead of doing anything about it, though, I just decided that if I worked that much harder, I could finish things quicker.  Finishing things quicker would mean more time to rest.  So that's what I did.  I squeezed everything into my life as quickly as possible, which only left me feeling unfulfilled and exhausted.  Nothing was done with full effort or full focus because I'd spread myself too thin.  Not to mention, by the time I had time to rest, I was too tired to do any reflecting and refocusing.

My plans to pray and grow in my relationship with God while marathon training faltered.  My brain was too all-over-the-place.  Instead of praying and praising God, I made to-do lists in my mind.  Marathon training began to be nothing more than a check on one of those to-do lists rather than the prayer time and solitude with God it'd been in the past.

Still, I refused to sit down.  I grew more and more confident with my own abilities to get through each day, forgetting to spend quality time with God (time with God while in the midst of a mental fuzz is not quality time at all).  I read through my bible, barely retaining anything and surely not letting the words take root in my heart.  I wanted them to, but I wasn't patient enough to let them.

Then one day God sat me down.  I couldn't run a mile without walking home limping.  I had shin splints, tendonitis in my IT band and a sharp pain in my ankle that would not subside.  If I'm being honest, I actually pushed through that pain for a while.  I ran some sloppy and slow ten milers just to cross it off my to-do list.  They were miserable runs with an even more miserable aftermath.  I tried stretching, icing and all that jazz before a group of ladies in one of my bible studies convinced me to see a doctor.

The doctor sent to physical therapy for several weeks, where they tried every type of therapy, including dry needling, to get me back into running.  My IT band and shin splints healed, but my ankle pain remained.  My peroneal tendons wouldn't stop snapping out of place so they stayed inflamed.

God was trying to tell me to rest, but I was too stubborn to listen.  I replaced my running time with time on a spin bike, determined to stay in shape - determined to still run the marathon - determined not to rest.  But God had other plans.  My ankle injury was one that required surgery, meaning marathoning was out of the question.  This ankle surgery would also prevent me from walking and driving for 6 weeks.  The only option I had left was to rest.

I don't think it fully hit me just how stubborn and prideful I was until one night about a week or so after my surgery when I tripped and fell face first to the ground.  At first, I was worried that the fall had reinjured my healing ankle (it didn't).  Then, I realized just what position I was in.  Sprawled out on the floor, even though no one was around, there was no room for pride.  I'd been completely humbled and the only thing left for me to do was praise God for letting me fall so that I could see just why He wanted my attention.

He wanted me to rest.  Not just to sit down in a chair, but to rest in Him.  He wanted me to refocus and reflect.  The whole time I'd been looking for something good that could come out of having an injury, such as going on a mission trip or finishing a novel, and all the while, that something good was right in front of me.  It was quality time with God.