Rest and Trust in 2023

 

Evelyn on Christmas break...resting! 

 Rest. Trust. I'm not a New Year's resolution kind of girl, but if I were to try to pinpoint what I feel God saying to me as I enter 2023 it is these two words. Rest. Trust. 

I haven't written a post in over a month. My family has been plagued since October with RSV, the flu more than once, head colds, chest colds, strep, etc. With my husband, Michael's travel schedule, it's been challenging keeping up with our schedule & responsibilities in between sick kids and their sick mom! We entered Christmas week on antibiotics hoping that this would create some supernatural bubble of protection that would allow us to celebrate Christmas with our family and friends...and to give us a reset physically to be strengthened. 

In the middle of this exhausting season, I am grateful. Though, I haven't been grateful at every moment. I get very stressed when I'm not able to handle my agenda with excellence, when I have to let things go. I struggle with anxiety sometimes over how to handle everything on my plate - the girls, the house, my job, the schedules, my own personal health and well-being. I feel anxiety rising whenever I feel like I can't do things as well as my heart would love to! To do something with excellence requires time, and time is a love language I understand and embrace. Yet, time is often the first thing interrupted or taken away when the planets of life don't align exactly how I expect them to. But, in the middle of worry and anxiety and having to be flexible and unsure of how I'll get it all done...I've felt this gratitude and this still voice calling me to Rest. Trust. 

God, in many moments the past few months, has forced rest upon me. I am not a good rester. I have this false thinking that I can only rest when it's all done. But, as a mom with young kids...life is NEVER done and so my temptation or pressure is to never rest. To never rest from tasks, to never rest from worry, to never rest and listen to what God is saying and how He's directing. to never slow down long enough to process or decompress. The temptation is to just...keep...doing. The "doing" can be measured and I can see progress or lack of progress, excellence or areas that need more excellence. I don't know if any of you can relate to this but sadly, my head works like this all the time! There are good qualities about that but it's also the greatest way to burn out and live life on a joyless hamster wheel! But, God, in His kindness, has used all of this sickness to force me to sit, to rest, to cuddle my babies, to look at Him and talk more with Him and about Him. He's forced me to say, "No," and to come face to face with my inward pressure to be the solution for all things! HAHA! 

I know that this is a blog on worship and more often than not worship is equated with action, obedience, movement, giving, serving...many verbs of doing. There's also a stillness, a quiet knowing that is a part of worship. Entwined in worship is yielding, waiting, pausing, listening, Rest. Trust. It's the removal of the worldly pressure to do, to perform, to get it right and placing all of that at the feet of Jesus. Entwined in worship is a reorientation of priorities led by the Holy Spirit, allowing room for the Sovereign Almighty to direct my movements to what is necessary today. Entwined in worship is trust and releasing, letting go of control and falling back into the arms of the ONE who carried all sin and rose triumphant from the immense burden. Entwined in worship is the removal of man-pleasing so that intense focus on pleasing my Father rules in my heart. Entwined in worship is the refusal to give way to anxiety and stress and to choose peace, breathing in and out, when little feels peaceful around me. 

It's time to learn about rest. How to live actively from rest. How to live actively from trust in my God. To rebel against the driven pressure of culture. To rebel against guilt. To rebel against obligation and performance. To get quiet. To gain Holy Spirit direction. To yield to God's voice and presence. It's time to live life in a giant pause until I hear His marching orders. To pray without ceasing about big things and the mundane things. God in His kindness is forcing rest...and I am grateful for the change and growth this will bring. 

Happy New Year! 2023...the year the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it!