Rest for your Best Self
I interrupt our Advent messages with an important message about rest. I am writing this week’s entry from a posture of rest. Last Tuesday I was buzzing around the office excited about Giving Tuesday. I was gearing up for Bible Study when I felt a tickle in my throat. I can usually nip a cold in the bud with Tylenol, so I took two and kept on buzzing. Things escalated quickly and the tickle in my throat turned out to be COVID-19 and my buzzing became a break. This woman was down.
I fare well when I schedule downtime; a spa day or lunch with friends. I even fare well when I have extended downtime; vacations and such. But, when I am sick, downtime is tough for me, especially when there are things to check off my to-do list, emails to respond to, texts to send, graphics to create, services to plan, meetings to prepare for...all that I can do from the comfort of my bed. But this downtime was different. I couldn’t do much of anything. It was as if the pace of life and the weight of grief were like magnets pulling me to lay down. So I did.
But once I started to feel better and was ready to buzz again, I heard the Spirit say, “Aht, aht! Have you not learned anything?” The Spirit showed me that my immune system was indicative of a pace that was not sustainable. So I decided, with some urging from pastor friends who know the guilt that comes from sitting still, to listen to my body and to trust God to take care of the things that are Gods, namely my family and the church. I decided that for the sake of my own thriving, the thriving of my family, and the thriving of this church to lean into the wise words of author Olivia Butler who wrote, “Take your time and your rest seriously. When you are your best self, you can create the best change.
I write this entry not to garner sympathy, but to invite all of you to, in the words of Butler, “take your time and your rest seriously.” Because when we do not take our rest seriously, I am a living witness that our bodies will show us just how serious it is for us to rest. I also write this to invite all of you to join me in this endeavor of intentional rest, so that God can use our rested bodies and minds to do amazing things!
Growing in Christ
Pastor Donna Olivia Owusu-Ansah