restoration rest
Friday, September 14, 2012 at 11:35AM I was in a funk.
My body didn’t want to cooperate and neither did my mind. I couldn’t focus, let alone roll out of bed on time. I seriously would have been okay with rolling too if it would have retrieved my body from the coma-like sleep I was in last week.
I was tired.
My soul was tired.
Shoulds, coulds and woulds overcame my life. My chock-full calendar was scheduled to T-minus minutes. If I wasn’t working at my full time job in PR (no stress there!), then I was prepping for teaching or doing homework for the class I’m taking.
Either way, my soul was tired. It didn’t have room to be, let alone rest. I may have been sleeping 8 hours every night, but my mind was racing, my dreams were processing and I was barely recovering each day. I woke up more tired than when I fell asleep. This needed to change.
Pure exhaustion leads to indulging, not rest. Yes — TV, shopping, over sleeping, cooking for hours or taking a break from cooking can be rejuvenating, needed and a form of rest. But the truth is, real rest felt scary. As if my racing mind would catch up to me — all those monstrous shoulds, coulds, and woulds would come, teeth gnashing, and eat me alive.
That Thursday in class, Dr. Betsy Barber explained soul care. “Soul is something that needs rest, restoration, and shepherding.”
How were TV, oversleeping or eating out restoring and shepherding my soul? If anything, it was shepherding it point south. And north? Well, that’s where real rest and restoration happen. That’s where we have a shepherd.
Dr. Barber continued. “The soul is the animating principle of the individual, being or life.”
So the thing that gives me life, energy, being — I was neglecting it. No wonder I was so tired.
Finally, Saturday night after studying with a friend and a home cooked meal, I decided to put the books away and type. Type what I was feeling. Morse code my emotions on the keys. And I did. And it felt like relief.
Journaling, writing, expressing. These are ways I care for my soul. These are ways I can be hospitable to my soul. So blogging and writing are now a spiritual discipline. A way to rest with God. A way to tap into Psalm 23.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.”
How do you tap into Psalm 23?
*Photo taken on a destination wedding shoot trip in Maui, 2010.
rest, soul care, spiritual formation
Reader Comments (2)
love it, jenna! would love to talk with you about my new "rhythms of grace for a rule of life" project I'm working on...one of the ways I'm on my own quest for that which "restores my soul." a Joan Chittister quote to add to the conversation - "find the thing that stirs your soul and make room for it." it's one thing to FIND the thing, and another to actually make room for it...
Oh Heather, I would love to hear about this! Thank you so much for sharing some of where you are at and that quote! I plan to continue writing on rest so this may become a series. :)