For the past few weeks, I’ve been recovering from surgery. While the health issue was minor, the surgery was not, but in a few short days I will be reentering the real world.
The day before my surgery, a friend called and said, “Holly, I feel like I have one word for you: REST. And then she proceeded to read the following verses to me:
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:28-30).
She went on to say, “Don’t try to accomplish anything during your recovery or set any goals (she knows me so well!)…just rest.”
And, you know what? That is exactly what I did.
Although the surgery forced me to spend hours in the recliner during the first couple of weeks, the reality was that I needed more than just physical rest. While the events below didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, over the past three years I’ve experienced multiple major life changes…
- My husband and I moved from our country home of twenty years into an apartment in the middle of the city
- I changed jobs after being in the same place for 15 years
- I lived and led through a pandemic
- I wrote a dissertation in the middle pandemic and a snowstorm that shutdown Texas and still (by the grace of God!) graduated with my doctorate in May
My soul was weary.
I was doing my best to pull myself out of my weariness by taking days off here and there, not doing any work when I came home, and trying to do the things that brought me joy.
But my recovery plan was not enough. I didn’t have the strength or the energy to recover my life on my own.
So, on the morning of July 12, God set in motion a prescription for my recovery that I could never have written on my own.
He was offering more than recovery from surgery…He was inviting me to recover my life.
But what did it mean to recover my life?
As I reflected on those verses, I realized that for the past three years, my life had not been my own. My planner was evidence of blocks of time dedicated to my job, my dissertation, group projects, meetings and a million other things that demanded my attention. The pandemic only heightened an already overflowing schedule by adding countless Zoom meetings and increasing my decision fatigue exponentially.
The word recover means, “a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength.” It also means, “the action or process of regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost.”
I certainly had lost something.
I had lost the ability to live “freely and lightly.”
John Eldredge, in his book Get Your Life Back: Everyday Practices for a World Gone Mad, expounds on this loss:
“We are forcing our souls through multiple gear-changes each day, each hour, and after years of this we wonder why we aren’t even sure what to say when a friend genuinely inquires, “How are you?” We don’t really know; we aren’t sure what we feel any more. We live at one speed: go. All the subtleties of human experience have been forced into one state of being.
Your soul is the vessel God fills, yet there is no room for him to fill if your soul is wrung out, twisted, haggard, fried.” (p. 66-67).
A quick glance at my photos from years past, and it was evident that I was much more carefree and light-hearted. While my journey over the past few years included shedding my false self in exchange for becoming my true self, the reality was that even in my authenticity, life was wearing me down, and I didn’t have the armor or the defenses to fight my exhaustion on my own.
But not for much longer.
I was about to recover my life in places that I didn’t even know were lost, weary, and burned out.
What about you? Are you in need of a real rest? Maybe leading where you are has left you drained with little to offer and no prescription for recovery. I encourage you to simply pause and admit that you are in need of real rest…the deep soul rest that only God provides. Admitting that we are in need is the first step to recovering our lives.
