I know it isn't my 7th day but I'm introducing the topic of "rest" today. Confession time....I'm a TERRIBLE rester. I'm a professional "HIT THE WALL" kind of gal. I'm not sure what the middle looks like. I'm not good with prescribed sorts of resting plans. I completely fail at the "you need to take care of yourself" stuff. What does that mean anyway? I'm a single mother of three...yes, it will be very healthy for me to worry more about myself than my kids....NOT! Truth is, even when I was married, I simply had one more child to take care of. Don't get me wrong, I like men but I have had 50 years to appreciate their challenges and quite frankly one HUGE challenge is taking care of themselves. If nothing else I spent billions of hours of my life finding things in his home for him. I always wondered about that.....I always wanted to ask John, "didn't you move in here with me?" Why am I the only one who knows where things are? I digress.
Women are caretakers by nature (yes even those of us that are fiercely independent and strong)..I fought it for years but quite frankly I was happiest in my role as the caretaker of my family. I was the rock. Of course I was younger then and also had some help. I'll never forget the first family outing after Rachel was born. We went to the grocery store with a 5 year old, a 2 year old and an infant and John looked at me and said "Oh my god, they outnumber us!". Life was a series of balls up in the air from that point on.
The place that I exist now is one of fatigue. I'm sure I have cancer....okay, probably not but nothing would surprise me at this point. I don't sleep at night, hardly ever. I'm exhausted about 9:00 or 9:30 if I'm home and I lay down feeling about 15 minutes of sheer bliss as I snuggle into my blankets and pillows and then..................nothing. No sleep. It's usually 3:30 before I forget I'm awake and then the alarm goes off at 6:00. I often tell my "new mommy" friends that God sort of screwed up. Women in their 50's should be the moms because when I was in my 30's and had 3 babies/toddlers, I was MORE than capable of sleeping and I thought sleep deprivation would be my ultimate demise. However, now that I'm 50, I would like nothing more than a baby to occupy my time in the middle of the night. Occasionally I'll sleep more but the gift of menopause is insomnia. Thank you again EVE!!!! (For those of you that might not know why I am blaming Eve, please meet me after class and I'll splain it to you)......Bitch.
So this idea of "rest"....often comes in the form of wanting balance doesn't it? Isn't that what we are told to strive for as working mothers....."BALANCE". I think it is the biggest myth that we perpetuate in this society is that we can have balance. I tell you who can achieve balance....married mother of 2, full time mom, with 2 live in nannies and a housekeeper. That chick is balanced! Time for exercise, time to eat well, no need to stress eat, time for hair, nails, etc.. not too tired for sex...coffee with girlfriends...reads a book on occasion....BALANCE is expensive.
The Bible talks a lot about rest in Hebrews. I know there is the "Sabbath" and I'm supposed to rest. However, in the OT that was Saturday because they were Jewish and now its Sunday because we are Christians...just another thing to keep track of. I suppose you could take a sabbath on any day of the week that you choose. I don't seem to be able to choose one. In Genesis, the word talks of God resting on the 7th day not because he was tired but because he was done. Therein lies the problem.
When am I ever "done"? I stop at times (see above reference to "hitting the wall") but it certainly isn't because I'm "done". I'm afraid if I have to wait until I'm "done", I'll be on this hamster wheel forever. I find as I'm aging that I'm messed up in terms of sleep patters, energy, lack thereof...its all part of changing hormones, the aging process and depression. I do think there is an element of depression (chemical imbalance) happening. Not the "I'm going to jump off a bridge type" but more the "I wouldn't mind Jesus coming back today cuz I'm too tired to care that 40% of the kids in my school district started the year below grade level in reading." That sort of depression. Life just seems to go on past the point of the story sometimes. My depression is like those movies where you think......."okay, good story, I got it............hmmmm, yeah, I got it.............hmmmmm, OK I GOT IT (looking at my watch)....oh for crying out loud get on with it!"
Thankfully, God also talks about another kind of rest that will come later....not next weekend but LATER...as in "I can sleep when I'm dead" sort of rest! That sounds so good to me right now.......
No comments:
Post a Comment