Wouldn’t you know that not three hours after I decided, wrote and posted my first post for my Thirty-one Days to Rest series, I walked in my front door from a trip around the neighborhood and threw out my back. Between stepping across my threshold and opening up the refrigerator door for the eggs something twisted and caught in the middle of my back.
As I stare down age 38 in the face, things like this are a more common occurrence but I certainly did NOT think it would happen this morning.
I had a grand day planned filled with getting caught up on my to-do list, prepping for a meeting, folding some laundry and straightening up the garage.
I now find myself on the sofa, laptop in lap with a bag of ice wedged between my shoulder blades. I have placed everything I might need for the next few hours within arms reach because God knows I don’t want to stand up if I don’t have too.
Sigh.
Forced to rest.
It happens when one of our littles get a cold or when our car breaks down and we can’t leave the house for a few days: we are forced to rest. It also happens when we throw our backs out like little old ladies from picking up a carton of eggs and we now have to strain to put our arms above our head from the pain.
Or when, I believe, we plan too much in our lives. Sometimes the bowling pins we juggle above our heads come crashing down because even the best juggler can’t 100 things in the air at once.
Point well taken: as soon as I draw up my brainstorming insurance policy that maybe I can make it 31 days with 31 decent ideas on the elusive RE
ST I’m actually forced to perform it. And I also am learning right off the bat that maybe I don’t know a darn thing about it and that in order to journey this month into rest, I must trust the God who created it. I’m pretty sure I have more questions right now than I did a few hours ago.
So, today, as I’m forced to search for rest in the middle of a day with a lengthy to-be-done list, I’m going to open myself up to the irony of the Kingdom: that the first will be last, the lowly will be exalted and maybe the rested will be the most productive.
Let’s see how that goes. I promise I’ll let you know.
To read my Thirty-one Days of Rest welcome post, click here.
Have you been forced to rest lately? What forces you to rest?
Leave a comment here.
Oh I do prayer for your back to heal quickly…but also this your “forced” rest will be a fruitful time…I have had some long periods in my life of forced rest…I must say when I was younger it was like taking a wild horse and putting it in a corral…but now…I am thankful by God’s grace I yield much quicker to times of force rest…I lean into His every loving arms and i do find rest for my soul. May you feel His loving arms around you today~
thank you. hopefully it will only be a couple days. already is feeling a bit better.
thank you ro!
I am right there with u. I was cleaning almost immediately after I woke up this morning. I homeschool my 3 kids and am 23 wks preggo with my 4th so I was trying to sneak in some cleaning before my idea of how our day should go began…yeah, that plan got interrupted by dropping a paintball gun on my big toe! Oh my how that hurt…and still hurts. It is bruised, swollen and hurts to walk on it so sitting is on my agenda today. Good thing my kids can accomplish basic tasks for me around the house but I am also thinking this, might be a rest day for all of us…..books and hot cocoa…a movie even.
oh, that sounds heavenly!!
At 41, that throwing the back out routine is a little too common for my liking. Praying you REST and that it is a healing,peaceful time. 4 years ago in the midst of a very hectic life I managed to take a spill off my front step that resulted in a 3rd degree sprain on my right ankle. The doctors all told me it would have been better to break my foot as the healing for such injuries is long and difficult. But God was speaking to me. And in those weeks, I read through books of the Bible that I had never laid eyes on. Page after page of God’s mercy, His wrath, His Word. It was the beginning of a life transformation for me. So sometimes, God uses the worst days and the ridiculous circumstances to teach us HOW to REST.
One of the profound things God has taught me recently about rest goes all the way back to Genesis 1. “God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was EVENING, and there was MORNING—the first day.”
Notice the order – starting with time for rest, then work. Totally the opposite of how I had been living, thinking that rest was at the end of the day, instead of the beginning… rocked my world.
May your 31 days start with rest, and finish strong and well.
thank you! and that is very insightful, i might add =)
Seriously! I’m not even surprised. My back went from manageable to worse just days after committing to write my 31 Days. I’m still in pain. Feeling a bit defeated and like I should throw the towel in on this commitment… but I was finally feeling like I was acting instead of just thinking.
I pray you are feeling better, and that in this time of rest God is showing himself to you, and lavishing his love on you.
I know he is being glorified through you and the words he pours from you.
thank you! i am feeling better. thank you so much for the kind words. 31 days is a lot of writing. i’m exhausted (ironically). but now i am sick. go figure. first time in about 2 yrs. more irony =)