Rest: The Intern Diaries

First of all, being salaried is a new, weird experience. Also new and weird (and wonderful) is the fact that my director is very conscious of making sure that I'm not overworked.

As a result of my awesome director's caution about me not working overtime without getting compensated (and our fairly small budget), I got yesterday and this morning off. And it was beautiful.

I touched on it a little bit here, but rest is a really difficult concept for me to embrace. If there's work to be done, I would like to be doing it so that I don't have to do it later, or so that someone else can take a break. If I can be productive, I would like to be. If I can be accomplishing something, checking it off a to-do list, moving forward with a project, I would like to do that. So resting is difficult for me.

Most of my work is hard to do from home though, so I was forced to turn to other things to pass the time on my Monday/Tuesday morning mini-vacation, which was a blessing. In that time, I found a chance to rest, to linger where I wanted to, to work out, to just be.

I got a chance to read an entire book (The Maze Runner rocked me). Hammock. Eat s'mores. Hike with friends. Sit with the Lord. Call a friend in Iowa. Do some thinking about life. Brainstorm more for my summer bucket list. Clean my room (it's been a while since I did that). Sleep in. Sleep in a hammock. See my physical therapist. Go for several long bike rides. Hang up my own laundry. Pet the cats. Dance. Make dinner with my family. Enjoy breakfasts and lunches on my porch. Swing on the swing in front of my house. Sit in the creek. Journal.

I had space to exist, to rest, to feed my soul. Let me tell you, that was a blessing of a time. I realized just how essential rest is to our rhythm as humans. I go back to the fact that the Lord even rested after creating the world.

And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. Genesis 2:2

I can't tell you why He did that exactly, but one of the wise people in my life has said He rested in part because He was setting an example for a fragile creation (people) who are not infinite and need rest. That's pretty neat that He would set an example like that to protect us as people.

How proud I have been, thinking I know best, thinking that I don't need to rest. How proud of me to think that I know better than the One who created everything. (Thank goodness for grace and forgiveness. Thank you, Jesus.)

It's a learning curve. I am definitely a slow learner when it comes to things like this. But I'm learning nonetheless. If I can encourage you to do anything this week, it would be to take some time to really rest. Not kill time mindlessly or a do an easier task than your usual grind, even an enjoyable task, but really rest. Step out of the routine and embrace time with Daddy. Whatever that looks like for you. I'll try to do it too. It's just good for us.

Ecclesiastes 3 talks about how there's a time for everything. There's a time to work and a time to rest. Resting doesn't qualify you as lazy or unproductive. It qualifies you as smart, as obedient, as treating yourself right.

As my fantastic director would say, "work hard, play hard (rest well)."