Rest

Thursday, October 27, 2022.  Why do we find it so hard to rest these days?  God built the Sabbath right into the week so that we would rest, and yet we still resist it. It’s one of the things I struggled with the most when this illness claimed me.  CFS/ME forces you to rest or suffer horrible consequences.  I’m better than I used to be because now I stop before I’m literally paralyzed with fatigue.  Now I just feel like I’m getting the flu complete with body aches, sore throat, the whole shebang.  (Side thought - where the heck did the word “shebang” come from?)  But at first, when I wasn’t being productive, I was struggling with feeling worthless.  That’s what our society has done to us.  You’re supposed to go, go, go, 24/7 to prove your worth.  Hobbies?  Forget hobbies.  Unless you turn it into a business, what’s the point of a hobby?  Take a whole day off?  Well, have you earned it?  Playing with your child?  Are you teaching them something at the same time?  For goodness sakes, can we just stop?  Can we breathe a minute without it having to mean something, be something other than just a breath?  I have to say that out of everything this illness has taken from me, the one thing I’ve gotten back is the ability to rest without guilt.  At least, most of the time.  When I start to equate my worth with my lack of productiveness, I remind myself that I’m a child of God.  That my value with Him doesn’t have anything to do with how much I can pack into a day.  I just have to love Him, and do my best to be a good person.  And guess what? After that, I can rest.