Rest. What’s rest? Asking for a friend because I wouldn’t know. What I do know is it’s something I’ll experience in the next life. There’s a poem that I love from one of my very, very favorite books called Mother’s Milk from Rachel Hunt Steenblik and in a little poem that she writes about Heavenly Mother titled “The Mother is not Absent” she says, “She is taking a long shower, a nap, and using the bathroom by herself.” Pg. 125 It makes me giggle because it is so, so true. I know this stage of life rest seems like some abstract, far away concept only to be attained in the life hereafter, but is there no other way?! I think I can speak for us all when I say I’m tired of being tired. But I come bearing good news. THERE IS ANOTHER WAY! *Insert metaphorical Heavenly light shining down and a chorus of angels singing. Christ is the way. He shows us how we can practice self-care and receive the physical, spiritual, and mental rest that we need. So let’s dive in and see just how He does it.
Physical Rest
One of my very favorite stories is in Mark 4:35-41 when Christ is sleeping in the ship during the storm and the disciples were so worried and panicked that they would be shipwrecked, that they wake him up. I can only imagine how exhausted a person must be in order to sleep on a boat during a storm. Let’s examine a little closer the context of this story. What did Christ do before this storm that he was able to sleep through it? In Mark 4 it says that he was teaching a great multitude of people by the sea side of Galilee. He taught the multitudes the parables of the sower, the candle under a bushel, the seed growing secretly, and the mustard seed. And after they crossed the sea of Galilee and arrive in Gadarenes as told in Mark 5, he cast out an evil spirit out of a man, went to heal a little girl, and healed the woman with an issue of blood. Who wouldn’t need a nap with that kind of schedule?! I believe that Christ knew that He physically needed to rest in order to carry on with his ministry. Christ doesn’t just invite us to come to him to for rest, he SHOWS us how to rest. Certainly if the Savior can make time to rest and recover physically, so can we.
Another story that illustrates the need for rest is found in Mark 6. After Jesus charged the disciples to go and teach and John the Baptist was beheaded, the disciples came back to Christ and told them what they had taught and done. He sensed their weariness. He told them “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.” Christ knows our needs. Because He knows them so well, He lovingly invites us to care for ourselves. He understood that when He asked us to be engaged in His work, it wouldn’t be easy. So when we accept Christ’s invitation to rest, we can “run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint.” D&C 89:20
So in my research for our topic of self-care I read a great article titled, “How to Follow Jesus’ Example of Rest” written by Vaneetha Rendall Risner. She is an incredible Christian woman who has had difficult life circumstances. She had polio as a child, she lost an infant son, and her husband left her when she started showing symptoms of post-polio syndrome. She said that she has found joy and redemption in and through Christ and I could tell her love and understanding of Christ and His teachings ran deep. She discussed self-care through the lens of Christ and she said, “the truth is, denying myself physical rest is not a virtue. It is a form of pride. God is inviting me to care for and pay attention to the physical body that He has entrusted to me.” When I read that, it blew my mind. We are not machines, we are humans. A light bulb will burn out if it isn’t turned off. A battery will die if used all the time. A computer or phone will malfunction if not turned off. It is not selfish or lazy to rest and recover physically. It is part of God’s design for our bodies and we can know of that truthfulness by following the Savior’s example.
Be Spiritually and Physically Fed
The Lord knows that we need to be fed. Spiritually and physically. I think that’s why I love the Last Supper so much. Just was teaching both principles through this method. I like to imagine what the Last Supper must’ve been like. The first thing that I can think of is that there was no technology so there weren’t any distractions. He was able to have their undivided attention and they were able to be present in the moment with each other, with the Savior, and with their food. They were all able to savor being spiritually and physically fed.
Elder Takashi Wada from the past general conference described feasting spiritually and physically so beautifully, “It is an experience of joy, nourishment, celebration, sharing, expressing love to families and loved ones, communicating our thanksgiving to God, and building relationships while enjoying abundant, incredibly delicious food. I believe when we feast upon the words of Christ, we ought to be thinking of the same kind of experience. Feasting upon the scriptures is not just reading them. It should bring us real joy and build our relationship with the Savior.
I also love the story of the Samaritan woman at the well because it teaches two fold. It teaches about the principle of rest and feeding ourselves spiritually. After Christ left Judea and was traveling to Galilee, he had to pass through Samaria. In John 4 it says that Christ was weary, so he sat down at Jacob’s well. That was the first thing that stood out to me. When Christ recognized his need to physically rest, he did, unashamedly. Isn’t it funny how we attach strings to our rest? I know I do. I think to myself, I’ll take a break when I’ve done XYZ. Or when you do actually convince yourself to lie down for a moment and then start thinking of all the other things you could be doing and make yourself feel guilty for taking a needed break. We all do it, I know. But reading this scripture brings me so much peace and validation to not run faster than I have strength. Mosiah 4:27 After Christ sat at Jacob’s well, he asked the Samaritan woman for water. Even though the woman recognized that he was Jewish, she didn’t recognize that He was Christ. Because of the custom of the day, Jews were not allowed to interact with Samaritans but Christ told her, if she knew who he was, she would ask him to give her living water. Being confused she said, but you don’t have anything to draw water from the well with and the well is so deep, how can you give me living water? Jesus answered and said to her, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never athirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water bspringing up into ceverlasting life.” Sisters, He is the living water that can fill our cups when we feel empty. When we feel that we have nothing left to give, we can come to Christ, His grace will fill us, because we all know we can’t pour from an empty cup. In Uchtdorf’s talk Gift of Grace, he teaches us that “God pours out blessings of power and strength, enabling us to achieve things that otherwise would be far beyond our reach.” When we yoke ourselves with Christ, let his love and knowledge fill us, we can be restored and find strength to carry on a little more.
Communion with God/Mental Rest
Oxford Dictionary states that Communion is, “the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.” I was a communications major at BYUI and I am so, so grateful for everything I learned. Communication is an essential and basic part of a healthy relationship. So it’s no surprise that it’s a necessary ingredient for having a relationship with God. When we commune with God, we engage with our own vulnerability and vulnerability is at the heart of connection. One of my favorite researchers Brené Brown says, “We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.” We see that Christ often communed with God for guidance, strength, and mental rest. In Luke 5:16 we learn that after Christ invited Peter, James, and John to be His disciples and he cured a man of leprosy, Christ’s fame arose and people came in droves to hear His teachings and be healed by Him. But what did He do first and foremost? It says, “he awithdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed.” First of all I can imagine how hard it must have been for him to say no. I don’t believe that “no” was not selfish, I believe that Christ knew he had to recenter Himself with His Heavenly Father so that he could continue to go about His work. Christ understood that communing with His father would make Him a more effective minister, teacher, and healer. I think as women we live under this false pretense that we have to say yes to everything and saying no means we are not fulfilling our duties and therefore should feel guilty. I don’t agree with that. I don’t think it’s a matter of saying yes to everything but more so of knowing WHAT to say yes to. For me it’s remembering that the gift of each day is more than a checklist. I very, very much struggle with this because I REALLY love checklists. It’s about asking myself, “Did I love my family today? Did I build my relationship with God? Did I build my children’s relationship with God? Those are the three questions that matter most to me and if I’ve tried my best to fulfill those then I can feel good about each day. Do I do all those things perfectly? No. But that is my goal and it is what I try to do everyday.
Prioritizing and Identifying our Needs
Two of the ways we can discern what to say yes and no to is by prioritizing and identifying our needs. Sharon Eubank’s talk in this past April’s general conference talk titled, “Christ: The Light That Shines in Darkness” says, “When expectations overwhelm us, we can step back and ask Heavenly Father what to let go of. Part of our life experience is learning what not to do. But even so, sometimes life can be exhausting. Jesus assures us, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ Christ is willing to join with us in the yoke and pull in order to lighten our burdens. Christ is rest.” Christ not only invites us to come to him for rest, He shows us how to do it, and lastly, he helps us pull our load. So invariably in all the ways we can imagine what rest is, Christ offers us.
I recently when to a women’s conference in Utah and one of the workshops was working on your inner child. It was very eye opening to me. Camlyn Giddins who is a Montessori teacher in Utah was leading the group talked about the inner child in all of us and how to our Heavenly Parents, we are still their little children because we are so young on our path to godhood. We talked about the importance identifying our needs. She made a fabulous point that parents or teachers wouldn’t dismiss the needs of who they are charged to care for. For example, if there was an infant baby who was tired and you know it’s the tired cry because you’ve already fed and changed them, you wouldn’t ignore that need, you’d help put them to sleep so they can sleep, right? So why do we so often neglect our own needs?
I also remember when Elder Holland came and spoke to the Young Married Adults and something that has stuck with me was the concept of The Plimsoll line because it resonates so much with identifying our needs and capacity to function. So what is the Plimsoll line? The Plimsoll line is a reference mark located on a ship’s hull that shows the maximum depth that a ship can be safely in water when loaded with cargo. This depth varies depending on the size of the ship, the type of cargo, the season, and the environment it’s in. Based on these factors, a ship’s captain can determine the appropriate Plimsoll line needed for the voyage. I know it may sound like a small issue because we have Amazon and UPS, but in this time in history when so much of commerce and trade was done by ship, it was a huge deal. So when crews and ships were being lost due to overloading, a Good Samaritan (pun intended) named Samuel Plimsoll (1824–1898) persuaded British Parliament to pass the Unseaworthy Ships Bill, which mandated marking a ship's sides with a line to show that if a line would disappear below the waterline that meant that the ship was overloaded and wasn’t safe to travel. Similarly, Christ is like the Samuel Plimsoll of our fleet of ships. He’s concerned about our well-being. He wants us to carry a balanced load, and urges us to mark our own plimsoll line in our hearts and minds so we don’t overload ourselves and sink. The beautiful thing too is that, that plimsoll line is different for everyone. Only we can know what our own threshold is and with the help of the Spirit we can discern what that balance will be for our lives. With that knowledge can exercise patience in our own threshold and those of others.
Be Lead by the Spirit
We have an extraordinary gift available to us. If we are worthy, a member of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit can guide us and give us the inspiration we need. We can ask the Lord for inspiration on what we personally need to do to receive rest and the Holy Ghost will give us the instruction we need.
2 Nephi 32:5
“For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do.”
All we need to do is ask, God is more than willing to help us.
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”—Matthew 7:7
So now that we’ve identified the most critical aspects of self-care which are:
· Physical Rest
· Being spiritually and physically fed
· Communing with God
Let’s discover how we can do that because I don’t want this to be just theoretically advice. I really, really do want you to be able to do these things. So, here are a few pragmatic ways to do it.
1. Clear your calendar
2. Let go of what isn’t necessary
3. Prioritize
4. Write Goals of what’s most important to you
5. Have quiet time free from digital devices
6. Have a Social Media fast
7. Be present in the moment with loved ones
8. Connect with art and nature
9. Have solitude to recharge
10. Give yourself a break from responsibility
11. Have alone time
12. Meditate or Be Still to decompress. There are great meditation apps!
13. Say “No”
14. Set boundaries
15. Slow down
Peace
Last but not least, let’s talk about peace. When the weight of the world, life, relationships, work, sickness, or anything that gets you down, know that you can find peace in Christ. I always take comfort in this passage in John 14:27 “aPeace I leave with you, my bpeace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be ctroubled, neither let it be afraid.”
Because of Christ we can attain rest and peace in this life. Don’t you feel so blessed because of that hope and knowledge? I sure do. I hope that what I’ve shared with you helps you, as it has helped me navigate how to truly take care of myself and I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment