It’s been busy around here.

Camps and curriculum writing.

Conferences to attend.

Worship to lead.

A child to raise.

Mice to kill.
(really. and yes, gross.)

and a freaking sermon to write and deliver.

and at the end of it all

a breath.

It was pure gift at first.  Those first moments of respite melted like butter and maple and covered all that was about them in sticky sweetness.

Time to drink coffee…out of a ceramic mug…and without a lid.

Time to read something…for the heck of it.

Time to cuddle my daughter and read that silly book for the 5th time in a row.

Time, time, time to rest, to breathe.

But somewhere in the coming hours, the sweet turned sour and like a child (brat) crying over an unwanted present, I rejected the gift of a week with less filling my schedule rather than embrace the rare, beautiful thing I had been given.

You see,

When I am busy I feel as though I am accomplishing much.

Kingdom come by my might, the sweat of my brow and the extra pot of coffee brewing as dusk comes slowly.

If I am honest,

I’ve been pissed off all week.

Annoyed at the amount of time I’ve had

…to eat meals at my table
…to sleep a full 8 hours
…to read
…to write

Forget health and sanity, I want to feel important!  Needed!  Go! Go! Go!

But the world, goes on whether I am spinning or not.

The Kingdom comes, slowly and beautifully like the summer sunset.

My work is not only in the big and important, the exciting and terrifying.

My work is also in the small things.

The mundane.

The small choices.

Going for a walk with the girls next door.

Reading silly books for the fifteenth time.

Being still.  Knowing who is God.

Knowing it’s not me.

Letting that seep into the marrow of my bones.

When rest makes me feel less.  As though my worth were dependent on my crossed-off list, then perhaps rest would be the most productive thing I could engage in.

When the crowds fade, the affirmation quiets and I am left alone to attend to the small things at a slow pace, am I as aware that I am covered in grace?

That every act is a gift?
A gracious welcoming of me into a thing called “life” that is so much bigger than I can fathom?

As I have despised and bemoaned and moped through this week of rest, calm in the midst of the hustle, I am reminded of these things.  That I am not what I do or do not.  That my worth is not in how well I write or preach or sing or play or parent.

I am reminded of who I really am.
Broken yet beloved daughter, drawn with arms of grace to the heart of Love itself.

I am reminded that I am nothing, and can do nothing, on my own.

that

each

moment

is

a

gift.

And today, this gift is rest.