You Look Tired

“You look tired,” a normal greeting from my beautiful and Australian accented mentor, Meegan, from my campus ministry. It was true. I looked tired, pretty much all of the time. I have developed this habit of investing too much into everything. While I was in college, I was taking full course loads, as well as being in at least 10 clubs, societies, groups…whatever. Most days I would wake up, at the latest, 7 a.m., charging through the day and getting home around 1 or 2 in the morning. You can ask my roommate in college, Gretchen. She will tell you that unless I scheduled you in somewhere, I would always be in the middle of something (and even then, I would still sometimes over book myself and miss friend/roomie time). Somehow I survived without my coffee addiction that didn't come until later.

I was blessed to be mentored by Meegan, one of our campus pastors. She always told me how confused she was about my schedule and how I survived each day. To be honest, looking back, I have no idea how I did it. I took the phrase “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” literally.

So when Meegan gave me a challenge at the end of one of our mentoring meetings of sitting still for 5 minutes, I thought she was crazy. When it came down to it, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to do her challenge…but it was that I physically couldn’t. This idea of rest…it was foreign to me. My worth, everything I was known for was in what I accomplished and what I did. People saw these things and loved me for them, wanted me, and the organizations needed me for whatever role I played. Without these things, I thought there was no point to my being.

Heavy, I know, but it is the truth. Fast forward to my senior year of college and I still had no idea how to do this whole “rest” thing, but I vividly remember the day I decided to take my first “mental health” day and skip class. I did not skip classes. I was 100% that obnoxious student who was buddies with most of my professors and they knew when I wasn’t there. I felt guilty.

However, this one day, I woke up and realized that I had to just stop and take time for me. Covering all of my bases, I wrote and email to my professors and told them I needed a day off and I would make sure to get notes from someone else. Jumping in my 1996 green ford explorer (named The Hulk), sunroof open, my journal in the passenger seat, I drove out to Rainbow Basin, one of Kirksville’s hidden gems.

There is this tree there right passed where you can park your car. It is one of those big trees that looks like a sweet older grandpa. It is sturdy, kind of solitary, thick, and overhanging branches. It was still morning time when I arrived, so it was quiet and the sun wasn’t totally overhead yet, but it was still so bright.

I found my spot near the tree and sat, the prickly grass under my legs, and started writing until there was nothing else left to write.

I don’t know what I wrote and I have no clue what ended up happening to this journal.

What I do know is that it was a good day.

Meegan still questions me today, five years later, if I totally understand resting. True, I have cut down significantly in my commitments, but still am busier than most. But, hey, I am a work in progress.

My questions for you this week are…how do you rest? What does that even look like? Can you afford to stop? How do we learn to rest?

Please comment, message, share, and/or follow!

Until Thursday,

Cheers!

Sam Jo.