Rest Only

I spent my last day or so in Ohio thinking about how to bring back the rest and peace I found there. I knew that I would be coming back to the normal chaos of my life. I thought about this all the way home as well. I feel like I can breathe again, like I can relax again. I don’t want to lose this!

Well, I got home last night. My desk is covered with mail, there are dishes and laundry and questions. My inbox has a zillion new e-mails. Finances, bills, discussions, plans all await my attention. How do I hang on to rest and peace?

While I was gone I made a list of things and places where I find at least a small measure of rest and peace in my life. As I reflected on those things and on my week the Psalm that God directed me to at the beginning of the week continued to run through my mind. “My soul finds rest in God alone…”

I wonder about myself – about my ability to handle pressure and stress, about my abilities as a wife and mother, about my abilities as a homemaker. I have responsibilities in these areas, but not abilities. And therein lies my lack of peace. The abilities I do have: teaching martial arts, kata, etc, cannot provide me with the rest and peace to make it through the other parts of my life (although I have frequently sought peace in those areas…).

So rest, soul rest, cannot come from within me. My abilities do not provide it, and my lack of abilities certainly cannot provide it. Only in God can I find rest. He had to take me out of the normal chaos of my life to remind me of that. I pray that as I return to this chaos, I will seek my rest only in Him.

becky givens