Rest

I'm sitting at our kitchen table in our Asheville apartment as the sun shines in and Doc sleeps on the carpet below my feet.  There are fresh flowers in the vase and scattered bills on the table, some half finished projects here and there (fun projects, not house projects--thank you, Lord).  I started today with curling my hair, something I do every once in a while since my hairdresser taught me how to curl short hair last summer (the proper way).  Doc and I were out of the house by 8:30 for errand running, the post office, Target, groceries.  I went to a really delicious Mediterranean restaurant with a friend for lunch and walked around downtown Asheville with the sun on my unmasked face (I'm in the crew who believes I can be unmasked outdoors at a safe distance from people).  I did an online coaching session and now Doc and I will find things to do around the apartment until our 4PM walk.  Maybe I'll work on my Lifestyle Medicine certification review, maybe I'll fold laundry. By 5PM dinner needs to be started because at 6PM I have counseling. 

These days are filled with rest. Though I have a schedule and things to do, I am learning to live from a place of rest.  I was living my life at a break-necking pace (in the words of Dr. Seuss) just a few short months ago.  I was so stressed that I was eating every carbohydrate in sight, eating food that was fast and easy and lacking in nutrition.  I was waking up at 5AM before work to chart, staying late to chart, bringing work home, working through lunches.  I was snapping at my husband and crying over tiny inconveniences. I was waking up in the middle of the night panicked about a prescription I had written or thinking that I needed to order one more laboratory test, one more imaging study to get to the bottom of someone's health condition.

It feels like I'm in rehab these days.  It feels like I am learning how to do life at an unhurried pace, like I am remembering how to chew my food before swallowing and how to sip things instead of frantically gulping them. 

I've been working with both a health coach and a Biblical counselor lately to reground myself spiritually but also physically; relearning how to nourish myself both with food and Scripture.  If you looked at my life from the outside without knowing me well, you might think "wow, must be nice. Must be nice that you can take time off of work to focus on basic needs that you should have learned as a child. Must be nice that you can live a life without financially supporting your family. Must be nice..."

It is nice.  And I am very aware that I am in a unique situation where I have a spouse who can carry the load for a season.  There was a season when I carried it for us-- I worked the night shift while we lived in a tiny apartment and Scott spent all of his time in school and studying.  But I'm in a season now where he is doing that for me-- he is giving me the space and time to rest and relearn things that maybe I once knew and maybe I never did.  I didn't grow up in a family where we ran 5Ks on Thanksgiving or chose quinoa over pasta.  Some parts of being a healthy person have been things I have had to learn myself-- from the work I do as an NP, from friends who live very healthfully, from my husband who will naturally choose healthy snacks over chips.  

I am grateful for this season of rest. I am reading a book with my sister-in-law called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality which discusses some concepts of rest-- Sabbatical seasons and seasons of deep rest from difficult work.  I am very grateful to be in a place where I can take a Sabbatical rest for this season of life. As I recover from whatever it is that I experienced in my work-- crazy hours, panic attacks in the night, insomnia, poor health and nutrition, anxiety-- I am grateful.  

And I know that this season is just that-- a season.  Just as spring comes after winter, I know that my season of Sabbatical rest will be followed by one where I will work again and contribute to our home in a meaningful way.  But right now I am contributing to my home in a meaningful way, too-- I am learning how to feel a deep soul rest. I am learning to love the people in my home and the world around me through a lens of rest instead of through the lens of more, more, more, gotta get ahead. I am contributing to our home through a grounded, present self instead of one who is frantic with to-do lists and rushing and stress.  I am learning what it is to cultivate a home where peace greets you at the door and where you want to stay for a little while. 

I'm learning to let the questions roll off, questions that bothered me when I first left my work.  "What are you going to do next? Are you ever going to get a nursing license? Are you updating your resume? What are you going to say on your resume for this period where you didn't work? Have you applied for any jobs? What are you going to do? What kind of work? Why aren't you working? What are you doing instead? What are you working on?" 

I don't know.  The answer to all of those is just that I don't know.  But I'm married to someone who doesn't expect me to have any of those answers, and when I tell him that I'm feeling stressed or insecure about not working, he speaks words of kindness and encourages me to rest some more.  And I have a God who lets me find that rest in Him, who allows me to lean into Him more when I feel the pressures and the questions becoming too much. He, who sits on the throne, is making all things new.  He is making this new.  He is making me new.  And He's doing it through giving our family the resources and the ability for me to rest. 

This season will end someday.  And I hope to look back on it with a grateful heart for what it taught me. Because I can tell you that the pace and the life I was living before this was not one I could sustain for very long, and it broke me.  And now, I am learning to become unbroken through deep soul rest.