Rest

I was minding my own business at a birthday party on Saturday when somehow it came up that I'm not the best at keeping up with the ole blog so here's an update and a printed intention that I'm going to try to update more often.

This summer was spectacular & just what I needed in terms of rest.

My Mom reminds me that I'm always talking about how tired I am and how my plan for resting is just around the corner and then when the corner comes I'm still busy and I move the resting date to the next corner. Apparently, you can only move that date so many times before you don't have an option any more. June & July were super busy with work and school and because of what was going on in both those arenas I was very stressed. I found myself reactionary to things that normally don't bother me, my stomach was constantly upset, I was having week long headaches and when I would try to go on runs I'd quickly lose stamina and be unable to finish. Very like me, at the time I didn't put all these things together and come to the awareness that something might be going on. It wasn't until I went on vacation that I figured it out.

Kristen, Tara & I went to Wyoming on a road trip. I slept a lot for the first 3 days and on day 5 I realized that I felt like a normal human again; I was excited to go exploring and on a hike, I was having all these ideas of what I could do with the ministries I lead, I was really enjoying articles on Post-Modernism and thinking through how that affects the church, etc. It was great and a part of me that I hadn't experienced in quite some time.

On the last day of the trip, when we'd mostly run out of things to talk about I had a lot of time to think and what I spent quite a bit of thought time around was how to avoid being that tired again. At the time the majority of my ideas revolved around boundaries and making sure I had enough downtime where I really was resting the way my personality needs but right now those ideas are quickly fleeting. The last several weeks have been 50+ hour work weeks and now the students are back and school starts for me on Wednesday. I still think that boundaries have to be the way to go but I don't know what that looks like. So far I've decided on one absolutely free evening a week and intentional scheduling of work, school & fun. I don't know if it will really work but I dread the idea of dragging through things the way I did for the majority of last year.

I have a lot of hope that things will be better this year. This Sunday was the first Sunday back for the students and I was crazy excited to see them all and I had a great time interacting with them, it's probably been at least 2 years since I've been this excited. This is not only an encouraging feeling but also an indicator that so far I'm doing okay in the world of rest. We'll see how I keep it up, I'm definitely motivated.