REST

: repose, sleep; specifically : a bodily state characterized by minimal functional and metabolic activities

For the first time in the seven years that we've been a family of five, our entire family caught the same virus, one after the other.  The sickness started two weeks ago and first made its way to J.  K came next and missed two days of school with a fever.  Before long, A had a sore throat and I wasn't far behind.  I had hoped B would escape unscathed, but it was not to be.  Even strong-willed, strong-bodied B came down with it.  

Here's what I've learned: rest when you need to rest.

On Saturday, A danced (sore throat and all) in her ballet school's fundraiser.  I was there as a table host, hoping that adrenaline would get us both through the morning.  It did.  We then ate soup for lunch and crawled into bed with books.  Sunday found us much the same: we were napping by mid-morning while the rest of our family went to church and hung out with nephews.  By Sunday evening, we were on the mend, but B wasn't feeling well.  She ended up sleeping 14 hours and didn't awake until after 10 Monday morning.

Given that A and I were mostly feeling better by the end of day Sunday, I could have pushed through and had school (at least with A) on Monday.  Instead, I called it a sick day and we all three took the day off.  Healthy K was carted to school and then we rested.  We read.  We watched one documentary on Egypt and then I napped while they watched two more tv shows for fun.  (What's a sick day without a few tv shows?!)

It has taken me a while to learn that illness is your body's way of telling you to slow down and take a breath.  Perhaps this seems obvious to many of you.  If so, be thankful you've learned this lesson.  Years ago, I would push through at work, taking over the counter cold medicines and not missing so much as an hour of work.  I saw sickness - and my body itself - as something to endure, something that should be put into submission.  It took a while, but I finally learned that was no way to heal.  If I keep going like I'm not sick, I stay sick far longer.  Likewise, treating my body like something that is merely worth tolerating is not the solution.  As I've learned to listen to my body, I've found it is often wiser than my mind.  My body knows when I need to rest, when I can push and when to do what needs to be done.

I grew up with great ambivalence about my body.  Looking back, I think two main things conspired to make this the case: I went through puberty fairly early and my body rounded out before it lengthened out, resulting in a pudgy 4th and 5th grader.  I also didn't play any sports in middle school or high school.  I'm not a natural athlete and I let my insecurity about my body (a holdover from late elementary school) dictate what I would and wouldn't do.  Rather than persevere and learn a sport - any sport - I opted out.  It's only been in my 30s that I've learned my body can do some things.  I'm still woefully uncoordinated, but my recent morning runs have reminded me that I like to run.  I don't run fast.  I don't run with other people.  I don't ever hope to compete.  But the act of climbing out of bed, pulling on clothes and heading out the door to a sleeping world is the most pleasant way to wake up.  I love the time alone, the quiet of watching my neighborhood wake up around me and the feeling that my body is more than something I lug around to get my soul from place to place.  My body is worth being thankful for.

Both the return of outdoor running to my routine and my recent cold have reminded me that my body and soul need rest.  I've been trying to be open to change - trying to let go of behavior patterns that are ingrained, but not helpful.  I've discovered that change is hard work.  And hard work means rest should follow.  I need rest.  I suspect we all need rest, but I'm perhaps just more attuned to this need.  So the next time I get a cold, I'll take the Zicam in hopes of avoiding the full blown yuck of it.  If that doesn't work, I'm grabbing a cup of hot tea, finding a good book and taking a sick day. Rest is good for me - body and soul.

CHANGE

1 a : to make different in some particular : alter

I read a friend's blog post recently that featured the most beautiful trees.  There were yellow leaved trees, trees of vibrant red, a barren tree with green moss - trees in the midst of changing from one season to another.  As I read her words and looked at the images she'd chosen, I wondered why I can embrace the change of seasons, but fight change in so many other areas of my life.

I love the change of seasons, most especially the change from summer to fall.  Fall heralds good things: warm soups bubbling on the stove, cups of hot tea sipped with friends, curling up under a blanket with a good book, an afternoon spent watching football, Thanksgiving with family and friends.  I love fall for its differences from summer.  I love that it brings routine back into our life after the lazy days of summer.  I love that I can stop wearing sandals and switch to boots.  I love the movement from tomato tart to butternut squash lasagna.  I love the alterations fall makes to our lives.

So why can't I embrace change in other areas?  Why can't I rejoice that the addition of one daughter to my homeschooling crew has required not just increased patience, but an entirely new plan?  Why can't I be thankful for the hours spent nursing a sick child back to health?  Why can't I be content to vacuum the dining room floor, knowing that my daughters have taken on sweeping, mopping and other chores that used to be mine?

In part, I think it's harder to embrace change in these other ways because I lack a knowledge that I have with the seasons.  I can relax into the change from summer to autumn precisely because I know that autumn will not last forever.  I celebrate its vibrant colors and cool breezes because I know they will all too quickly give way to bare tree limbs and a wind that bites.  But these other changes? They scare me because I don't know how long they will last.  I can't get past my fear to enjoy their momentary presence because I fear they are the new normal - that my life will be this way forever.

In short, I do not embrace change because I have too little faith.  Too little faith that the good, bad and hard things in my life are all for one season.  I may not know the length of the season, but surely I've lived long enough to have seen that all things in this life are fleeting.  Why not rush past the hard things, but sit in them and learn from them?  Why can't I treasure the good times instead of trying to lock them into my memory, into my very bones, so that I can pull them back up when they disappear before my very eyes?

I've been trying to be more sensitive.  More sensitive to and aware of my own emotions.  More sensitive to the need to speak, instead of always listening.  More sensitive to a call to act instead of merely watching.  Today I realized I've been trying so hard to change that I'm not allowing my spirit to rest.  Yes, I need to do more than just think.  Yes, I need to act.  But I also need to take care of myself in order to do these other things.  I've been so busy trying to embrace change that I haven't tried to accept who I am.  I've just been trying to change - to ease along the transformation.

It doesn't really work that way.  A tree doesn't decide when it's time to change from green to gold.  It doesn't decide when it's time to shed the gold and wait for spring's buds, either.  It's just a tree.  I'd like to one day know myself well enough to just be.  To allow change to happen without fear, anxiety, trepidation.  To just be.

TRANSITION

1 a : passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another :change

There's a reason the most difficult stage of giving birth is called transition: because change is always the hardest part.  I was struck today by how many of my friends are going through transitions.  Nearly all of us are transitioning from school days to summer days.  It may sound mundane, but if you've ever been a part of this particular transition, you know that it's not an easy one, even if it is an annual occurrence.  Others are selling homes, moving from the deep south to North Dakota, thinking about adoption, remodeling their houses, preparing to make the leap from homeschooling one second grader to homeschooling a third grader and two kindergarteners.  There's a lot going on.

I'm honestly a bit ready for a break from change in my own life.  I'd like to take at least a lingering pause in one stage before moving on to yet another one.  But that just doesn't seem to be on the horizon.  I thought the changes our family experienced in 2010 were quite enough, thank you very much.  But 2011 has brought more changes, more stretching, more unfurling.  In my Bible Study last night, I was sharing about some recent events that have been encouraging and about others that make me a little fearful.  Two friends in particular were really proud of me for being vulnerable and willing to choose time with friends over time alone.  I laughed at their delight and almost wanted to cry when one of them remarked upon how beautiful it was.  Because I've got to tell you it doesn't feel beautiful.  It feels more like the transition stage of labor - hard, sweaty and a little scary - but with a bit of hope that maybe the end is near.  If you can call the "end" being handed a small, helpless human being to take care of - maybe that's the true hard part about transition is that you know it's not a sign that the end is near, but that a new, more daunting task is about to start.

After B's fourth grade graduation, there was an afterschool party.  Another mom of three and I were chatting.  Like me, she'd been through this before.  Her son is entering seventh grade and we laughed together about what emotional wrecks we will be when our youngest daughters make this transition together.  She's in a good place right now.  Her daughter got one of the coveted magnet school spots, so she's not worried about what next year will look like.  Still, she turned to me and said, "Transition's just hard.  No matter what you're going from or what you're going to, it's just hard."  She couldn't be more right.

I'm excited about some of the changes that await me.  I thoroughly enjoyed teaching A this year and I'm looking forward to channeling B's incessant curiosity and boundless creativity into joint learning opportunities.  Just this morning, I made my daughter put a book back on the homeschool shelf in order to get her to save reading it until next year.  Even as I did it, I smiled a little at the fact that I was asking her to save academic books for a few months.  (And hours later I caught her sneaking two books back onto the shelf - books she'd already read.)  What a blessing to have to draw this little boundary.  But next year won't be simply smooth sailing.  A is happiest as an independent learner.  Give her two or three books on a subject, ask her to write an essay question daily and she's good to go.  B wants and needs more interaction.  Instead of preparing one lesson plan, I'll need two, fully customized for each child.  Am I up to the challenge?  I hope so because either way, there's no turning back now.  And the transition to homeschooling two seems less daunting than some other things that await us.

I'm currently reading a book that's been recommended to me many times, but has never made it into my reading queue until now.  This book is an allegory and in it Much-Afraid is tempted to choose the fears she knows over the promise of better things.  I think this so neatly captures what is hard about transition.  No matter our circumstances, we are tempted to settle for what we know rather than risk the unknown.  We'll take the heartache, the sadness, the slavery that we know instead of reaching for the offer of transformation, change, redemption and freedom.  I don't want to be much afraid any longer.  I've spent too long like that.  But a desire to change doesn't necessarily make the change any easier.  It's still scary.  It's still hard.  It still makes my stomach clench in fear.

This morning as I ended my walk on the treadmill, I prayed for each of the women in my life that are navigating transitions right now.  That's really all I can do: listen to discern that I am undertaking the changes that need to happen and pray as I walk through them - or am swept away by them.

KNOWN

1. perceived or understood as fact or truth; apprehended clearly and with certainty

As I was folding laundry today, I realized how well I know my daughters.  One likes tights, one prefers leggings, another knee socks.  One is always cold.  The other two refuse to wear pull-over sweaters, no matter how cold it gets (cardigans, hoodies and ponchos abound).  Two of them sleep in old t-shirts of their dad's - both are Brewers shirts, one from his childhood, one more recent.  I know who wants a t-shirt, who prefers a shirt with flowing sleeves, who likes knit pants because they stay on her body.  It warms my heart to fold clothes that I've purchased for my girls that they enjoy - a Tinkerbell t-shirt for A, striped leggings for K, a poncho for B - because I want to use my knowledge of them to delight them, please them, love them.

We all, I believe, want to be known.  It's comforting, encouraging, affirming.  But there's a push-pull to being known as well.  Because when we're truly known, we are very, very vulnerable.  Someone who knows you knows just the right gift to give, just the right word to say, just how to love you.  But that same person knows just how to hurt you, knows your weak spots.

When we're young, being known is often not a conscious desire.  Children expose much of themselves right from the start.  They are unafraid to tell you what they like and don't like.  They don't stop to think about whether someone wants them to be a certain way - they just do what they want to do.  I'm not sure exactly when this starts to change.   But gradually we become aware of others and what they want from us.  Often, we try to conform to that - consciously or unconsciously.  And that might mean we are a little less known - to ourselves and others.  Because if we devote too much time and energy to being who others want us to be, we lose sight of who we really are.

Last night, I was sharing something with my husband and I kept thinking, "I don't know who I am.  Tell me who I am."  J knows me incredibly well, but I don't really want him to tell me who I am.  When he tries to, I resist.  I want to find that out for myself, however hard that may be.  I want to figure out for myself what things I have my hands clenched around, so that I can loosen and open my grasp.  I want to figure out what metaphorical clothes I wear that need to be shed to reveal a truer me.  I want to know myself.  And no one else can do that for me.

I think a danger in parenting can be assuming that what we see and think we know about our children is true and/or will always be true.  I thought about this today as I folded laundry because the day will come when I won't know A's preference in socks.  The day will come when B trades in sleeping in her dad's baseball shirt for sleeping in her husband's baseball shirt.  They will change.  They will grow.  They will evolve.  And I don't want to tell them who they are or should be.  I want them to figure that out for themselves.  Just like I want to figure it out for myself.

Because once I am known to myself, I can let others know me by being who I'm meant to be. I long for the day when I can shed all of the unnecessary parts of me and be the bold me hiding under the "chlorophyll."  And I'd love to be able to do that fearlessly, even if I'm not quite there yet.  I'm still a bit afraid of who that person might be.  But I'd like to know her one day...

NEXT

1 : in the time, place, or order nearest or immediately succeeding
After a full year of having a speaking commitment looming ahead of me, it is done, finished. I find I am grateful to have had the opportunity to share some of what God has taught me - and to see very clearly some fruit from seeds planted during a long and hard recovery. (To download Friday's presentation, click here. Saturday's is here.) Sometimes we walk through hard things and never get to know and understand their purpose in our lives, so it was an honor to see my own struggles help other women.

What comes next? It's not that I don't know where to spend my time. I have plenty of things that need doing - a kitchen remodel to plan, a home school curriculum to design, and, always, laundry to be done. So I know what to do with my hands, my body and, to some extent, my mind. But where should my focus go?

I haven't spent the last year in constant preparation for the retreat. I've spent time studying other things, reading other books, tackling other tasks. But this commitment was such a large one that it's always been there and a part of my mind has been tuned in and waiting for something of clarity to come through to direct me in what to say. Even in the waiting, I had great peace throughout this process. I could easily have been a basket case - or a control freak - leading up to the retreat. But I received affirmations along the way and a supernatural calm.

Will that peace, that stillness, that calm evaporate when I move on to whatever is next? Will I feel as close to God when walking a less terrifying path of obedience?

And then I realize that maybe what's next is just as terrifying.

Which is scarier - speaking in front of 80 women or leaving the only church home I've ever really known in faith that God has another place for my family?

I guess I'm almost exactly where I was a year ago - about to do something that I'm not sure I can do, something that I feel very clearly on my heart. At least this year, I have the comfort of looking back on God's faithful provision so far and can rely on the fact that whatever is next, I won't be tackling it alone.

BAREFOOT

: with the feet bare
Are you a shoes on or shoes off kind of person? I've never been much for going barefoot. Even as a kid, I was likely to slide on my flip flops before heading outside. As I write this, I am sitting in my own home, nearly ready for bed, with shoes on my feet. I'm totally uncomfortable with taking my shoes off in someone else's home, no matter what color their carpet is. So I'm clearly a shoes on kind of girl, but yesterday at church I started thinking about whether this is yet another change I should contemplate in my life. (Especially with change being my word for 2010...)

Why did church make me start thinking about going barefoot a bit more often? Well, the passage concerned Joshua being told to remove his sandals because he was on holy ground. Now, my pastor talked a bit about how being barefoot is an invitation to blessing. Even I - a girl who will choose cool boots over bare feet any day - think the beach is simply made for enjoying sans shoes. So I can get that there's a component of living life to its fullest in going barefoot.

But that's not the first thing I think of when I hear a command to take my shoes off. The first thing I think of is how vulnerable I will feel and will be without shoes. I'm sure this says something about the degree of fear I live with - and have lived with for most of my life. I'm afraid to even take my shoes off, even in the presence of God.

This is not a completely irrational fear. We do wear shoes to protect us. But as I contemplated my aversion to going barefoot, it occurred to me that there are probably blessings I miss out on because I'm afraid to live life with abandon. I am cautious, hesitant and deliberate. I venture only on the safe, well-worn paths. And even then, I like to be properly shod.

What might going barefoot a bit more look like? I'm not sure what it might look like for you, but for me I think it means trying things that make me uncomfortable, but that feel right nonetheless. (Exhibit A of this type of behavior will occur when I speak at a women's retreat later this month - a looming event that increasingly makes me feel like I am about to jump off of a cliff.) It also means being willing to dawdle when a grassy field or stretch of sandy beach presents itself. I'm far to quick to stay focused on the task at hand and forgo the pleasures of sinking my toes into something.

In an attempt to actually implement some of the changes I think about, ponder and write about, I spent a bit of time on this gorgeous middle Tennessee day to sit in the grass barefoot. Two daughters sat with me, quietly doing their homework so that they could dash off to the playground and enjoy the afternoon with wild abandon. I must admit it was nice. I didn't read. I didn't talk. I didn't mentally plan what I should do with the rest of my day. I tried to just experience life, barefoot, for a while. And it was worth trying.

photo by David S. April Photography