The problem is when labor becomes the only thing that defines who we are. When we come to see things like rest as a negative space defined by the absence of work. When we fail to recognize the value of rest for building our sense of self.
(Alex Pang WordPress Hurry Slowly)
All of my life I’ve set goals for the year, for the month, for the day. I’m a task-oriented person driven to make to-do lists. In college, my schedule was so tight I kept a minute-by-minute chart (no kidding!) for each day’s goals and activities. The advantage of this discipline is great productivity; the disadvantage is that flexibility cannot dwell in your vocabulary.
Marriage, and especially children, tended to upset my neat calendar rows, and I began to relinquish my grip on defining productivity as success. Some days just keeping a child fed, dry and safe was my goal for the day.
I’m in a lovely season of adulthood right now where I get to choose how I manage my time—no school bells, no appointments unless I make them. I have no imposed time frames from outside sources. If I were not so goal-oriented, I could imagine myself sitting all day long in a comfy chair with a book on my lap. But I don’t—there is work to be done, things I want to accomplish, ministry to attend to, and relationships to maintain.
Growth and maturity and balance, for me, have come from watching people-oriented people. I’ve attempted to embrace the fact that people are more important than schedules and “being with” is just as important as “ministering to.” But I cannot change my basic temperament, and I continue to set goals for accomplishment.
After the previous year’s marathon goal of stretching myself once a month, immediately I knew my word for 2019 would be REST. But what would that look like? Did it mean I would cancel all my prayer ministry clients? Put editing Simroots on hold for a year? Hire a housekeeper? No, it meant I would cease from self-imposed goal-setting for self-improvement. I could relinquish my “have-tos” and begin to relax. Just for a year.
When I put the word Rest on my kitchen whiteboard, my friend Cheryl wrote more words vertically under each letter. Pretty clever and spot on I thought. I also came up with the acronym REST G (Releasing Every Situation To God).
What I learned this year: Resting is sometimes harder for me to do than doing! Jesus is my Sabbath rest.
What was your Word for the Year? How did that go?
Click on the links below to see some of my previous years.
Word for the Year 2012 – Adventure
Word for the Year 2016 – Unplugged
From my 2015 Journal. My father was a prolific letter writer, and I followed his example for many years, handwriting weekly missives to all my friends. On more than one occasion, someone has kept a letter I’ve sent and, long after I’d forgotten about it, shared it with me. It’s scary to think that something I said 40 to 50 years ago impacted someone so much that they kept it on file. Technology, meanwhile, has opened up a venue for exposing us like no other medium I know. I’m often surprised to see copies of letters or documents that were kept, photocopied, and posted online for the entire world to see. These become permanent records somewhere “out there” for future generations to mine through and discover.
In the Pursuit of Peace 