Week 143: Choosing to Rest
It’s easy to choose more action, but sometimes we need a little more rest…
Each Sunday, my wife and I cook and eat a meal together — intentionally. Every Friday, I’ll be sharing our experience here in this space. I want to see the growth that will come in our marriage because of this. I hope you enjoy our story. You can find last week’s post here.
We had been at it for almost an hour. Our small, fenced-in front yard doesn’t look that big at first glance. But when you’re trying to rid it of all the leaves that had fallen, it seems to grow exponentially. We had already cleared the side yard of leaves a few weeks earlier, but now we were in a race against time to get the rest of the leaves out to the curb.
We don’t have a tarp, and the fence kept us from being able to just rake the leaves out to the curb. So, we began the job by putting a trash bag in one of our laundry bins and making repeated trips out to the curb with a full load of leaves. But, as you might imagine, this was a tedious way to clear the yard. We kept going, and going, and going, and going…
You could certainly make the case that we shouldn’t have waited so long to rake the leaves. But, first off, they didn’t fall until late in the season. From that point, the days without snow or rain were few and far between. It seems we were not the only ones in this predicament, as many of our neighbors had just as many (if not more) leaves in their yards.
Then, as is usually the case, Sarah came to my rescue.
She remembered that we had used a large, fabric mat when we painted the house. It was still in the garage and might make for a useful tarp. I rushed in to see if I could find it, and there it was! We laid it out on the yard and began loading it up with leaves. About 20 minutes later, the entire project was done.
Work smarter not harder, they say.
After spending most of our Sunday out in the yard, we got cleaned up and settled in our living room. We had no plans for cooking, as we were both completely wiped out. We did, however, have plans for a way we could spend quality time together that evening. We were going to put the ornaments on the tree after we made that big compromise last week.
But then a funny thing happened — I fell asleep on the couch.
Now, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. I’ve been known to take a little cat nap from time to time. But rather than wake me up, Sarah made the gracious decision to simply call it a night. She grabbed a quick photo so we’d have something for this post (the header image above), but she decided we could put the Christmas ornaments on later in the week.
Work and Rest
The whole day was a powerful reminder to me about work and rest. I often beat myself up in my own head because I feel like I’m not doing enough. I should be taking more action. I should be doing more.
But there’s a difference between doing more and working, I think.
We worked hard this Sunday. That leaf project was a big one, and it was so needed. Taking our rest that afternoon and evening wasn’t being lazy, it was being healthy.
Just because there are hours left in the day doesn’t mean you need to fill them to the brim. Our world has enough action in it, sometimes we need a little more rest.
And don’t worry — we put the ornaments up later that week. It was a very special time filled with joy and Christmas music. But this Sunday evening was for rest, and I’m so glad we took it.
