Lauren Lejeune

I had a bad hair day every single day this week. 

Well, not actually a true-to-word bad hair day, but in spirit I suppose. It was hot this week, more so than I thought it was going to be and I was not prepared for it. This week at work, we were outside quite a bit, but the scorching heat made my otherwise happy attitude towards the nice weather turn sour quickly. 

We were busy. So, so busy. Which is a good thing, but I felt like I was going mach five with no end in sight. By the end of the work day, my brain was absolute mush and I just wanted to go home and go straight to bed. On more than one occasion, I just found myself thinking I needed a break. A long, long break; somewhere on a beach, or a tall mountain peak with no cell service for at least a week, maybe more if I could get away with it. An escape: That’s what I wanted. 

Now, there’s nothing wrong with needing a break. Not in the slightest. But I would make the argument that as a society (more specifically geared towards my generation) we are obsessed with the idea of “self care.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come back from a family vacation or a few days away from work and felt like I really hadn’t rested at all. I think I’d need a week of straight sleep to feel even the slightest bit rested. I don’t believe that we should be getting up everyday and just counting down the days till the next weekend, or the next vacation. Why are we trying to escape our realities for a small moment in time away from our normal lives? 

The word “rest” means something different to every person, but the rest that God offers us trumps all other versions of the word we’ve come up with. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28, a well-known verse and for good reason. God calls us to himself, says we can cast our worries on him and we can lean on him for strength. We can find rest in the father. 

God gives us all of the things we try to “escape” from: kids, work, marriage, responsibilities — you name it. They are gifts and we should be finding joy in the fact that everyday, we are given the opportunity to live the life we are given. And really, if I didn’t have my day job, who knows that kind of trouble I would find myself in? 

It will never be enough to satisfy me. It doesn’t matter how many vacations I take, weekends, spa days, early nights, girls’ trips, hobbies, friends — none of it will ever satisfy this desire for rest. They might help for a time, sure, but it isn’t a permanent fix. 

When I stop focusing on all of the things that are going wrong in my life, or on all of the stressors I have to work through, I can at least say for myself that when my focus is on something better — someone better — I can make it through my days. Joyfully, in fact, on days where I might normally implode. 

So no, this is not a message to suck it up and get back to work or to parenthood or whatever it is you do with your life. It’s a call to look to the one who gives you life, who loves without condition, and to the one you can find rest in — true rest. Not a week’s vacation worth, or even that “Friday feeling” when you know the weekend is here. To be thankful for what you have been given and to remember that these burdens are temporary, but what God offers us is eternal if we surrender all we have to him.