Rest a While

 Rest a while. While I was driving on my way to work a few months ago, the serenity, peacefulness and beauty of the surroundings invited me to contemplate. Though I felt restlessness and anything but peace on my way to that job and working there, the greenery from the trees and flourishing plants reminded me of God's care and peace.

When I got sick 3 times in the past 2 months, I would think about that time of driving past the serenity of lush plants in an upscale area, and felt God was calling me to rest. He was calling me to rest when I got sick just 2 weeks apart and had to lay low and was forced to contemplate and trust. I felt like I was pulled out of a bad job and experience, knowing deep down it was causing a lot of trauma, as well as reliving trauma which would essentially take weeks or more to process, heal and recover from. 

Rest, prayer, stillness, this would be the answer to my heightened anxiety and disturbance. I felt getting sick was my body's way of also recovering and slowing down from the busyness of running from place to place as well as my mind in knots from stress. 

This past Sunday's Gospel reading reminded me of this rest. Jesus says to his disciples, "Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while."  A while meaning sometime, a definite amount of time perhaps, but in the end productive and rejuvenating. 

I felt like I needed to do just this over the weekend. I had anxiety and anguish that led to very little sleep and felt like my body was running on fumes. I needed to restore peace, prayer and time to sit and just be. I didn't want to leave adoration, and so I stayed until everyone left for Mass, and I was the last one, as well as the first one to open the curtains and close them and say goodbye to Jesus in the Eucharist. I felt my peace restored and my mind cleared and felt like myself again. 

What Jesus said in the Gospel reading resonated with me, as I felt it was directed at me. I'm glad I listened.