Starting Points for Finding Rest at Home
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”—Deut. 6:4-9 (ESV)
As I trace my “mom burnout” journey in this series, I had to face the fact that a big source of burnout was actually my own family. (I know—doesn’t that sound terrible to say?) As much as I am committed to my husband and children and their welfare, let’s face it: being a mom is tiring.
As I began to taste the sweetness of spiritual rest with God through the doorway of physical rest, I realized I longed for relational rest as well. Being refreshed in body and soul not only helped me to see how my selfish behaviors had hurt my family but also surfaced a new desire: to not keep walking that way.
As God helped me deal with my sin, more weight was lifted off me so that I actually had the mental energy to even consider: Is there a way I can reshape how we did things at home so that I wasn’t left so burned out? Taking time to rest on the front end gave me the bandwidth to start considering other options—things that required creativity, but also gave me new tracks to walk.
At the time, even though I had a college student out of the home, I still had two sons at home, one a busy teen and the other in elementary school. Anah also required a pretty rigid routine. I was homeschooling all of them. What do I do now?
Starting Points
Because I didn’t want to just go back to the old way of living, I knew something needed to change. Two things helped me to get started:
1. Start where I am.
2. Start with myself.
Too often, we look at where we want to be instead of where we currently are. But the only way to get there is to take a step from your present location. So start where you are so you can get to where you’d like to be.
Likewise, start with yourself. You can spend a lot of time trying to convince others of your new ideas, but you cannot make them change. But you can change yourself: how you do things. Not by your own will power, but by His.
Every change we make will lead to a new change. Like a domino knocking down the next one it sets in motion something different. Like one step towards our destination brings us closer to the end goal, so our choices help us move forward.
Step One: Gird Your Mind
One of the first things I needed was a purpose and a conviction. God had given me so much even in just a few short days. How could I help bring this into my home? As Aaron Sironi shares in this video clip, one of my responsibilities is making provision for rest for those under our care. I didn’t want rest to be an individual pursuit.
With this desire and focus to bring rest to our household, I took the next step.
Step Two: Commit to the Hard Work of Pursuing God’s Rest
Like Aaron Sironi shared in his video, I was convinced that as a mom, I had a fundamental role to play in the health of our home. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to create a restful home and still keep up with our daughter’s schedule.
But I also believed that God had a way for us. It might take trial and error. We might slip back into our old ways at times. But I determined that, with the help of God, I would not give up.
Ironic as it may sound, it takes work to rest. It requires a purpose and commitment to keep pursuing God’s rest.
This may mean changing how we do things. New habits. New activities. New routines.
Or it could be the hard work of saying “no” to things. “No” to extra commitments, but perhaps more importantly, “no” to people pleasing, to selfish ambition, or to lesser good things that rob us of the best.
The only way we can make progress is to commit to this end goal. It means not giving up when we notice where we meet resistance. Or conundrums. Or failure.
Hebrews 4 exhorts us to strive to enter that rest. And that requires commitment.
Step Three: Customize Your Rest
As we continue through this series, I’ll be sharing some ideas, but I haven’t tried all of them. Or I did once and then stopped doing it when my season of life changed.
The comforting thing is that our Good Shepherd knows what we need. For that reason, what works for one person might not work for another. Or sometimes what works for you one season of your life might be different in another.
We all are invited to enjoy the rest of God through Christ. And as our loving Father and our Creator, we are free to “do rest” in ways that fit us. There’s no one “right” way to do it.
This means a little more thinking on our part and a willingness to trust God. Some things to help you customize your rest include:
Knowing what makes you restless.
For me personally, I confess that my identity is often tied to my work or performance. As a homeschool mom, I have often based my sense of worth on how well my kids were performing.
So for me, being aware of this tendency has challenged me to be extra careful about adding activities to my life that feed this temptation. When I felt the compulsion to do something just so it makes me look like I’m a good mom, then I know it’s a warning sign to reconsider. Taking time to pray about it is always a good way to surface any restlessness—and deal with it with God first.
Recognize what season of life you’re in.
I often talk to moms who feel badly that they cannot be as productive as they used to be “before they had kids.”
But that is to be expected! To believe this minimizes the hard work of parenting, as if we could just add the nurture and care of another dependent in your life without breaking our stride. It is what I believed when we added Anah, and that is not realistic.
If it’s not parenting, it could be a job change, a new health diagnosis, or your aging parents. Some things are good and desirable while others are hard. But either way, every season will have its limits. Be prepared—and okay with—adjusting your expectations of yourself.
If what we believe about the gospel is true, then it really doesn’t matter if we spend 5 minutes or 2 hours on our devotions. God doesn’t love us more or less based on our time in prayer. We do not fall from grace when we need to step back from ministry for a time to care for others—or ourselves.
Be prepared to say “no” so you can say “yes.”
Because we have a fixed number of hours per day, we cannot expect to add time for rest in without losing out on other (often very good) things. The math just doesn’t work out that way.
This boils down to learning to let Christ help us to discern the better thing, just as Mary had to do in Luke 10:38-42. Though she knew it might seem like she was shirking her duty (Martha certainly thought so!), she knew that sacrificing that to-do list and risking her sister’s ire was worth it. And Jesus commended her for choosing the good portion, the better way.
Knowing this will help you to examine the current commitments in your life and determine what needs to be removed so you can add restful rhythms to your life. That might be different than mine. Most certainly, we cannot judge another person who has likewise thought through their lives and chosen something different than ours.
In all these things, we get the opportunity to learn where the heart of true rest lies: in an identity firmly rooted in Christ. It’s not about what we do or accomplish but in our new life in Christ.
How About You?
Interestingly, it has been my observation that though we might think that resting is not productive, it actually is the most productive thing I could do. This is because rest allows me the space to pull back and view things from a larger perspective. From this panoramic view, I can see connections and I can see what is priority.
Rest also has the additional benefit of restoring our souls. It strengthens us to try again. A rested mind and spirit is more hopeful, creative, and energetic—all things needed if we desire to pursue change.
As a mom, I knew that I wanted my family to enjoy the rest that I just experienced. It would require baby steps, starting with where I was. It would require commitment to keep walking. Sometimes it felt like I was scaling a mountain!
But even in the first year, I began to experience a shift. Not in my circumstances. In me. And those changes led to next steps which produced more changes.
So I encourage you to let God start with you, in your own heart. And then follow Him as He leads you to help your family find rest too.
