Rest?

Published by christi on September 22, 2022

Rest…

Yeah, good luck with that! In our culture, rest is seen as an offense against productivity…and we are what we produce, right?

God has been working on me in this area lately. (By lately, I mean over the last few years…I’m a slow learner!) The latest adventure has included a trip to the emergency room, and a two-day hospital stay that netted no more answers than I came with.

I have been struggling with fatigue for the first time in my life, and along with that, my hair has been falling out and I have had intermittent, brief chest pain. (Nothing a little sublingual nitroglycerin couldn’t deal with.) Saturday morning, the pain was persistent, and for the first time, radiating up my neck and across my shoulder. Nitro barely took the edge off.

I was meeting with a friend at the time. We regularly meet to share our lives and pray together, often receiving healing interactions with God as we wait for His promptings in silence. As the pain continued, I decided this was “the pain” that called for a hospital trip.

“Let me pray for you before you go,” she said. She prayed, then we both were quiet. I was prompted to take authority over fear, surrendering to the Father’s care, and immediately I experienced peace. She heard, “Rest.” I chuckled. I’ve been to this rodeo before…hospital stays are hardly what I would call rest.

But for the next two days I did exactly that.

The peace of God surrounded and pervaded me. Though my blood pressure was soaring to never-before-seen-by-me heights, there was no tension in my thinking. I rested.

Poked, prodded, squeezed, X-rayed, ultra-sounded, monitored, dressed in the classic, runway-ready, designer-print gown and ultra-fashionable double extra-large non-skid footwear, I rested.

I read and meditated. Listened to the sounds in the hallway, to the nature sounds available on the hospital’s TV options, or the soothing classical music channel. I rested.

Slowly, and not very steadily, my numbers came down, stubbornly bouncing out of a happy place at random times. No one yet knows what happened or why, but I came home rested. Much of my former energy has been restored. Maybe I just needed two days of rest. No healing miracle, just a gift of the grace of a God who knows what’s best for me, setting me up to do what’s best for me (whether I am leaning that way or not):  learning to rest as I am

Following Jesus every day in the everyday,

Christi

P.S. If I get any more info about what happened, I will let you know.