It's Okay to Rest

Sometimes the frantic pace and the enormity of the steps I've been taking in the last two years to be free of those things that bind me to the pretense of life, weigh upon me and I become weary.

Tonight I told a friend that there was a verse I clung to in early recovery and - truth be told - still cling to, because my journey is far from over.  It's Psalm 139:3 which I discovered in the New Living Translation, a prayer King David prayed to God.  "You chart the path ahead of me, and tell me where to stop and rest.  Every moment You know where I am."  What a comfort and a relief it is to know that resting is allowed when I just can't take another step!  

Everything needs rest.  The rests give meaning to music, to art, to life.  They rejuvenate, allow for healing and reflection to take place.  In the physical world, rest allows the body to repair itself.  It's okay to rest.  It's okay to take time aside to allow the world to stop spinning - even if only for us - and allow us to breathe.

The journey I've been on is like that of so many others, and in the resting times I can remind myself that I'm worth it, that my relationship with God and with myself is worth taking the time to cultivate, nurture, care for.  I dig out a list of affirmations that I say to myself sometimes, and remind myself that who I am today is not who I was two years ago, and who I will be in two years will not be who I am today. 


Like the ugly duckling in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, I am becoming who and what I was meant to be, often without realizing it.  Every now and again I get an inkling - but it makes me so grateful to know that God is not finished with me yet - not by a long shot.  

There are times that I feel ostracized and stuck in the ice like that young cygnet (baby swan) who all his life thought he was a duck.  There are so many parallels there that I can't begin to name them.  But even in his exile, he was becoming.  As he was trapped, he was becoming.  And when the ice receded, he had become without knowing it.  That is the miracle. It happens without me even being aware that it has... or without me pulling myself up by the tail feathers to see what's happening.  God ALWAYS finishes what He starts.

I can rest in that, too.