Replacing Exhaustion with Rest

 

        Last week, in honor of the beginning of 2023, we took a look at how we can replace busyness in our lives with boundaries. When we give into the world’s glorification of busyness, we are faced with both a physical and mental toll. We’re going to wrap up this first month of a new year by looking at both of these struggles. Today, the physical.

Exhaustion. A world synonymous with motherhood.

The busyness we battle in motherhood can sure make us exhausted.

The dictionary definition of tired is “in need of sleep or rest; weary.”

But the dictionary ups the ante with the definition of exhausted: “drained of one's physical or mental resources; very tired.”

I think that definition perfectly describes me right now. On the heels of a busy Christmas season, the first where my son has started to understand what’s going on and is actually able to participate in the festivities, I am feeling physically drained of all resources. Creating the magic of Christmas is hard work, y'all. And like much of the world, I spent my holiday season cramming my schedule full of stuff. On top of our normal things, like work and chores and activities for Henry, we went to the zoo to see the lights, went to a party at our church to see Santa, and attempted to go to a Nativity Walk (where we got to check off another parenting first- leaving some place early because our kid was having a meltdown). I didn’t do any in person shopping this year- God bless Amazon- but I did plenty of managing the shopping list and lots of wrapping, not to mention an entire weekend to turn my home into a wonderland of lights, ornaments, and my favorite decoration, the nativity.

When all was said and done at the end of the season, I was filled with lots of beautiful memories of this first big Christmas for my son, but I was also spent. But unlike the storybooks, we don’t now get to settle down for a long winter’s nap. We get to go back to work and the routine of chores and activities and appointments. We get to face the pressure of New Year’s Resolutions and Words of the Year and all the other things that come with a clean slate on January 1st. We get to add more exhaustion to our exhaustion. So much for Winter “Break.”

And while motherhood certainly intensifies exhaustion for us, it’s nothing really new for those of us who have been through infertility and loss. The physical toil of doctor’s appointments and medications and blood draws and ultrasounds and injections and disappointment after disappointment are their own kind of exhaustion. Those of us who are eventually blessed with a Rainbow Baby then get to enjoy the exhaustion of pregnancy and more doctor’s appointments, medications, blood draws, ultrasounds, and injections. The hamster wheel of exhaustion keeps turning no matter what season we’re in; only the scenery changes.

Regardless of where we are in this cycle, anxiety can be major fuel for our exhaustion. We have so many things on our plates that we’re trying to manage, not to mention the physical toll anxiety itself can take on our bodies. If we continue to let ourselves go round and round that wheel, we will end up in a precarious place physically- flat on our backs in bed, in a doctor’s office, or worse, in the hospital.

What we need is rest. But if we look at those definitions again, even just being plain old tired requires sleep or rest. So what’s the difference when it comes to exhaustion?

We need God’s rest. We need Sabbath.

Even if you are only vaguely acquainted with the Bible, you likely know the story of Creation: God spent six days creating everything in the heavens and on earth. He created light and darkness, separating Day and Night. He created the skies and land and seas, separating each from the other. He created all the plant life that we have on land, and every living creature that flies in the sky, walks on the land, and swims in the seas. Then He created Man and Woman. Then He looked around at all that He had created, saw that it was good and “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work” (Genesis 2:2 NIV). This is the first appearance in Scripture of the word “rested.”

I love that, so often in Scripture, the first mention of a word or concept is God giving us an example of how to do something. Because the Creation story doesn’t just end here, with God resting. Genesis goes on to say, “Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done” (verse 3). God doesn’t just take a nap or scroll His phone or binge Netflix for a day and call that rest. What He has done is continue to create; on the seventh day He created Sabbath, a blessed time that is meant to be holy and honored by all mankind.

The Hebrew word here has a multitude of definitions: “cease, desist, rest from labor, put an end to, keep and observe the Sabbath, desist from exertion, make to rest, still” (emphasis added). Those first two words jump out at me: cease and desist. Something we know in the legal system of our culture, commonly sent from lawyers to people who are doing something that another party deems illegal, like spreading slander about someone on social media or using their property (such as a song) without permission. This makes me think of Sabbath as a legal agreement between us and God; during this time of rest we are to cease and desist from all things that are causing us exhaustion so that we can refocus on the Thing that will give us life.

This concept was so important to God that He gave it to Moses as one of the Ten Commandments:

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work… For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Genesis 8-10a, 11 NIV)

This commandment specifically directs the Israelites- and us- that the Sabbath is supposed to be for the Lord. We are to spend time with Him in prayer, studying His Word, worshiping, and generally resting with Him. This is how we find true rest from the level of exhaustion we’re all experiencing in our anxieties. The Hebrew word used here gives a sense of this idea: “settle down and remain, make quiet, be granted rest, give comfort, make quiet in mind, set at rest.” Without making sure our Sabbath is with God, the rest we get from exhaustion will be short lived, because the action here is in a partnership. Someone has to be there to “give comfort” if we are to receive it. We can’t “be granted rest” if no one is giving it to us. But when we partner with God in our rest, we will receive refreshment like no other rest can give us.

During His ministry on earth, Jesus gave us a formula for meeting with Him so that we can partner in true rest. In a teaching from Matthew titled “The Father Revealed in the Son,” Jesus praises God that He has hidden certain things from the wise and revealed those same things to children. He declares that God gave Him all of the knowledge He has taught His followers, which God has chosen to reveal these things to. Then He instructs: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30 NIV).

The first thing I love about this passage is that it hits on what we’re discussing today and what I’m going to look at next week: exhaustion and being burdened. To me, the first is physical and the second is mental, and Jesus covers it all with the rest He will give us if we just come to Him. All we have to do is go to Him in our exhaustion and He will partner with us in Sabbath rest. But He goes further by saying that, when we partner with Him, He will give us rest for our souls- something that goes further than just physical or even mental tiredness. Because, let’s be honest: physical and mental tiredness will always return, no matter how much we rest. But if we achieve rest for our souls, we will find the ability to continue on in our calling as moms after infertility and loss. This is the rest for our anxiety. 

If you notice, Jesus says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. This furthers that image of partnership in resting with Him, but it also shows that there is still work involved, since a yoke is used to pair two animals together in order to make the work easier. You see, what we get from this rest is not just a partner while we’re resting, but Someone to do the work with us when we return to it, so that it is easier to manage, requiring less exhaustion from us and making us more efficient as we return to those things that God has tasked us with. We get to partner with Jesus in all of it and because He’s given us “blessed tranquility of soul” (the Greek word for rest defined in verse 29), this rest will ease our anxiety so that the physical toll on our bodies is lightened, even eliminated.

I want to end today with a beautiful picture of why honoring Sabbath rest, not just on Sundays but whenever our bodies need it, is so crucial in our callings as mothers. In Luke 23, following the crucifixion of Jesus, a man named Joseph went to Pilate and asked him for Jesus’s body. Pilate granted his request, and Joseph took Jesus, wrapped His body in linens and placed Him in the tomb. As the writer, Luke makes note here that “the Sabbath was about to begin” (Luke 23:54 NIV). Then he tells us that a group of women who were all followers of Jesus went with Joseph and saw the tomb with Jesus’s body laid inside. Confirmation that their Teacher was indeed dead. They then went home to prepare spices and perfumes for His body and then instead of immediately going to anoint the body, “they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment” (verse 56).

Why is this so important? Because it allowed the necessary three days to pass before Jesus’s resurrection. When the women finally returned to the tomb in order to anoint Jesus’s body, they discovered that the tomb had been opened by an angel and that Jesus’s body was gone! If they had ignored the sacredness of the Sabbath and gone to the tomb early, they would have missed the miraculous resurrection of our Savior! They would have missed seeing Him and knowing that He was indeed alive after they had confirmed He was dead. And they would have missed their calling, to tell others of this glorious Good News!

Mama, what are you missing because you are ignoring the need for Sabbath rest? What is God calling you to that you just don’t have the physical energy to tackle because you’re spent on busyness. When we replace exhaustion with true rest, we give ourselves a chance to fill our cups through the joy of Sabbath with God so that we can be refreshed to tackle our responsibilities, to the things God has called us to. 

Motherhood is exhausting, but when we seek God to partner with us in rest, we find the yoke of motherhood easier to manage because He’s managing it with us. Don’t miss the glorious miracle He’s called you too because you’re too busy to rest with Him there.