MOVE + REST
Dear Reader,
It’s been a while since I’ve had the keys under my fingers to write to you and I must admit I’ve had lots I could share, but somehow the words escaped me. I eventually became overwhelmed with the unfoldings of life over the last few years and my solo attempts at caring for me while still trudging forward stretched me beyond capacity to an unknown place. Ah, the unknown place.
Well, I won’t bore you with going into the intricacies of love, the delicacies of decision, the depths of spiritual growth, or the fact that destiny is unlocked through pain. I will instead share with you a gift I received that is adding sunshine, quite literally, to my days recently.
Self-care is often depicted by spa-like treatment in Hollywood. When it comes to our society’s take on the subject we tend to focus on external pampering, shopping therapy, or disconnecting from our home front and routines by getting lost abroad or at least out of reach (Hello dnd). What if I told you that, while these activities are enjoyable, these activities aren’t caring for you at all?
You are not the body you live out this life in. Your body is just a transportation device for the soul you are and the spirit you possess. So when self-care is mentioned I have come to see it as soul-care, tending to my mind, heart, body, and spirit. This is the mind of God and His priority for us as well.
In Gen 2:1-3 we see God take rest once He declared His creation of all things good. The Bible says He finished His work and called the day of rest blessed and sanctified it. Rest was not a rushed or inconsequential job or practice to God He was just as intentional with taking rest as He was with assigning work. Later on in Exodus 33:14, we see God telling the children of Israel that one of the benefits of following Him is that He will ensure they have rest. But our bodies have to shut down every 24-30 hours for a recharge anyway so sleep isn’t a benefit of being God’s people it’s just physics. Then what exactly did God do in the beginning and why?
I’ll make this short and sweet; The Lord stopped from making what He had already created when He saw that everything He designed was present. He observed His work and then He let His work do what it was created to do. This is rest; to know that what has been established (even in seed form) is already the complete thing in the weight of its glory you created. He promises us as His children this guarantee. Should we follow the Lord, as His own, submitted to His will He will lead us to establish what will not require our input always. We will learn the way of the spirit which is to release a word and it be established forever.
This guarantee gives rest to the mind, heart, and body which is peace to your soul.
Recently I was motivated to get up and get outside realizing I needed to jolt myself from one state of being into a different one and while on a walk I had an idea. I decided to invite whoever would come to a 21-Day MOVE challenge. For 21 days we would get our bodies moving and our heart rates up for at least 30 minutes each day. This challenge would benefit us mentally, emotionally as well as physically and bridge us to the next thing God would have for us. You see my life wasn’t just ‘lifing’ for the last few years transformation was happening. That unknown place has become home and healing has come.
I pray you realize you need self-care, God ordained it.
Truly understand that self-care is tending to your whole being where sometimes you will need to rest and other times you will need to move, but all the time you’ll need to do it as you abide in God.
May you taste the sweetness of resting in God and seeing His will, His good come to pass in your life.
Grace & Peace,
LORI LaChelle