“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)
I’ve
had this verse underlined in my Bible for years and have even written it down
to display in my room on mirrors or bulletin boards because I liked the sound
of it. It painted the picture of a loving savior, opening his arms, and
inviting me to enjoy a vacation with him.
No schedule, no work, just rest for a weary soul. But this verse was
never a reality to me until this year and my experience over the last few
weeks. I had no idea how God was going to use it to radically alter how I
looked at life, relationships, his character, my character, silence, and being
still. It has been one of the most frustrating, horrible, wonderful, and
exhilarating experiences of my life.
The blessings God revealed during this time will likely span a few posts
because a number of you have already sat through the disjointed monologue
lasting 15-30 minutes and I won’t subject you to that again. But I am excited
to share this story and the ones that follow. I pray that it will lead you to
your own place of rest and open your eyes to a most loving and gracious creator
who wants to spend time just the two of you.
In
my lifetime, I don’t think I could count the number of soccer balls that have
flown at great speeds toward my head. It’s the nature of this beautiful game,
sometimes you are prepared for them, and sometimes you are not. Friday, January
4, 2013, I was not prepared for the ball that hit me in the face and knocked me
off my feet to the turf below. I remember leaving the game, thinking I was a
little tippy and probably shouldn’t play anymore (although I later learned I
got back up and continued playing for awhile after the hit). The rest of the
weekend brought a couple different birthday celebrations and only in retrospect
were there hints that something may not be quite right. By the time Monday
rolled around, I thought I had a touch of food poisoning from the day before
and called in sick to work. What I learned as the day progressed, was that I
was having a hard time focusing, the light’s were unbearable making my eyes
want to stay closed and retreat into darkness, and I had a headache. At some
point, when the words I was reading started jumping around the page, going in
and out of focus, I realized that I probably had a concussion. No big deal I
thought. I work with concussions every day and knew exactly what to do. I put
myself on physical and cognitive rest, turned off all the lights in my
apartment, and slept 10-12 hours each night with 1-2 naps during the day for
the next week.
Well,
if the concussion weren’t enough, later that week I caught one of those nasty
bugs floating around that felt like I was swallowing a hornets’ nest, my face
was going to explode off my head, the facet in my nose was locked in the on
position, and a 500 pound grizzly bear had taken up residence on my chest. This lasted about a week until the
doctor gave me some antibiotics and I began to re-enter the land of the living.
Two weeks after the initial hit to the head, I returned to work for a half day,
finally over the bug and feeling part human again. It was a Friday so I had the
weekend to recover. Monday, I woke up excited to get back to normal, ignoring
the little headache that had become a new normal. I thought I was ready to go
back to a full day of work. I thought wrong. I lasted the entire day, thinking
my little headache would go away as the day progressed. It didn’t. Not even
when I took my daily allotment of Aleve before noon. It kept getting worse,
making me wish I could pull off wearing sunglasses inside. When the day was
finally over, I called my mom, burst into tears, and drove directly to my
parents house where my mom tucked me into bed like when I was a little girl. I
took the rest of the week off and set up an appointment with a concussion
specialist. Together we developed a plan for return to work at a gradual pace,
starting with 5 hours per day and working my way back to full time as
tolerated. As of this week, I am
almost there!! I was essentially away from work for 3 weeks total and dropped
all other extracurricular activities as I tried to let my brain injury heal.
January
3, 2013, in my prayer journal I asked God for rest. I asked that he would show
me how to sit and be still in his presence. I had so many activities going on,
good things that I enjoyed doing, that almost every night of the week was
scheduled. Most unscheduled time went to watching TV so I could veg and try to
relax in preparation for the next day that was sure to be crazy. I was trying
to be superwoman. I kept comparing myself to the women around me, thinking that
I should be able to keep up the same pace or even a busier one since I don’t
have a husband or kids to take care of. There were so many things to juggle I
didn’t know how to relax, worrying that everything would come crashing down
around me if I stopped for even a moment. It was pride and insecurity and an
unspoken belief that the world would stop turning if I weren’t there to save it.
So God gave me a time out. He showed me how to rest. I went kicking and
screaming and crying at first (concussions make you very emotional) but with
patience and compassion he gently called me into his presence. Maybe he gave me
the concussion or maybe he just allowed it to happen, making the most of an
opportunity to get my attention. Either way, I’m grateful for the experience.
Everything I could do, reading, writing, watching TV, working out, working, spending
extended amounts of time in well-lit areas, was stripped away. I had to learn
how be. He
taught me how to be still, how to be in his presence, how to be me without
doing. I was carrying all the burdens superwoman should be able to handle and
getting choked by a cape that didn’t fit. God taught me how to surrender those
burdens to Christ, lay them at his feet, and be fit for a yoke that was light and
designed just for me. He loved me enough to carve out time so that he could
remind me of who I am to him. I am his daughter, his crowned princess, his
beloved. Psalm 103:4 says He redeemed my life from the pit and crowned me with
steadfast love and mercy.
I’m
still learning, still healing, and slowly but surely beginning to venture back
into the land of doing things again. But I am learning to do things with a
renewed spirit, and a sense of peace that only comes from being in his presence
first, drawing my worth from him instead of all those activities. I am not
superwoman but I do know the creator of the universe who claims me as his own,
giving me a crown of life. I’ll take that crown over a superwoman cape any day.
Beside, the matching tights just aren’t really my style.
