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<\/span><\/p>\n The inside of Orchard House looks like a typical Monday this morning. All the blankets I drape over our furniture are askew from people snuggling up for a few hours after church the day before. Bibles lay here and there and seemingly everywhere. Orders of service, too. Most of my dishes are clean, but there\u2019s clutter strewn about in the kitchen. Oh, and clean skillets litter the counters, because my Mom is tall enough to clean them but not put them away in the pantry. Sunday clothes still need to be hung up. Thanks to the wind, my deck is a wreck.<\/span>
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And so on.<\/span>
My version of a good Sabbath rest is to allow Mom to work kitchen duty while we are at church, and refrain from worrying about making the bed or picking up clutter as I go throughout the day. In the name of rest and relaxation, I just leave it all.<\/span>
Truth is, we are leaving a lot in the name of R and R. Shaun resigned from his position as lay elder a week or so ago, and made it official yesterday morning by announcing it publicly to our church. So today, Monday, feels different than it usually does. It feels normal, in that Shaun is at work and I\u2019m at home cleaning up and getting groceries so we can all function as normal Americans this week. But a burden is gone from our lives. And so is a privilege.<\/span>
We love lay ministry. And yet, when we began taking a good look at our life and why we might feel so drained, we realized the very thing we loved was the only thing we could reasonably cut out of our schedules, at least until God shows us another way.<\/span>
There are so many reasons God has communicated to us that it\u2019s time for a sabbatical \u2013 or what we suspect is a sabbatical. Too many to spell out here, in a tiny blog. But the overarching reason for the resignation is that if we do not get some R and R, we are going to crash and burn. Shaun spiritually, me physically. The last seventeen years, and especially the last five have been particularly taxing in a non-stop way, and it has occurred to us that when a cup ceases to overflow \u2026 it\u2019s time to stop. Drop. And fill \u2018er up.<\/span>
There was a phrase used in yesterday\u2019s service. I can\u2019t even remember which elder said it, what the context was, or anything. But something was said about \u201cthe heavy pursuit of God.\u201d And so my mind wandered with that a little bit because I think that\u2019s what\u2019s taking place. Yeah, we have been so busy our heads are spinning. But we are finding that though busy-ness may have a superhero-like spirituality appearance to it, the truth is that the further one gets from true spirituality, the heavier the pursuit of God becomes.<\/span>
God is a jealous God and frankly, He doesn\u2019t give a hoot about how spiritual we appear<\/i>. He gives a hoot about how alive to Him we are.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/div>\n
Shaun and I have been two empty cups lately, clanking around in the name of Christian service while God stands by, ready to quench us, fill us, and make us naturally overflow. But we are always moving to and fro and missing what He freely offers because \u2026 no time. No ability to concentrate for lack of ability to sit still. Someone always needs us. Or desires us. And by us, I mean typically Shaun, but as his \u201cother half\u201d, there are pressures on me as well.<\/span>
Don\u2019t get me wrong. It\u2019s great to be and feel needed. But we are worn. And God is heavily pursuing us in order to fill us to overflowing with His love and goodness, and most of all, His strength.<\/span>
We can\u2019t check out of life. That\u2019s not what we are doing. Shaun will still work. I\u2019ll still care for Mom and this household and be the best Mom and Marmee I know how. And write. In fact, my writing opportunities seem to be stepping up a notch, which I\u2019ll discuss at a later date. But we as a couple are simply taking a step back, and sitting still long enough to fill our cups and listen for a still small voice to tell us where to head next where ministry is concerned. Right now, we simply feel as though we\u2019ve been living life on a roller coaster, flying at a high rate of speed. Picture Shaun constantly hanging on to me in an effort to keep me from falling out of my seat, and me hanging on for dear life, screaming my head off in both joy and terror at the same time, and you\u2019ll have a good idea as to what our life is like. It\u2019s fun and funny at first, and then after a thousand times around the track, it becomes terrifyingly exhausting, and the screaming starts sounding like something out of a Stephen King movie rather than a joy-full Psalm.<\/span>
I love ministry (did I already say that?). I do not love being a lay minister\u2019s helpmeet while on a 750 calorie per day diet that is not by anybody\u2019s standards \u201chealthy\u201d, and trying (and failing) to get my remaining nutrients via IV tubes. After seventeen years of just trying to survive the rigors of a very trying stomach condition, coupled with pushing myself in spite of how miserable I\u2019ve felt, my body is screaming at me to STOP IT. My body wants to either be fixed (at the very least helped), or no longer required to paste on a happy face. It\u2019s tired of hearing me say Buck up, Snowflake<\/i>. One more day of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps won\u2019t kill ya\u2019.\u00a0<\/i><\/span>
I don\u2019t even feel as strong as a snowflake these days. What convinced me that I need to stop what I\u2019m doing was when I took my mother who has Parkinson\u2019s to the bank a few weeks ago to cancel a check. No problem<\/i>, I thought. The bank is five minutes away. It\u2019ll just take a few minutes<\/i>. So we were standing at the teller, and that was the problem for me \u2014 merely standing in one place for longer than five minutes. It\u2019s one thing to not be able to stand all the way through a song service at church with all those strong, healthy people hovering over you. You just figure well, I\u2019m just struggling a little more these days and naturally, people who eat three our four times more than I do per day will be stronger than I am. It\u2019s another to not be able to keep up with your Mooooooooom<\/i> who is twenty years your senior and suffering from a disease that will eventually take her life.<\/span>
<\/i><\/span>Anyway. More on that if the tests I\u2019m undergoing turn out any definitive answers. Meanwhile, Shaun and I both have inklings of what we eventually want and should be doing. We are not oblivious to our heart\u2019s desires. Neither is God. But we live fallen. Our aging bodies are not limitless and we can no longer live like a couple of spry, too-sexy-for-our-shirts people.<\/span><\/div>\n
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