Sacred Rest 5 Day Reading PlanSample

A SECOND CHANCE

The sacredness of rest remains even when we refuse to acknowledge it. The need to break away, for the body to have periods of peace, is rooted in our anatomy. We must have opportunities to heal. The mind must have a reprieve from thinking. The body needs rest from movement. Emotions need a release. The senses desire to be quieted. We need the social grace to find rest in another. Our soul yearns to soak in the created beauty around it, and our spirit calls for a relationship with the holy.

On the day she left the hospital, Cynthia left the staff a handwritten note. “Thank you. May I never forget the kindness you’ve shown, the love you’ve shared, or the care you’ve given. But most of all, may I never forget who I was when I was in your presence. You have made me better.” Cynthia’s words were for her medical team, but she echoed the heart’s cry of many. 

Healing occurs when we allow ourselves the time, space, and grace to be in the presence of God in the middle of our busy lives. What Cynthia was most thankful for wasn’t anything that had to be done in a hospital. The hospital just happened to be the place where her life was revived. It was the place she found life-changing direction. In the middle of the messiness, in the middle of the trauma, in the middle of the pain, she found herself. The nurse who showed me the note had tears in her eyes. Cynthia was never alone on her journey; none of us are. We are all connected by our collective humanity. Sometimes the hard places have to be broken before we are willing to let others in.

Peace, understanding, and revelation came into that place for Cynthia. The place where our fear of being broken beyond repair meets our fear of staying the same. The place where things are hard and life gets difficult. Healing and wholeness require access into our lives, and room to make us better. That is what rest does. Rest causes you to be still and seek to know God. It calls for you to look deeper at yourself and your surroundings. It forces you to stop. 

We often view life as if looking through the window of a speeding car. Rest, rather, implores you to slow down and fully live. It challenges you to shift from having the scenery fly by in a blur to inhaling the scent of pine on the scenic route of your life. To take it all in and experience it. Rest is not simply pushing the pause button on your day. Rest is not merely taking a break. Rest is about replenishing, restoring, renewing, recovering, rebuilding, regenerating, remolding, and repairing. Rest begins with the prefix re- because it requires us to go back to a prior state. It is a second chance. It’s an opportunity to put back in order anything that has shifted out of alignment with God’s best.