Dearest Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
To give and not to count the cost;
To fight and not to heed the wounds;
To toil and not to seek reward,
Save that of knowing that
I do Your will, O God.
In what feels like my last night of freedom, I find myself struggling to look forward. Starting tomorrow, Christmas break is done. I'm officially back to work and back to the version of myself I like a little bit less. That sounds strange, doesn't it? For one, I wish I didn't feel divided in work and break personalities. This makes me seem unbalanced. And two, I really shouldn't be analyzing myself this much. It's ridiculously self-centered.
Truly, though, I see a difference in myself when I'm in the middle of routine and when I'm resting over a long break. We all probably do. Whether we physically get away from work or we just mentally put it on pause, stepping away from our daily schedule often affects us. As it should. It seems that holidays and vacations were put into place just for that reason. We need time away from work, whatever that may look like for each of us. For me, rest often comes with unfair expectations. I start out a break hoping for lots of time, peace, and uninterrupted leisure. I expect each break to totally fulfill and rejuvenate me for the coming season of work. Because that standard is too high, I find myself getting easily disappointed. The break feels more exhausting than restful, and all this time has gone by without a bit of intentionality. Somewhere close to the end of break, I realign myself with God's voice and presence, and of course, he's faithful to remind me of his goodness. His goodness for the coming season, as well as the break that just whizzed by.
It's a terrible cycle. But this time, this break, I thought I had it beat. I went into it knowing my usual patterns and braced myself for a realistic time away. I was productive with time, I read good books, I spent time with my favorite people. And somehow, I found myself screaming at my husband one night and wiping away unexplainable tears on another. The ideals of contented gratitude and peace felt far away, and I had little time to process what was going on within me.
I could chalk it all up to hormones and wave off the crazy with a quick pregnant excuse. But if I'm honest, mood swings just added to, rather than caused, the outbursts. If I look back at my work, rest, repeat cycle, I can't pick out the exact thing that disrupts contentment. Recently, though, I discovered a piece that has definitely been missing.
A few days ago, I listened to a Timothy Keller podcast titled Work and Rest. I was right in the middle of my regularly timed introspective portion of this cycle, so I was eating up anything that spoke into my hunger for knowledge. In this sermon, Keller discussed the why and how of rest. He spoke of God's action of rest and new understanding began to settle in. In Genesis, we see that the Creator rested on the seventh day. He didn't rest because he was tired - God, the Father and Creator of the world, doesn't get tired. So what other reason do we have for rest? In looking at his example, we see that God rested once he was completely satisfied with what had been done. After six days of creation, the work was finished. And it was good.
Rest is only good and available to us when we can look back and say, "It's finished". When we can be satisfied with the work we've done, we can really rest. I tell my students all the time that rest is about trust - it's about realizing our humanity and humility within God's Kingdom. When we step away, the work continues because he has orchestrated it in spite of us. At the same time, he has entrusted us with work. We must do it to our fullest capacity and with our best ability.
I'm walking into another season of work tomorrow. This time, I want to walk in with a new sense of generosity and service, as St. Ignatius prays. I want to work with great effort and without need for reward and recognition. I want to serve God and others freely, without nagging selfishness that ends up stealing the space intended for real rest. Rest can't be just a break-time thing. It must be a consistent result of trusting and serving God with my time. Teach me to be generous, teach me to serve, teach me to give. I admit I am lacking in these areas, God, and I desperately need your guidance. Let my work in this next season and semester be pleasing to you.
Amen.