Rest the Privilege; Rest the Gift
Rest in the wilderness, a phone in the sea, a lavishing God, and the right question to ask in suffering
This last month of traveling, hosting, and largely being offline has been a beautiful conclusion to the summer. It was a healing slave to connect with nature, my family, good food, and nearly-lost friends from Michigan to Virginia.
I didn’t know how much I needed a different type of rest—rest that wasn’t found recovering in a hospital bed. Nor was it found through my go-to, out on the road, where I’ve learned to successfully distract my mind from reality through busy stops to pick up food, do acts of kindness, act the tourist and direct my kids as they tear down camp. Those are the types of rest I am familiar with. They’re based on either what what my body can do, or what I can afford.
In many ways, rest is a privilege. I’ve realized rest is neither inclusive, nor is its access equal. Those who need the healing spaces rest the most are often the furthest from being able to find it. It is another injustice to add to a long list that we work towards restoring. But this view is limited; it is missing a vital truth.
Finding rest
This August, rest came in the form of bobbing on a paddle board. My legs would dangle over the edge as I’d marvel at how minuscule the waves were, lapping against the sandy lakeshore, nearly hidden under a covering of ferns and wildflowers.
Rest was born of coloring hours—and then days—with Sharpies, attempting to mimic Van Gogh’ impressionist style found in his Starry Night paintings. My hosts would ask, “Do you do this often, Elisa?”
“No. Never.”
Rest was found in forest walks, taking pictures of back-road gardens.
Rest swelled as we laughed together, playing cards and sampling teas. Did you know tea can be lovely? I wasn’t even aware that tea could taste delicate and dreamy.
If you’ve been reading Authentically Elisa, you’ll know that I’ve been hastily glued back-together more times that I can count in the last few years, both literally and figuratively. I’ve barely survived the crushing in body and soul. My nervous-system is always buzzing, waiting for the next terrible thing to happen.
And yet, rest still managed to seep into my being, into the deep places. I actually didn’t know it was possible. Remember a month ago, when I was proclaiming this type of rest a myth (here)?
I forgotten that rest isn’t just a privilege for the healthy, the wealthy, the one who isn’t in the middle of a juggling act of raising children. As rest isn’t something we earn—a foundational principle I believe—then that means rest must also be a gift.
Hello, rest, the gift
I have a lot of thoughts on rest. Rest is a theme at Average Advocate (“Changing the world without burning out”). We dive into it quite a bit during the Mentorship Circle (discipleship groups for women leaders). I can do a keynote on avoiding burnout or teach you all about the seven types of rest we need. I even host “No Hustle November” to push back on doing things that aren’t born out of rest. Why? I’ve burned out once, got close another time, and have seen too many others fall prey to the ravages of burnout to not resolutely align myself with the pursuit of rest.
And still, I am anything but “arrived” on the topic. Maybe that is why it surprised me to find deep rest when I didn’t think I could obtain it. Rest is a provision I can’t always prepare for or self-supply. It comes from the well of life.
“For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me— the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!”
- God (Jeremiah 2:13 NLT)
Recognizing that rest is a gift was like a splash of water to my face on a hot day. Actually, it probably was a splash of lake water, from my kayak’s oars.
Even as I think back on our recent trip, the tickets we used to fly to the Midwest were old, from nearly two years ago, before I got sick. Even then, they were bought with free airline miles. I didn’t have to pay for a rental car and unlike my last flight, I didn’t need a wheelchair. Then the lakehouse we stayed at belongs to longtime hospitable friends, resort-like in its space, options, service, and food. We even tried to buy everyone ice cream once, but the local church gave our group gift cards and then the ice cream shop doubled the number of cones we could have on a technicality (i.e., for the joy of it).
The trip was a gift. And as rest isn’t just a result of circumstances—it is especially a rejuvenation in our spirit—this too was a gift I found at the lake.
Just enough isn’t enough
I was trying to be content with the meager water I had—I’m in a wilderness after all. But I forgot that there is often an oasis in the desert. I keep saying God gives us wanderers “just enough,” without realizing that “just enough” might not exactly mesh with God’s character. Because isn’t God good? Wouldn’t that character trait give him the freedom to lavish, not just do the bare minimum?
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
- Jesus (Matthew 7:11 ESV)
Succulents and wildflowers
As you know, I hate it when we simplify the complexities with platitudes and minimization. So, even as I feel rested for the first time in years, I watch those around me who are currently going through it—a neighbor with leukemia, an acquaintance murdered, friends on the brink of divorce, families we invest in, whose houses were burnt in a wave of persecution, and loved ones who are being shaken by life-altering mental health troubles. Then I think of my own experiences, many still clinging and sucking energy like an invasive kudzu vine. I can’t help but feel all the feels about the discrepancy between seasons of “just enough” contrasting with being lavished upon.
I know that “just enough” was what I needed to grow resilience, as if I was transformed into a succulent. That in itself has been a gift. But, today, why do I get to be like a delicate forest wildflower, the gift of sweet rain gently pattering down on me each morning? Is this evanescent too?
Even if what we get isn’t about what we deserve, it is nearly impossible to accept that both good and bad happen, and that even the bad be reworked into a semblance of goodness. We try to find meaning in pain but are missing the context.
“In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.”
-Jesus (Matthew 5:45, NLT)
The new phone: context
Last week, while enjoying a gorgeous walk along the beach, I dropped my phone into the ocean. I was mostly distraught that I lost all my summer pictures and videos, which I hadn’t backed-up yet. (Let this be a lesson to us all!) It is why I don’t have pictures of both versions of my Starry Night to share, and the one I do (below) is just terrible.
On a positive note, my husband was much more gracious about it than I expected he’d be. Immediately, he ordered me a cheaper phone to use temporarily, the type my kids have. Then I could consider for awhile what phone I really wanted. It was a sweet gesture, but I just wanted another Samsung Galaxy. I also didn’t want to do the work of transferring my content twice, so I decided to just be phone-less for a week.
At the same time, we were looking into fixing the screen on my daughter’s phone, which was shattered awhile ago. So, you guessed it, she got the new phone instead. She was happy and totally caught off guard.
My daughter has been asking us for months to get her phone fixed. My husband would ask her why she just didn’t use her own money and find a repair shop on Google. When she’d ask me, I’d just divert responsibility—technology is 100% in dad’s arena and I have beyond enough to take care of. I was out.
Eventually, one of us would have gotten around to helping her in some way or another. She assumed we probably would, but she wasn’t totally confident that we would, either.
Children’s perspective
Consider this turn of events from my daughter’s perspective: She begs for her problem to be resolved by a parent. Then one day, out of the blue, for no rhyme or reason relevant to her, her problem is fixed. She didn’t have to come up with the solution herself nor did she even have to pay for it herself—the answer to her needs was fully provided. And the solution was better than what she asked for! It was a good gift because she has a good dad.
In addition, living with the broken screen even made her appreciate the gift more than she would have, and caused her to be empathetic to those who also have broken screens. She also learned more about caring for her phone and options for getting phones fixed in the future. I could argue that the delay in fixing her phone was a gift, too.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Like all analogies, this breaks down. For one, my spouse and I are far from being perfectly good. Our reflection of God is off—I don’t think he is too overwhelmed or lazy to take care of us. And, just because she grew a little from having a broken screen, doesn’t mean we were being intentional about teaching her, nor was it necessarily the best way for her to learn something.
My point is that we only have the perspective of the child.
Beyond the universe
As a child, things usually don’t make sense, the context often isn’t evident, and we are still learning our parent is both good and trustworthy. What if we pivoted our questions to move from trying to understand suffering, and approached suffering with neutrality?
The truth is, in this lifetime we will never have the context. Try as we might, we are and will always be children compared to God and the grandiosity of the universe. Once we are able to accept this, the questions change.
We begin determining whether we will live like cared-for, safe children, or scared unsafe ones, having to provide all for ourselves. Maybe those two realities are too binary, forgive me. But the reality is that we have control over our response, regardless of whatever philosophy we believe about how the universe operates.
Do we live like we are loved and secure?
How can we live with the fact we will never understand suffering?
What beliefs drive these responses?
What beliefs actually serve us most in the end?
I myself am straddled on the swinging bridge between trust and self-provision. I often don’t believe that I or those who I love are safe. Yet I know it serves me to accept that ultimately, I am and will be loved, secure, and okay (even in death). It is a narrow road to walk, to intentionally choose and act on these beliefs.
Jesus noted that the only way we’d be able to come to the Father is through the ever-trusting, surrendering faith of a child. That will always be miles and fathoms harder than we thought it would be.
Hoping towards rest
And there lies rest, on the foundation of our beliefs. Is it something you are going to try to produce for yourself, determined by your privilege? Or are you going to hope that rest might be a gift, also available for you, too?
I’m not sure why I was given the gift of rest in this season. Like all of us, I wish there were known reasons and rhymes.
But it also wouldn’t have hurt if I began asking a little earlier for the good gift of deep internal rest. For if God truly is a good father, he might want to lavish more on us than we dream and when we least expect it.