Last week, I found myself starting to get overwhelmed when my schedule began to unfold before my eyes. Classes, work, extra circulars, RA...did I really say yes to all these things?
During my first one on one with my RD, he asked me how I was doing and the first words out of my mouth were, "Slightly overwhelmed." Its so hard coming back early from summer for RA training and really engaging in those moments with your Walkabout Team and your staff and other Ra's and then the summer camp euphoria somewhat slips away when you realize, "Oh, wait...I'm here to be a student." RA training comes to a close and then it just becomes being an RA and then work is added to that and then your 10am-5pm class schedule and weekend commitments, club meetings etc etc. And then you slowly start to find yourself forgetting how to breath easily, everything is tense and stressed because you're just trying to fit everything in your schedule.
This was very much so my entire year last year. Now don't get me wrong, it was absolutely, hands down the most life-giving, purpose filled year I have yet to experience. However at the end of it, I had lost weight I didn't intend too because I just wasn't eating properly, I'm anemic and my blood count was dangerously low, I spent the summer sleeping a little bit more than is healthy and I felt like I at least needed a few weeks to "get back to myself again."
We live this fast-paced, no sleep, whats-next-on-the-schedule type life style so well that its dangerous.
The mentor type people in my life have both consistently asked me, "What do you want to change this year?" See, as we all know... going into your Senior year means adjustments, growth, and lots of changes. There are new things happening and we have to live according to them. Looking back on what a beautiful blur last year was, I realize that in this last year, I want to do life slower. I want to be really intentional with every little moment. I also want to take care of myself. We need to take care of ourselves.
I have been a "believer" or involved with Christianity all of my life, I know what that seventh day of rest is supposed to look like. Do I follow it? Most times... actually no, not at all. Do I want to? most definitely.
My answer to the "What do you want to change this year?" was that I really want to learn what a Sabbath looks like. Today, was my first attempt of that. I and another RA had "Weekend Duty", where on Friday and Saturday evening from 7:30pm-1:00am we are in the Rec Room, going on rounds and basically being present for residents who may come around. Most of you who know me, know that I am a grandma when it comes to late nights, anything past about 10pm is rough for me. Which is why when today rolled around I decided before I went to bed (at around 1:30 this morning) that when I woke up without an alarm, is when my day would start. For me that was at about 12:30 in the afternoon ah yes, sweet sweet beautiful rest I have yearned for you.
Having a Dad as a pastor, and being a ministry family makes it really hard for Sundays to be a Sabbath because its sort of a work day. My Dad preaches, my Mom and Sister work on the PowerPoint's, my other sister and I usually did worship. Coming home from church meant that my parents would come home and KNOCK OUT on the couch, usually they were next to each other, both of them with glasses on, maybe my moms phone in her hand and my dads tablet on his lap (its always really cute). But for us, going to church was apart of that Sabbath, in college I've slowly come to realize that even going to church is sometimes more exhausting than it is life giving. I find myself sometimes sitting in church dozing off and being elbowed by whoever I was sitting next to or staring at the Pastor, not really listening but wondering how many points he was going to talk about until he said "and Lastly..." so that I could come back to school and take a nap. And so I learned last year, that sometimes waking up at 11 am and watching Church online while still in bed, is not a bad thing. That waking up at 12am and then doing YouTube video workouts while watching 13 Going on 30 because your roommate left it on, is not a bad thing. We need rest. We need to be rejuvenated. If we continue to rush into each week, each year, without spending sometime practicing rest, we're really never going to know what living really means, just know how to do and not be.
So here I am, new Senior with the old tricks... learning what a Sabbath looks like. And for each of us, it looks differently but for me today, it looked like watching 13 Going on 30 , YouTube work outs and writing this blog.
Today, I am rested and rejuvenated. Thank God for Sabbaths.
"By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work." Genesis 2:2
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