Doesn't this photo look glorious?! Yet do you wanna know the truth behind the photo?
There's a mama and a daddy chasing kids in every direction (that's why the chairs are empty! Haha!) changing diapers, all the while trying to stroll one fussy babe to sleep and yelling at the others to not go so far into the water.
Do you ever find yourself looking forward to the weekend or a vacation so much, and then when it gets here...it's not all that you built it up to be in your mind? Where's the rest you thought you'd get...(somehow I forgot I had 6 kids).
Lately everything we have done together as a family has proved more exhausting in the end. I feel my soul longing for rest, and that tug on my soul is Jesus calling me to come sit with Him. But yet, I keep striving for rest in other places. I think...if I could just take a quiet nap, or go to the beach, or actually have a restful vacation void of toddler tantrums then i'd feel so much better! When will I learn..."come to me all who are weary and heavily burdened, and I will give you rest." HE makes rest so simple, because HE is the source of rest. Jesus is the one my soul is truly longing for.
When I actually do sit in silence with Him and pray/read my Bible. He shows me where my heart is off and offers me a fresh start and a renewed mind. Yes vacation and weekends DO sometimes lead to rest for me (every good and perfect gift is from above...thank God for those sacred moments!). But lately I've been finding that my weekends and vacations have often fallen short. And when they fall short, I feel my mind slowly spinning out of control in anxiousness and in striving to try to find my next place of rest. When actually all I need is to do is go "sit" with Him for a few minutes. No, Jesus isn't a magical genie...but He is the source of life. His words (often spoken to me through the Bible) breathe life into my soul. His words are often so very different than what I naturally believe or desire, and it retrains and refocuses my mind. Jesus says, "I have come so that you may have life, life more abundantly."
Maybe this past weekend was less than for you, or maybe it was one of those sacred moments. But let us not base our new week off of what the weekend was or was not. Because what I need to remember on Monday, is that Jesus offers us life and rest in all 7 days of the week. Not just on the weekends. And He is perfectly able to refresh and renew me on a mundane Monday.