"Sleep when baby sleeps." As an expectant mother, I cannot count how often this pearl of wisdom was shared. Before my child arrived, I smiled and nodded, not knowing what those first weeks with a newborn would entail. After baby, it was a visceral response of anger.
Cease Striving and Find Rest
Why did four little words immediately upset me? Probing into that question led me to repentance, which is my word of the year for 2023.
Before baby arrived, I had been going to sleep at night and waking up in the morning for 36 years. For the most part, I sleep well. Despite the occasional all-nighter, I shoot for 6-8 hours and prefer to stay up late and sleep in as long as possible. However, as a student and then a teacher, I had lived 32 years of my life on a school schedule with my alarm set based on the designated start time of the school. Enter my newborn, dictating his own unpredictable schedule, and I was trying to survive on just a couple hours each night. I can remember crashing into bed exhausted, my husband and mom perfectly capable of taking care of my son if needed, and just lying in the bed wide awake. While my body wanted nothing more than rest, my mind was still running a hundred miles an hour, and I couldn't make it stop.
"Sleep when baby sleeps" made me so angry because it revealed a heart issue around control, or more accurately, a lack of trust in the one who is ultimately in control. But if I'm being honest, the fear and anxious thoughts that came with being a new mom were just a different version of similar thought spirals that have plagued so many different seasons of my life. Worry is as natural to me as breathing, and it is sad to think of how many hours of my life have been wasted worrying about what might be or considering all the possibilities in an attempt to make things "perfect." I had to acknowledge that those thought spirals are not glorifying to the Lord and take seriously Jesus' invitation to something better.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:28 NIV).
Rest is a gift God designed for his people at creation. Genesis 2:3 states, "Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done" (NIV). Before it was ever a command, the Sabbath was a gift, an invitation to rest and keep the day holy and set apart unto the Lord. Jesus continues to model this foundational rhythm of work and rest, and invites us, as Eugene Peterson translates, "Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace" (Matthew 11:28 MSG).
I decided to take him up on the invitation and spend 2023 with a focus on the word rest. It was my first time choosing a word out of repentance, and it did not disappoint.
2023 was the first time in 32 years that I would not live by a school schedule, and I was struggling with the shift from full-time educator often working 60+ hours a week to stay-at-home mom, on-call 24 hours a day. I was incredibly grateful for the blessing of being able to stay home with my son, but it was a role I had never imagined for myself. In the early months of 2023, as each new day of caring for an infant presented challenges I wasn't prepared to tackle, I found myself missing my previous role where I excelled and felt competent. I also found myself having to acknowledge that my career had become an unhealthy source of my identity and that I was missing the validation that always came with a job well done. It would take many more months, but I had to confront my addiction to busyness, to productivity, and to my work. In a culture that frowns on many addictions, addiction to work is celebrated, and I had to acknowledge my deception and repent of living the lie that my value and my worth are based on what I produce.
I found comfort and conviction in the story of Martha. Jesus meets her in her distracted, chaotic, worried state, and he says her name twice. “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; but only one thing is necessary; for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42 NASB). I was challenged by Vicki Courtney, the author of Rest Assured, to think about what the Lord might say about me, "Amanda, Amanda, you are _____, but only one thing is necessary." Courtney questions, "How might He fill in the last blank? Overwhelmed by a never-ending to-do list; burdened by shame; bound by your past; worried about the future; enslaved by an ongoing sin; depressed; broken-hearted; bitter; feeling hopeless, discouraged, and confused; anxious about your children; saddled with debt; consumed with being a perfect mother; running from your problems; desperate for the world's applause; worn out from seeking your worth in the world's approval; burned out from doing it all with no relief in sight." No matter how many of these descriptions fit me, the remedy is still the very thing Mary and Martha needed: to come and sit at the feet of Jesus.
Courtney goes on in Chapter 6 to share a little insight from the Gospel of Mark Chapter 1 that may be my favorite thing I gleaned about rest in 2023. She points out the use of the word "immediately" in the chapter which lets the audience know all the events occur on the same day. Imagine if your to-do list included just a fraction of these items: teach a large crowd, cast out a demon, travel to visit a friend, heal a friend's mother-in-law, entertain a throng of visitors, heal a multitude of people with various diseases, and cast out many more demons. "Jesus was no stranger to busy, overcrowded days...yet Jesus never demonstrated stress or panic, and He never exhibited the frenzied pace we see today. Most importantly, He was never too busy to meet with God." Verse 35 gives insight into the top of his to-do list the very next day: “And in the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and prayed there for a time" (Mark 1:35 NASB) Jesus was not just crossing something off a to-do list; He knew that time with the Father was the single most important thing He needed to accomplish His mission. Do I truly believe that time in the presence of God is the most important thing, or do my actions reveal that I am too busy?
Rest in the life of Jesus was not just a daily rhythm of time with the Father in prayer but also keeping the weekly rhythm of Shabbat, or Sabbath. In Hebrew, Shabbat means to cease, to end, to rest. I am so thankful for all I have learned about Sabbath rest from John Mark Comer and the Practicing the Way resources. I no longer associate Sabbath with simply attending church on Sunday, eating a Sunday meal with family and friends, or as a 24-hour legalistic practice of Orthodox Jews. I recognize that Sabbath is an invitation to stop working, to stop wanting, to stop worrying, and to delight in our life in God's world, to delight in God himself, to worship, to reorient our heart to a deeper surrender and radical trust in the goodness of God. We often have ideas about work ethic that we want to pass down to our kids, but what truths are we teaching them about rest? Are our rhythms worthy of emulating? I am so thankful for the opportunity to think deeply about the experiences we are creating as a family and the truths we are teaching our son about Sabbath. I pray that as we continue to prioritize a rhythm of work and rest aligned to the way of Jesus, he too will find great joy in a day set apart to stop, rest, delight, and worship.
I recently came across a post from @cleerlystated on January 28, 2025, "I would bet that you would look more like Jesus if you rested more. Not produced or achieved or contributed or acquired more...when you value who you're becoming over what you're producing, rest is prioritized. This quote took me back to those sleepless nights of 2023 and the irony of choosing rest as my word for the year when the hours of physical sleep were the most limited they have ever been. However, the quote also left me in awe of how the Lord has been faithful to take my imperfect prioritization of rest and use it to transform me and our family. From contentment in no longer pursuing career milestones to greater enjoyment of my daily time with the Lord and our family Sabbath rhythms, the Lord has used this new season of motherhood to help me refocus on who I'm becoming at the feet of Jesus. He taught me so much in such a short time frame; I found myself wondering why had I not learned this before. Growing up in church and participating in countless Bible studies, why did all that I was learning feel so new? I don't know if God wanted to answer that question or just remind me that He never changes, but in October, I happened to find myself flipping through a Bible study workbook from my middle school years. The passage I had identified as most important from the very first week of the study jumped off the page. "We are a "doing" people. We always want to be doing something. Once in a while someone will say, "Don't just stand there, do something." I think God is crying out and shouting to us, "Don't just do something. Stand there! Enter into a love relationship with Me. Get to know Me. Adjust your life to Me. Let Me love you and reveal Myself to you as I work through you." A time will come when the doing will be called for, but we cannot skip the relationship. The relationship with God must come first" (Blackaby and King).
Jesus didn't respond to Martha in disappointment; in love, he pointed her to truth. Jesus wants to exchange our burdens with peace, give us rest for our weary souls, and invite us to follow His example and make our relationship with God the Father our number one priority. When season after season, I choose worry, productivity, or the world's acclaim, His love for me does not change. In His mercy and grace, He continues to show me again and again, "only one thing is necessary." When I cease striving and prioritize time to be still, God is faithful to reveal himself to me and give me the rest my heart so deeply desires.
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