Just Rest

So I was reading O magazine... I'm actually not a freaky Oprah fan and I rarely even tivo her show, but I enjoy her magazine and I especially enjoy that it is a free years' subscription.  Martha Beck wrote an article on the hidden blessings of life's little low points and it just spoke to me in a way that hit home with a concept that I just haven't fully been able to accept... until now.  And most of this, I quote:

We live in an up-and-down, ebb-and-flow universe, yet we'd much rather flow than ebb.  When we find ourselves in the troughs between the peaks of life, some of us become resistant... and some of us panic.

Ruined plans and unfulfilled expectations remind us that we have little control over most situations and that our very lives {situations} are -- temporary.  We resist every downturn, we clutch at straws, passionately embrace denial, or pretend things won't go wrong... even when they already have.

If you're going into a valley, do what you did as a small kid on the big shiny playground slide: 


Let go and ride it down. 

I loved that... so simple, and yet, so complex.  We want the sun to shine all day and night and when it doesn't, we create cities that never sleep.  These ebbs hold a message for us... in the form of one simple blessed word... REST.

Have you ever just watched animals?  When nothing's working for them no matter how hard they try, they curl up or stretch out and surrender.  They love the valley of the shadow:  It's a dim, quiet, perfect place to gather strength.  Animals rest like they mean it.  Humans rest in a state of anxiety, guilt, and unease.  We don't mean it.  This keeps life's downtimes from fulfilling their natural function, which is to restore and heal.  Though we often see life's troughs as the universe's conspiracy to ruin us, they're actually our own true nature inviting us to lay down our weary heads.

Do nothing when nothing works.

And this doesn't mean to give up... it just means to surrender all the anxiety, the fear, the crazy and turn it over to God.  I need to appreciate my way out of my funk and listen to my life saying,  sorry, what was that?  Oh, yes.  Rest.  Until things improve and something starts to work, let's lie down in the cool shady valley... and rest like we mean it.  "

I know... not a total reality because Rest and Kids are oxy-morons.  But rather than trying to fix something that is not in my reach, I can take it as a hidden blessing, and attempt my version of REST.  Precisely why I have needed a good book in hand & my beach this summer.