Written by Mackenzie Lancaster, IRSM Summer Intern 2017
I have always liked being busy. In school I wanted to participate in every activity, sport, club, you name it. This love for being busy carried over to college, and the first two years I enjoyed it and felt like I was thriving. The spring semester of my sophomore year I went abroad to Chile, and stayed an extra month to do a campaign in Peru. Both of those experiences were absolutely wonderful, but when I came back I had a week at home before starting my job as a counselor for Honor Symposium, a two-week long academic/honors camp that Harding offers to juniors in high school. I worked two different sessions and when that was over I had just two weeks until school started.
The interesting thing about breaks in college is that they never seem to actually be a break, when you come back home after being gone so long everyone wants to spend time with you and catch up, which is wonderful, but before you know it your break is over. I went back to school still exhausted from my study abroad and my busy summer, but I was enjoying everything that I participated in, so I didn’t think it mattered.
However, that fall semester started going downhill fast, I wasn’t feeling like myself, various relationships in my life were feeling strained and I couldn’t figure out how to fix any of it. I was sleeping like crazy and practically living off of coffee, but I never felt rested. Finally I got some professional advice, some counseling on how I could get my life turned around, in my words “under control.” I was told that the following Saturday, I needed to rest, I shouldn’t think about my to-do list, my homework; I needed to stay in my pajamas all day, watch movies, read a book, do some crafts, anything that made me feel relaxed and made me feel good, even if it wasn’t “productive.”
The question that shook me and made me really realize where I was at that moment in my life was, “How is your faith right now?” Well, I prayed every night and I went to chapel and Bible class regularly, but when was the last time I had started my day with scripture? I used to love Bible journaling, but I couldn’t remember the last time I had done that. So, I had a few goals for myself, I proceeded with that week, and I spent my Saturday doing nothing productive, I did whatever fun things I wished I could do more often, but never felt like I could, and that day I started back with my daily Bible journaling.
While that didn’t solve all of my problems, I noticed an almost immediate change in myself the in the days and weeks that followed. I hadn’t realized how badly I had run myself down, and the worst part was that I had been so worn down I wasn’t even feeding myself spiritually.
Our society is so fast-paced. We feel the need to be busy and productive constantly throughout each and every day. While God is with us throughout all of this it is essential for us to rest; but more specifically we need to rest in God. These are two things that I neglected to do for quite some time, and my chaotic life reflected that. Even God took time to rest, and we see that in the creation narrative. However I think David describes it best in Psalm 23:
The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. Psalm 23:1-3
He refreshes my soul.