I refuse to write a “Dear Diary, I’m sorry I haven’t written much, life has been so busy” – esque post regarding the quiet on the blog.

Life has been busy.  I started a new position in August and my learning curve is steep.  And I haven’t been feeling completely myself for the last month or two.  To be perfectly, honest, I’ve been wiped out, and haven’t had time to think about the deep things of life, or world injustices.  I haven’t had much energy to get sassy, even on a Friday.

Yesterday was the first day that I had nothing on the calendar in a long time.  I started several loads of laundry and then took a mug of coffee, my Bible, journal, and a few books out on the back patio ready to process life with God.

I opened my journal and embarked on a rather long prayer to God, analyzing why I assumed I felt so busy, so tired, so drained, so dry.  I told God that I needed to rest, and then made a long list of excuses as to why that seems an impossible task in this season.  And then in the middle of my long whiney prayer, this big gust of wind came and blew through the big trees in our backyard, and made this loud, “shhhhhhh” noise.

I stopped writing, and in that moment, I was sure that God himself was shushing me.

I got quiet and looked up at the trees blowing in the wind and the perfectly blue sky and I listened for the first time in a long time.

Yesterday, on the first day of fall, on my back deck, I communed with God.

It was so refreshing, so sweet, so good.

And then I opened up my Bible to Hebrews and read this:

“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest.”

I left my back deck feeling like I had breathed for the first time in nearly two months.

And mid-way through a Monday I still feel like I’m breathing.

And this – this feeling of breathing -must be why God instituted the Sabbath.