We had an amazing, restful vacation last week for the first time in four years. Four years where we’ve amassed two open-heart surgeries, a job loss, a stroke, shoulder surgery…oh yes, and a pandemic. We needed to rest.

Interestingly, I didn’t sleep well on vacation (shoulder pain post-op still and pain medication-induced vertigo waking me up).

But I actually felt rested.

That’s because sleep and rest are not the same thing. Sleep meets a physical need, a life or death requirement of the brain and body. You can’t live without sleep. I would have liked more sleep but I’ll live.

Rest, on the other hand, refreshes our souls, something deep inside yet not physically inside. You can be alive without rest but you’ll be dead to really living. To seeing and receiving soul-restoring peace.

Rest is being awake at 6 a.m. (not my normal), seeing a clear sky, and deciding to go take sunrise photos. In 23-degree F temperatures. (Really not my normal!)

Rest is recognizing that I’m in a shoulder sling and can’t tie my own boots. It’s asking for help and waiting calmly as my 12-year-old figures out how to tie someone else’s shoes…boots.

Rest is wandering. And then it means STOPPING and taking in each scene as it unfolds during my wandering:

The old fish house still lit with a little string of lights along it’s overhang, inviting me to come and see what is emerging from the dark night.

The cold firepit patiently waiting for the new day’s spark.

The Adirondack chairs on the fish house deck, arms open for someone to pause and watch the waves from them.

The small path through the snow whose purpose isn’t in where it ends but in the changing views every step along it.

The one lone east-facing chair overlooking the shore of Lake Superior, the largest lake on earth, larger than some seas. The chair where my boots stopped and I rested as the sun cleared the horizon one more gloriously golden morning.

Last summer, I completed part of a Bible study, the last page of which was almost empty of text. A blank letter-size piece of paper where I was instructed to write a letter to myself from God based on what I had just studied. I paused…then wrote,

Dear Carrie,
Rest.
God

That was it. There was a lot of blank space still on that page but that was all God wanted to say.

Last week, I sent God a postcard from vacation. It read,

Dear God,
Thank You for the rest.
Carrie

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Matthew 11:28‭-‬29