Tired | itsawonderfilledlife

Posts Tagged ‘Tired’

Empty vs. Overflowing

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged #2corinthians4, #emptycup, #emptyvsoverflowing, #fillmycup, #needingabreak, #pslam23, Exhausted, Tired on August 20, 2014| 2 Comments »

Life can leave your cup depleted. Responsibilities can leave your cup exhausted. People can leave your cup empty. Even church can leave your cup barren. Life has seasons that drain … well, the life right out of you.

One day, as I was having an empty cup day, I wondered what it was that would fill me up again.

People were not the answer … to be honest just about everyone in reach was standing on my last nerve. It was feeling like everyone wanted a piece of me … they wanted my ear, my thoughts, my time. I was tired of voices, demands, whining and more demands. The sounds of the voices around me were similar to the auditory effects of fingernails on a chalkboard.

Everyone was taking, everyone was wanting their cups filled by me, and there were no offers of giving … of refilling my cup.

Usually, when I need my cup filled, and people aren’t offering to fill it, I go for a walk. Communing with creation can outdo any psychiatrist’s sofa, or bartender’s stool. But, my cup was void of available time to enjoy the rejuvenating effects of a walk on my favorite trail.

It seemed as though there was nothing and no one that was available and desiring to fill my cup. The emptier it got, the emptier I felt. The emptier I felt, the more firmly in place were my self pity pants. I was wallowing. Really though, it was valid wallowing … I was begging for a refill, and no one was willing to take the time to throw me a line! I was drowning in despair …

Then, the still small voice said, “you are choosing to drown in your own despair.”

When I ‘hear’ (not audibly, but in my heart, in my soul) something like this I head to Google, because I know there is a ‘rest of the story’ to be found. I know that voice is a voice of reason, and I know (without a doubt) that it is God’s voice, calling out to remind me of what I already know … and have forgotten. So, I Googled (I love how that word is both a noun and a verb … I am learning grammar, through working in a grade 9 English class 🙂 ), and there it was, in 2 Corinthians 4:

“Therefore … we do not lose heart … we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us … We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. Therefore we do not lose heart … Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

Some days I cannot wait to rid myself of this existence as a clay jar … I want my unseen, eternal body, I want my unseen, eternal life that awaits me in heaven. Where my cup is always full, because it is only my God who can fill it. But He fills it for me here, today too … my clay covered ears and eyes and mind just do not always acknowledge or remember that.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

Psalm 23:5-6

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Thankful For A Sabbath Rest

Posted in GOD, life, WONDER, tagged Genesis 2:2-3, Isaiah 40:28, Matthew 11:28-30, Rest, sabbath, Sabbath Rest, Sunday, Tired, to cease, to complete, yoke on October 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Rest …

“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing;
so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy,
because on it he rested from all the work of creating.”
Genesis 2:2-3

What is rest? And, specifically, what is Sabbath rest? Did God choose a day of rest because he was tired from creating the world? Is a Sabbath rest still a part of the New Covenant?

When God had finished creating the world, and all in it, He set aside a day in which “he rested.” Why did He rest? Was God fatigued?

Isaiah (40:28) would indicate that is not so; “the Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth Does not become weary or tired.”

So if God was not tired, rest, in this passage has a different meaning that we might first think. The Hebrew word used actually means to cease, to stop doing, to complete. This makes far more sense! Creator God had just finished the creation of the world and all in, under and on it. The world, as we know it, was completed, God had no more to add to it, it was done, and he ceased, rested.

After a month of school each weekday, laundry and taxi-driving kids each Saturday, church and football each Sunday, today is a day of rest for me. There is nothing that I have to do, there is no place that I have to go. It is a day of no expectations! It is a day full of possibilities! I could take my beast for a walk on the trail. I could sit and write a weeks worth of blog posts, I could read from the book that has been feeding my soul lately, I could play a game with the kids, I could make cookies, I could, I could, I could.

I struggle with understanding Sabbath rest. In the Christian life in which I live, the Sabbath is Sunday, a day to do something different, focus on God, spend time in His word, worship with other believers. But, I have to say, it is often void of rest; my definition (a day of no expectations), or the one above from Genesis (to cease). Since hubby works on the Sabbath, it is a day of many expectations, and because of my high energy in starting projects … and low energy in completing them, there is rarely a ceasing or completing.

In the New Testament (Matthew 11:28-30), Jesus speaks of rest, “come to me all who labor and are burdened and I will find rest for you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am humble and gentle of spirit, you will find peace for your heart. For my yoke is pleasant and light is my burden.”

Although Jesus is not speaking of Sabbath rest directly, I think there could be a hint of it in his promise. He is speaking of the rest that he can provide if we are under the yoke that binds us together. The yoke binds us to him, allowing for us to be connected to him, dependent on his leading (the meaning of rest in this passage).

Maybe, if we allow ourselves to be yoked to Jesus, the rest that we so desire will be available to us … all week long.

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Day Dreaming

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged 1 Chronicles 4, dream, dreamed, dreaming, Dreams, fatigued, Jabez, Life, movie, Prayer of Jabez, Tired on October 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

It was a Friday night, after a long, but good week. I felt drained of energy to the point of not being able to put two words together. When I reach this point, I have learned that the best thing for me is to go to a theater, eat popcorn, and watch a movie to escape for a couple of hours. So, I did.

As I was driving to the theater, a word came to mind that had been coming to my mind all week …

Dream.

I pondered the word, yet again …

dream.

Why was this word popping into my consciousness? What was that one word asking of, and requiring from me?

Dream

Was I simply too tired for a movie, and should be home dreaming in my pj’s between the sheets (that was a no brainer)? Should I be dreaming? What was the dream? How big was it? And what would it cost me?

I have to say that, by nature, I am a dreamer. My earliest memories of childhood were of playing with dolls and dreaming of the day that I would have my own, real babies. I can remember being a student in a classroom, after classroom, grade after grade, who would be staring out the window, daydreaming (one of my earliest memories of my UN-diagnosed ADD). My strongest memories of almost all of our homes is standing at the kitchen sink, staring outside, dreaming.

I am a dreamer.

Well, I settled into my movie theater seat, nibbling on the buttery popcorn (temporarily ignoring myfitnesspal), and that word continued to haunt me …

dream.

Sadly the movie started fifteen minutes late, and I was saddled with that word longer than I’d hoped I would.

Why aren’t you dreaming?

The word was getting personal. Thankfully the movie started, and I was able to escape reality for a couple of hours … or so I thought.

The movie was about fulfilling a dream, dreams really, of a number of people. It was primarily about the fulfilling of dreams that had been gathering dust in the lives of the characters. It was about the life, the real, conscious-living type of life, that chasing after those dreams gives.

I left the theater consumed with thoughts of dreaming. More haunting! And more resistance from my being, because I knew that my dream was too big to ever come true.

I needed music, so to the radio in my van I went for more diversion.

There was a speaker just coming on, a speaker who I loved to hear. He always made me think, made me laugh … a great combination!

As his program started, a word, a name came to mind … Jabez, and then it was gone, and I settled into my drive home, ready to be awakened from dreaming, and into reality by the teaching of the program just to begin.

“Lord I pray that you will expand the tent pegs of my life, intensify the use of my life.”

Oh no! I knew of those words! Words that have been used in discussing the prayer of Jabez (see more from yesterday’s post) from 1 Chronicles 4:10:

“Jabez cried out to the God of Israel,
“Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory!
Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm
so that I will be free from pain.”
And God granted his request.”

More dreaming …

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