breathe

To use an analogy from exercising...: I've been doing this workout called !Insanity, and in the videos, the instructor is always telling us to remember to breathe. We're always taking deep breaths in and deep breaths out during the stretching time as our bodies go through recovery periods. Sometimes throughout the workout though, I'll get so caught up keeping up with the exercises that I forget to breathe, and my body suddenly gets really tired. But, when he reminds us to breathe and I take a moment to finally let out all that stale air and replenish my cells with fresh air, my body gets a boost of energy again. It tastes oh so sweet when that crisp, clean oxygen fills my depleted lungs.

It's like that with life. Over the past.... (I can't even place a date), I've been feeling really busy. I've really come to notice the detrimental effects it has been having on my life these past few weeks when things got busier with the start of work and people graduating and whatnot. My schedule always manages to get filled with something, and I come home late, exhausted, with no time to process anything. It's go go go, do do do, cook cook cook, allllll day long. The conversation I had with a friend last week really set something off in my brain, and I realized more and more that I really lost sight of who I am. I got so caught up doing that I forgot to let out all that stale air and replenish it with some fresh air.

Today, I think I was very close to a mental overload-induced-breakdown. Yesterday, after a week of being sick, a day of stressing over my pastillage cake stand project, hanging out with my relatives who are visiting, celebrating two different birthdays, then watching a movie with my old&current roommates, I fell asleep around 1:30 thinking about the upcoming 7 days and all of its busyness. On my way to meet my cousin&aunt&uncle this morning, I realized that I had a lot to do today, and I was wondering how I could possibly juggle everything that I personally had to take care of along with hanging out w/ them all day. After a loooong day of walking around the city, I told my relatives I couldn't eat dinner with them, and scooted home around 5 to collapse on my bed. It was a weird sensation when I woke up from my nap -- it felt like my brain had died and turned into mush, along with my muscles. Pretty scary....I'm still the process of letting out all that stale air and replenishing it with fresh air. It might take a few days to recover...

Anyway, moral to my story: Breathe. Slow down. I think I have this bad, bad, notion that the value of my life is directly correlated to how much I accomplish every day. But, today, God reminded me that taking the sabbath is a command He gives us-- and for good reason! It's for our own good. The sabbath was created for man, for us to be able to enjoy God. (Mark 2; Psalm 23) It's all interconnected -- the more I am in tune with God, the more I am in tune with myself. Maybe once I realign the rhythm of my life to take my sabbath-time seriously, I can get back on the track to rediscovering myself, along with getting my body&mind back up to 100% health.

(PS - There are a lot of links in this post -- a sermon by Matt Chandler about taking the sabbath, an article that was shared on greader, bible passages.... take a look and a listen! :] )