Fatigue and Wellness

For those of you who were around for my anemia issue, you'll remember that my very first directive was rest.  Rest, rest, and more rest.  Don't do anything that makes you tired.  I even got a free pass from doing dishes from my hematologist (but since I'm mostly sure my doc was kidding, I didn't cash it in.)

Giving your body a break is a necessary part of working out.  Soreness is a result (as best I understand it) of us making little tears in our muscles, those tears are necessary to build strength but so is the rest that allows them to rebuild - stronger than ever before.

Our bodies don't just require rest from workouts though, taking a break from your occupation to recoup is necessary too.  Whether your job is full of mental stress (My Darling Love aka the Mutant) or is physically taxing (like my dad), we need to take a break.

After all, the ten commandments weren't just a result of a demanding God who requires us to follow His orders because He says so.  He loves us and His directives are to keep us from harm.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it. Genesis 20:8-11 (RSV)

So too we need to take a break from the constant pinging we receive from the Land of Shiny things.  This week for our @stickyJesus read along, we're discussing file 08 - Warning: Danger Zones
While several portions of the chapter really jumped out at me, the one most convicting was "go digitally dark".  Now before you get scared that I'm going to pull the plug on my blog (yall would cry wouldn't you?  no?  well...um...cough...um...I'm sure someone would miss me.) that's not what this section is talking about.

The book's authors Tami Heim and Toni Birdsong are just suggestion that, like our sabbath day of rest from work and chores, we also take a day of rest from logging on.  Take a little extra time to nurture our "real life" relationships, but mostly just devote the day to worshiping our Lord and listen for His voice.

I've decided to take them up on their challenge.  Starting this week, no logging on Sundays.  If I do a workout (which I'm kicking back and forth the idea in my head of making Sunday a day of rest from that too), I'll just log it on Monday morning.

Okay now that I type it out, I'm remembering the Shrinking Jeans Olympics.  If I participate in the 10K I have to have my time submitted by midnight Sunday night.  Is it cheating to ask Jay to log it for me? Or maybe that needs to go too. 

Please don't misunderstand this for legalism.  That's something I struggle with.  I'd be the world's best Pharisee, I really would, but that's not God wants for me (or you for that matter).  I just want to open myself up to hear from Him.  I want to build up my spiritual armour.

In case you missed it, this life is hard.  There are those "danger zones" on every corner - be it cyber or otherwise.

I've been very convicted by a couple books here lately.  One I mentioned on Tuesday -
From Blushing Bride to Wedded Wife.  The other is my "February" project - The Love Dare. 

Day one the Dare says "The first part of this dare is fairly simple...For the next day resolve to...say nothing negative to your spouse at all." (pg 4)  Do you know how hard that is for me?  I'm young and in love with my husband and yet I can't go one day without something negative to him?  I actually had to start this challenge yesterday, instead of on the 1st as I'd originally planned because I had already messed up by the time I read the challenge.

Likewise Marla's Blushing Bride challenges wives who make jokes at the expense of their husbands.  *Gulp*

If you've followed me on twitter at all, I'm sure you've seen me post something not-so-lovely about my husband.  Would my cyber friends know what a good marriage we have just by what I've posted?  I think that's one of the "danger zones" of outlets like Twitter.  Its easy to tweet 140 characters of griping about my husband, but how often do I boast about what a great provider he is?

I've said it every week of this read along and it applies this week as well - these principles aren't just limited to cyber interaction.  I need to be in constant prayer taking every thought captive.

My prayer is that you do the same and we can encourage one another along the way.

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