I posed a question on the Facebook today.

“What is the most restful thing you’ve ever done?”

I got lots of varying responses, some I related to, some I didn’t as much. But all the answers supported a previous hypothesis I had:

Rest is a state of being.

Okay, maybe you’re right. That’s not a hypothesis. It’s a definition.

But think about it.

There are some circumstances that are more conducive to rest. Like sitting on a beach. There are others that aren’t as conducive. Like sitting in a parking lot. With a stranger. Right after you got into a car accident. On the way to the interview of a lifetime.

Neither of which have happened to me recently, just to clear any confusion. 🙂

But, it’s quite possible you could be sitting on a beach on vacation and still find it impossible to rest. 

And, conversely, I’m convinced it’s also possible to have an attitude of rest and peace even amid crumbling things.

Restlessness.

There are things, addictions, weaknesses, triggers, we fall into. Get over. Fall back into. Get redeemed from, but that still knock at our doors and throw stones at our windows.

All our lives.

(We can live in amazing freedom, but the existence of freedom doesn’t make all the jails in the world disappear, you know.)

There are those things.

Restlessness
is one of mine.

One.

Restlessness is a socially convenient problem to have.

If you can function without rest, you can become very successful. Famous. Lead a double-life or two, even if it kills you, well, maybe just one of you. You can change the world, wrap it around your finger, get wrapped up in many worlds, control some of them, and in keeping them separate as such, be the ruler of them. It’s great.

I haven’t experienced the extremes of restlessness. (This persisting victory has been no more than a miraculous gift.)

But I hear the stones at night, on the way back, in the corners of the room, in a crowd as I finish laughing at some joke.

I asked this question on Facebook mainly for myself. I was coveting rest today, trying to remember what it looked like, where it went. But I knew I was almost doomed to be that restless girl on the beach with all her devices and headphones and voicemails. I asked God to help me get through the day, and then, to rest. Well, He answered. (He’s real, you know, not just a nice-sounding anthropomorphism of coincidence. He’s a person.)

My church has this thing where they try to help every person find their place in God’s plan. This involved how we’re uniquely designed in our personalities and passions and stuff, so I’ve been looking into that.

I’m good at a lot of things. My friend Ryan says this is dangerous in a church that wants to get, um, stuff done around here. Dangerous, whether you’re restless or even if you’re idle.

So I’m trying to find my sweet spot, and of course,
coordinate it with what the church needs
and what God is up to,
though ideally not in that order.

A guy at my life group says we shouldn’t just do what people want from us, but do what God wants from us. I can’t always figure out the difference, especially since God often speaks through people I look up to who are doing what God wants from them, who also happen to be looking for people to invite into great things. Am I one?

(Just)
one?

I’m also trying to find a job so I can buy my own groceries sometime.

So what is my “thing?” I don’t think it’s just one. I like having task-oriented things sometimes, people-oriented things other times. I like huge projects sometimes, like websites, small projects other times, like a kids’ hot chocolate with whipped cream and mocha drizzle.

But there’s one thing I’ve enjoyed all my life. One of a few.

It’s what I’m doing right now.

Listening to music. Writing. Staying up past the time when people request appointments and dates and other affairs with you.

In college, its the time you’re on the kitchen floor with a cup of a homemade chai and a friend. That’s when you feel most like yourself. Unaccompanied. At least, that’s when I am me. It’s the same feeling I get at night when the virtual guests leave the Facebook and there’s Jesus, sitting cross-legged across my bed with me and we talk about our day and what it means, His world and His people to whom He gave names, and what they mean.

If I got paid to do this kitchen floor thing, though, I don’t know if it would be the same. But who knows.

All I know is, I need this. Even if people don’t.

Rest.

My friend Ryan says people try too hard sometimes to fit some mold, whether it’s with emotional pictures and crappy music and dogs, or suspenders and venti-sized beards.

I agree. Please be you. You were given an identity, remember? Take that one. You’re not who people label you in their minds and gossip circles and first impressions and lists of Starbucks experiences.

You are more. You can be one. You can be
whole. (Holy.)

Holy. This is the label you were given. Write that on your sticker and stick it. (Sticks and stones.)

Commissioner Gordon says Batman is the hero Gotham needs.

I don’t want to be that hero. I’m not.

I’m not just who you need me to be.
Hi, I’m
Meg.

My friend Ryan says the world will see God the day when people are simply themselves, themselves who know God closely.

Though he wouldn’t say it in those words. I wrote those. Ryan speaks in graphics and websites and other things from his heart.

We can’t always do what we love. We were never told we were gonna be happy all the time. We weren’t promised we would only be effective when we were restless and on the verge of burnout all the time if we can just be double-minded long enough to forget who we are. That was not the promise of my God.

But He did promise resurrection.

Not the bad to be goody-good.
Not the poor to be richie-rich.

He promised the dead would come to life.

It started with Him. Now, it’s our turn. We get to lose the one mind and gain the other. Single-minded. Free. Playing the music over the stones that throw themselves at you.

Because that’s not you, ma’am. I throw not a stone,
and I’ve the only right to hold it, after all.

That’s not you.
You live in me now.

Your life may not be one thing. But just one,
one part of it
shall be rest.

And so,
I’ll write.

Goodnight.