A Pallet Awaits You

It seems like right around the four year old-five year old stage, our kiddos have struggled intensely with nightmares. Dobson explains in one of his many books, the brain is rapidly growing at this stage in a little person's life therefore, causing increased nightmares. Anderson has been having a lot of sleep overs in our room. Mark and I do not share our bed. We are just that selfish. We were hardly willing to share our one bed with each other :)! We are happy to share our floor space with whomever. Anderson's presence has become such an expected event at night, instead of being awakened and having to actually get up, (lame)  I just set up a little pallet for him next to my side of the bed before he even arrives. Now he doesn't even wake us up, he just comes in (sometimes with every blanket, stuffed animal and any other article off of his bed) and plops down on the pallet for some rest.

One of my all time favorite Old Testament passages is 1 Kings 19; Elijah has recently been the conduit in which God Almighty has put to shame the priests of Baal. Soon after, Elijah finds himself in a panic and fearfully running from Jezebel (never a bad idea to run from the Jezebels in your life, men! :) Elijah is exhausted, he sits under a juniper tree and begs the Lord to put him out of his misery, "It is enough, take my life!" I love what God does here, it is the perfect picture of a Father dealing with an irrational, exhausted, sleep deprived, child. He lays this grown man down for a nap, and sends an angel to stand guard over Elijah while he sleeps. The angel wakes him, feeds him, offers him sweet drink, and then puts him back down for a nap. God goes before his precious son and lays out before him a pallet. He gives Elijah rest for his body, soul, and mind.

Rest. Often a misnomer in the Christian life. Somehow we have elevated the idea that busy Christians, doing Christian busyness, is God's business.  For a season, we attended church Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon for choir practice, Sunday night, Wednesday night, every other Tuesday night for a committee meeting, and I attended a weekly Tuesday morning bible study. For real. We were busy. It was exhausting. We wanted to seek out our own juniper tree and be put out of our misery.

God, in His great mercy, removed us from that busyness, and set us down in a church where we could only absorb the service and fellowship of others for an entire year. Talk about a restful time in our lives. We went to church with no responsibility, only to just be. Of course, for Mark and I, we get restless when we go long periods of time without exercising our gifts. So when our year of reprieve ended, we were thrilled to jump in and serve however we could. At the time, we sat under a session that fought against "busyness". We so appreciated their wisdom! We went to church on Sunday mornings. That's it. It was blissful! :)

I believe in the power of naps. I believe in the power of rest. Real rest. Rest for the body, soul, and mind. Rest is a huge missing ingredient in each of our lives. It's why I love this passage from Psalm 23, "He makes me life down in green pastures!"  I love the authority in that statement. "He MAKES ME!" At some point in all of our lives, God sits us on our butts and says, "REST!" Sometimes, via sickness, job loss, family crisis, or injury. He knows what is good for us, and since we are a stubborn people He goes before us and rolls out a pallet and commands that we LIE DOWN! Often times we have to be so desperate and exhausted that we collapse under our own individual juniper trees. He awaits you there. He will meet you under your juniper tree and satisfy every longing you have. He will give you rest, food for your soul, and living water that will wash over the calloused and broken places, and He alone will restore you.

He is so good.
Always good.

Now go find a pallet, or maybe, offer someone else in your life a pallet!!

Happy napping!
~Sara