A Lot Of R&R

It's deep thoughts on the blog this week and here are some more. A few weeks ago, my blog friend, Bekah, posted this about rest. Do yourself a favour and go and read the post. I'll wait...

...me waiting...

I read that post and it bugged me a bit, mostly because I could write the exact thing about Dave that Bekah wrote about Ryan. Dave works really hard at his job and then he comes home and he is the best dad ever. He plays with the kids, he sometimes finishes cooking supper, he often puts both kids to bed, he almost always bathes both the kids, and he generally gives me a break from my job of being a stay-at-home mom. Did you all catch that? He comes home from his full-time job and does mine.

Then after the kids are in bed, he often tidies the house, will do dishes (if I haven't done them during the day), will sometimes clean a room (or two), and spends time with me. He rarely has time to do what he wants to do. The kids miss him all day and demand a lot of his attention when he's around.

So Bekah's post on rest bugged me because I recognized that Dave gets a lot less true rest than I do. I am inherently social and so I make time to be with my friends. I go insane if I don't read every day so I always make time for that. And Dave and I are partners in this whole parenting gig so I back off so that he can fully engage with them. I get rest during those times.

So a few weekends ago, I announced to Dave that we weren't going to church and we were going to have a completely unproductive and restful day. We weren't going to accomplish anything. We would make sure the kids were fed and safe but other than that we were going to do what we wanted to do. It would be glorious.

 Dave "relaxed" by doing some weeding.

Actually, I think Dave found it really difficult and I read almost an entire book. It is hard to do nothing, or to do just what you want to do, when you are used to being productive. When  you are used to having to be productive. It's extremely hard to do it for an entire day. But here's the thing, it is so important to do.

At the end of our day, we were so relaxed. We didn't feel frazzled heading into our week. We had had time to stop and, if our roses had been blooming, you can bet that they would have been smelled :)

I love our times of getting things done. Of experiencing fun events as a family. Of hanging out with friends. Of working together in our yard. But one of my goals for this summer is that we, as a family, get to experience more times of "true rest." Of doing nothing. Of being refreshed. It will be hard. But it will be oh, so worth it.