Superwoman!

Sometimes in life we have to admit we are not superheroes.
We cannot do everything for everyone every time.
We cannot be and do and help and organize and accomplish just how we want to.
Like it or not, we are not superhuman and we cannot ignore the fact that we need rest.

It is hard for me to sit in a recliner every day with my leg propped up on pillows. I try to get some work done on my laptop and I aimlessly flip through channels and look at my phone. This resting thing is hard, and I am not well acquainted with it. I wish I could snap my fingers and all of a sudden the recovery time would magically be over and I could start vacuuming my house, but it just doesn't work that way. My body desperately needs this time of stillness and quiet to fully recover from the trauma of surgery. I can't rush the process or I risk not healing properly. I could easily wind up causing more damage than there ever was before by ignoring my body's needs.

Ever been there before? Perhaps it wasn't a surgery or even a physical ailment, but something happened to cause you pain and you knew deep down that you needed to rest. You needed to heal. But instead, you kept charging forward, unwilling to grant yourself even the smallest ounce of time to process the issue and heal from it.

Or, perhaps nothing happened at all and you just work. You work and you work and you work. There are always appointments on your calendar and tasks that need to be accomplished. As soon as one thing is checked off, another gets added.

I have had the experience of fitting into all three of these categories at one point or another, and for some reason my hard-headed self still hasn't learned the lesson: sometimes I just need to rest. I am not superwoman, no matter how much I may act like it.

So here's a thought for today, as we start our work-weeks across America (and as I head back to work for my first day). God created a day for rest, and He knew that we would need it. He knew that we were more than a machine and He understood the importance of taking a day to unwind and to rest. But do we ever take His advice? Do we ever take a day to sit down and rest? Or do we busy our calendars from Monday through Sunday every week? Because I can assure you, if we over-work our bodies day after day, it will eventually catch up to us...whether it comes in the form of a panic attack or an illness or an injury or whatever. We need to take good care of ourselves, and that includes scheduling some time on our calendars to take a break.

“By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work.”  ~Genesis 2:2

PS: Again, thank you to everyone who has been praying and thinking about me over the past week. The nurse said at my follow-up on Friday that my knee seems to be doing very well, and I am set to begin physical therapy this Wednesday. Praise God!