Rhythms of Rest

Rest -- freedom from activity or labor, a brief pause, peace of mind or spirit, free of anxieties.

Two weeks ago my family set out to rest. Over the past few summers vacation came to us in the form of big trips to exciting destinations. Because of schedules in the shortness of our two month summer, no one had the same weekend open for us to get away. To be honest, I cried about it. My soul so desperately wanted to escape with my family to recharge and refill. 

After deliberating several options, Chad and I had the bright idea to staycation in Tucson. We agreed to completely clear our schedules and engage with our family and our city for two whole weeks. The biggest kicker for me was that we also agreed not to talk about work at all. For the two of us to not talk about what we do through and in Second Mile would be a challenge. My fear was we wouldn't have much to talk about. Sad, but true.

Do you know what? The first two days of being at home with "nothing" to do irritated me like a mosquito bite. I was pouty that I wasn't on the beach. All of the things that I left on my to-do list scrolled through my mind. Fear the kids would think our staycation was lame infested my heart. It took intentional prayer and surrender to allow God to sift through my soul to prepare my heart for the great two weeks He had planned for the Haynes family.

Matthew 11:28-30 The Message

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burnt out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and rightly."

The beauty of this passage comes in our day to day life. It isn't a passage meant to be used as an excuse for vacation, but in the times of setting regular life aside we can be reminded that this is how he desires for us to live everyday, to learn and enjoy "the unforced rhythms of grace."

We forced nothing during our staycation, but we intentionally sought out several things.

• We played games including cards (Shanghai) and Ticket to Ride.
• We ate donuts from a 1935 Tucson landmark.
• We finally went to San Xavier Mission which was a long overdue expedition.
• We enjoyed the sunset at Kyle's track meet.
• We went to Mt. Lemmon and split two ginormous cookies from that little cookie house we've passed for ten years, but never made a point to stop. 
• We went to Guadalajara Grill mainly for the table side made salsa. That stuff is delicious. 
• We made some pretty fine meals ourselves, many of our family favorites. 
• We celebrated Father's Day with scones, Miss Saigon, and Ross. 
• We never set an alarm and slept in every day.
• We laughed so much, mostly at my expense because moms are pretty easy to make fun of. 

Personally, 

• I baked cobbler and scones. 
• I met my goal of getting in our pool every single day. 
• I read at least ten Psalms everyday and deeply inhaled God's steadfast, unfailing love. 
• I finished one of my books about prayer which means I was awake in the middle of many nights praying which was pretty fantastic. (I said I wouldn't talk to Chad about work. I had to get out all my crazy thoughts to Someone! Who better to talk to and listen to than Jesus?)

And you, my friends? You were wonderful. This staycation would never have worked if you hadn't respected my family's need for rest. My phone was eerily silent. A few times I wondered if we were missed because my quiet phone made me insecure because any normal given day it goes off 877 times. Your love for us demonstrated in your ability to encourage a time of rest bolsters our desire to serve and love you. Thank you for perpetuating the circle of loving one another. 

One more thing, this staycation came at the best season in the life of our family. I'm praying my kids learned that you don't have to spend money, be extravagant, go some place new to find rest, to enjoy the people you love, to recharge and refill. This season was right. Let me say that if we would have tried this when my kids were little I would have lost my ever lovin' mind! It would have felt like normal, trapped life with piles of laundry and messes and the millionth game of Candyland and another episode of Dora and bath time and waking up at 6:00am. Getting away was necessary when my kids were young, and we did! We went places that the whole family enjoyed. But now, in my opinion, the sweet season of witty, charming, self-caring teenagers was the perfect time for a staycation. Those of you that currently deal day in and day out with sweet tiny cuties that depend on you for everything don't try a staycation just yet, but keep this in a file in your mind for the future. Be intentional now, so that family, relational intentionality grows deeper and deeper through the years. You won't be sorry. 

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What are your favorite ways to rest? Are you going on vacation this summer? What is your favorite part of vacation? How does your time of rest include soaking in more of Jesus? 

Grace in Progress

Pain is the stuff of learning. It either beckons you to your bed to hide, pushes you to the middle of the ring to fight, or forces you to your knees to surrender. It's easy for me to write all about the beauty and wonder of 2013, but when I look back I also see circumstances that caused me to hide or to fight and eventually, to surrender.

To read wistfully chipper blog posts, look at artfully crafted photos on Instagram, and see perfectly crafted confabulation in friends Facebook feeds often leads me down the ugly road of comparison. Many years ago a friend shared a story of well-respected women who became embittered toward each other because of comparison that led to competition. Ultimately, God brought sweet redemption through grace in teaching them to run their own race, to keep their gaze fixed on Him alone, to encourage one another in the race He had set before them.

If you've been around me at all, you will know this has become a life motto for me.

"RUN YOUR OWN RACE" percolates it's way through so many of my conversations, or teaching times, or admonishments to the women I'm allowed to lead. I say it to myself as a mantra whenever the green-eyed ugly sin monster of envy creeps its way into my heart.

Do you not know that in a race only one runner gets a prize? Run in such way as to get the prize.  1 Corinthians 9:23 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1 

My last blog post was full of loveliness, wasn't it? So full of beauty, healing, and peace. Each story is true and full of hope and light and love. I'm thankful beyond thankful for each experience. The lump in my throat as I ponder each moment testifies to gratefulness that overwhelms me.

I summed it up to say the year left me feeling "more grounded, self-aware, reliant on Jesus." Because it was tied to the end of all that peaceful beauty, the implication was those sweet stories took me to that point.

Yes, they definitely had a hand in my feelings of peace and contentedness.

Yes, they definitely leave me in awe of God's continued grace to me through joyful circumstances.

Yes, they definitely speak to only half the story of what God has used in my life that sometimes makes me want to hide, fight, and hopefully, eventually, surrender.

Friends, His grace to me over this last year was also demonstrated through pain and heartache. So many of the lessons are still fresh and raw.

Through 2013 God gave me opportunity after opportunity to be more grounded in who He has made me to be, to stop trying to meet all the needs all the time, to know that He is a God who delights in kindness, justice, and righteousness on the earth. A forced sabbatical left me alone most days until September. To be alone with my thoughts, sin, and grief was terrifying much of the time. To see people around me still struggling and not be allowed to help caused me to question my identity like never before. To see people heal and grow without me caused me to question my value like never before. Through tears, prayer, and trust in His refining through fire, I grew to know that my grounding is in the Rock that is higher than I. 

My soul finds rest in God alone. My salvation comes from Him. He alone is my Rock and my Salvation. He is my Fortress. I will never be shaken. Psalm 62:1-2 

Again, through God's grace, self-awareness came by way of truly seeing how much pain my sin causes the Spirit and my people. Oh, but grace. My heart swells to know that as I become more aware of the ugliness of my heart, it can never outpace the depths of His grace. I'm more aware than ever that apart from Him I have no good thing.

Last year I humiliated myself with extreme emotional reactions. I said hurtful, cutting words to people I love and that love me. I yelled at my kids too many times. I scoffed at the pain of others. I ignored the Spirit's beckons for time in His word. I hid lazily to avoid dealing with life and loneliness. But in the depths of His great love, through seeing all the muck of my heart I became more and more and more aware of grace, that I cannot run full steam ahead to gain his favor, that I cannot earn his love through working harder, that I cannot work hard on behalf of those I love, trying to convince them to run harder, faster, longer in order to know more of God's grace to them.

One of my favorite worships songs says this: "What else can I do but worship? What else can I do but bow? Because all I really long for is you, all I really need, Lord, is you." Yes. Self awareness that leads to much, much God-awareness.

My need for reliance on Jesus came in the form of having too much time alone and then was lit like a fire in the form of jumping with both feet right back into the lions den of relationships . True, ugly confession: In my younger years of ministry I unknowingly believed that I had something to do with people's heart change. It wasn't that I wanted credit for what God was doing in their life, I just believed that if I said no, or didn't speak up, or didn't meet "just one more time" I would fail the person, or worse, fail God.

The gospel I preached was faith through grace. The gospel I lived was work, work, work, plea, plea, plea, carry, carry, carry, and then hopefully, if God is pleased, faith and change happened.

I'm exhausted even just typing out that strategy.

After sabbatical the painful reality of the depths of pain people endure hit me right square in the face. My eyes were black for a couple of months if you didn't notice. As I sat and cried with people, or worked to point people to Jesus, or begged God in prayer on their behalf to change it all, I began to feel the load of work, work, work, plea, plea, plea, carry, carry, carry. The gifts, groundedness and self-awareness, shined the light on the lie of my old strategy. Reliance on Jesus rose to the surface as my greatest need. His grace brought me through many dangers, toils, and snares, not my own work. I'm continually facing the choice of relying on my own work ethic, or my own ideas of right and wrong, or my own desire to see change in the world around me OR relying on the fact that His grace will lead me, hold me, sustain me. The more I believe this for myself, the more I believe this great treasure for those around me.

Asking about my top moments of 2013 brings a smile to my face and a tranquil sigh from my lips. Pure beauty. Asking about my most painful moments of 2013 brings a deeper, thoughtful look to my face and a deeper, longer sigh from my soul. So many of these moments aren't moments at all. They are on-going, still fleshing themselves out, still a grace in progress.

If there was any part of my last blog post that caused your heart to wonder about the pain you may be experiencing in your own life, please know it was a only a window into my life and home. Pain is the stuff of learning. The value of my pain is neither greater nor lesser than others. It is simply my own race, the one God has mapped out for me. And through His great grace I want to run it with perseverance, groundedness, self-awareness, and complete reliance on Jesus.


How are you learning to rely on Jesus? If you don't rely on Him, on what or whom do you rely? What is one thing you've learned about yourself and/or God over the last year? Share your thoughts if you'd like.

Marriage and Grace

Seventeen years.

I've been married to my best friend on a crazy adventure for 17 years.

During our first year of marriage I taught seventh grade language arts and social studies while he finished school.

Second and third year we spent overseas studying a new language and developing friendships with locals.

Fourth year we were back in our home town of Las Cruces, NM to work with youth at the church we so loved.

Fifth through eighth God allowed us to lead a college ministry in Emporia, KS where we met some of our life long friends.

Ninth year we hung out in Lincoln, NE because we were running from God because starting a church seemed terrifying. Thankfully, even in our running, God brought good friendship into our lives and reunited us with highly influential people from our past.

Then we moved to Tucson, and here we remain, prayerfully, to live out our days working for His glory in this city and sending out people to wherever He asks them to go.

Through all the adventure of moving to experience the training God had for us in different types of ministry our marriage has remained strong. Don't get me wrong. We aren't perfect. In fact, both of us are selfish sinners and can be quite obnoxious. But our heart's desire through the last 17 years has been to love, cherish, communicate, defend, lift up, and depend on one another. We intentionally work on our relationship through deep conversation on how to communicate more clearly, we read books about marriage together, we laugh a lot, we listen, we strive to fight fairly. We love each other deeply. We work on our relationship. It is worth it because the work often doesn't seem like work.

Seventeen years. It has flown by. I'm looking forward to many more years with this man. He's a good one.

P.S. Braggy posts about how great life is has come to paralyze me in blogging. I have no desire whatsoever to set my life up as one the that is superior to anyone else's. ONLY by God's grace is my marriage thriving. ONLY by God's grace have I learned some things about parenting. ONLY by God's grace do I lead a women's ministry. But do you know when I am more aware of God's grace? When I fail in selfishness as a wife by being too lazy to meet my husband's needs. When I yell at my kids and have to ask for forgiveness. When I overlook a woman's needs because I'm afraid of what may be required of me to minister to her. Let me be clear, friends. My life is not perfect. I so desire to live out the truths of scripture through the power of the Holy Spirit by Jesus working in my life. I want to throw off everything that hinders and run with perseverance. But lots and lots of times I don't. I am a wounded soul that weeps at the base of the cross because I need him and know His grace enables me to do anything that I do. His grace alone. His grace alone. I'm thankful for my 17 year marriage that His great, free, redeeming, glorious grace has allowed me to experience.  

More thoughts on this to come....  

Linking up with Jami

Grace and Celebration

Leslie at Top of the Page invited me to guest post for her series Grace on Thursday. It was my pleasure to get to write about God's grace leading to obedience. I also used some great photos in the post taken by a great photographer. Please go check it out! 

Also, if you participate in Moxie Memorizers and live in Tucson (or want to come visit), we are finally going to have our scripture memory celebration! This is incredibly short notice, but the calendar is so packed that we are just going to have to schedule it and go for it! 

THIS Sunday night the 12th right after the gathering we will enjoy pizza and salad together. Pizza will be provided. Will a few of you bring a salad to share? 

We will spend time sharing what memory verses were especially meaningful, discuss strategies for success in 2012, and celebrate the discipline of taking scripture into our lives. Please bring your memory packet or whatever you use to keep track of your verses. 

If you joined in the fun of memorizing scripture in 2011, please join us. If you are committed to taking scripture into your life in 2012, then I would also like to invite you to join us (men included.) This will encourage your heart and strengthen your resolve in this journey. 

You have to eat after the gathering anyway, so don't skip out. We've waited a long time for this celebration! I hope you will join us! Please RSVP here if you can make it.