Restlessness

I love being outside.  I love exploring and running.  But I love my husband more, so when he is in studying, I want to be too.  But when he is in class, one would assume that I'm loving my new island paradise in Grenada, but I have found myself quite restless.  I'm learning I'm very choosy about my outdoorsy-ness. When I want to wander and think I have the ideal picturesque New England wood trails in my mind, and if I can't get that, then I feel trapped.  If you were to wander and talk to yourself and pray out loud on the beach, people would think you are crazy!  With that said, my new quaint apartment is giving me a little bit of cabin fever, and as I was telling my mother-in-law before, you can only sweep a 200 square foot apartment so many times!  


But I was praying yesterday, and I was frustrated at myself for feeling this way in such a wonderful situation.  I have an amazing husband who loves me, and I live in a beautiful place in the world.  Yet, my mind can get to dark lonely places. I remembered the verse from 2 Corinthians when Paul tells us to "take every thought captive".  So I prayed this verse over myself, and told God that I have time to offer him, and pretty much that's all I have, so my challenge to myself was to pray to God in everything.  It is hard to remember! I was laughing to myself today when I was walking into a DVD store praying, "God help me bless those inside and glorify you in this." 


I have been occupying much of my time making decorations for our new place.  I planned on this empty time, and so I brought a plethora of magazines to cut and collage.  While working today, I noticed a bird right outside my window.  The little Grenadian pigeon wasn't doing anything.  She (I would like it to be a she, because it makes this story better) was just sitting on a branch resting and sheltering herself from the heat.  After staring at her in awe for what felt like a long time, I felt God whisper to me, "Rest, Child, and rejoice!"  Immediately a flood of sermons and journal entries came to me:  


Matthew 6: 25-33


²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[e]?
   ²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.




This verse has ministered to me a lot throughout my life.  I wouldn't think it would in a time when I didn't feel stressed, but I feel like now God wants to teach me to be content to rest. "Rest and rejoice." This little bird could have been soaring or searching for food, but she knew that a part of her living was just to rest.  Rest in the glory of the day.  That was a part of what she was meant to do.  Rest in her creator. 


So I will try to set my mind on Christ, and even with little to physically "do", I will rest my mind and soul in Christ knowing that a part of my being was made to glorify my Creator in resting.