Rhythm of rest

What exactly is the rhythm of rest? I'm trying to figure that out- especially coming from a month of break-neck summer pace with directing camp, leading a conference, then Vacation Bible School. I'm not sure if I've achieved rest yet, but I'm getting closer. I know I'm getting closer because the permanent knot in my guts is starting to unwind a bit, I'm smiling more, I'm nicer to my husband. I hadn't had a true day off at all in June until Friday. Sometimes the pace of life is so busy you forget how to rest. But I'm remembering- little by little. Tomorrow I predict will be the first day that I will really feel like I am on sabbatical. Because I will not set the alarm for six am before I go to bed tonight, I will not wake up sleepy but full of church excitement tomorrow. Instead I will get up around "normal" time for me and my husband will probably already be getting ready to go to church and do his deacon duties. I will be getting ready to be a visitor, a worshipper, a person who sits in the pew- how strange...

The rhythm of rest is the rhythm of noticing God. If that is true then I am seeing glimpses of rest and God all over the place. I see God in meals shared with friends, in laughter at a silly movie with my husband, in a baby shower for a friend who once considered herself to be infertile (talk about a miracle- way to go God!), in the kindness of my in-laws, and in plans for my own future. God is present all over the place, all the time. If we let our lives zoom by us and fill every second we forget how to look- how to really notice God in the ordinary and mundane. I reclaim noticing throughout this sabbatical. I vow to notice God, and friends, and family, and myself.

And maybe after a few more days I will notice that I am comfortable in the rhythm of rest...