Rest? Really?

The work can wait.

I don’t know why I think on a traveling day I’m going to get a lot accomplished.

I seem to do it every time.

I make plans for everything I’m going to get done once I arrive.

Then I sit down.

And almost immediately, my eyes start closing, begging for a nap.

Yes, I give in.

Yesterday was no different.

After traveling and going to my doctor’s appointment, I finally made it home.

I sat down.

That was pretty much it.

My body had other plans.

Eventually, I woke up and accomplished my writing goals.

Getting much else done was a losing battle.

At first, it’s easy to look at everything I planned to do and think I should have accomplished more.

But I’m beginning to realize the problem isn’t the nap.

It’s the plan.

I keep planning traveling days as though the traveling itself doesn’t count.

But it does. It takes time. It takes energy. And apparently, it requires some recovery time too.

There’s something else I’m learning to accept.

I’m getting older.

That’s not a bad thing.

But I probably shouldn’t expect my soon-to-be-65-year-old body to keep up with the body I had at 20.

Even if my mind sometimes thinks it should.

And there’s another part I hadn’t considered.

When I get here, I finally have a period of time when I can genuinely relax.

I can let go.

Maybe my body recognizes that opportunity before I do.

If I hadn’t sat down yesterday, I probably could have kept going.

For a while.

But eventually, the tiredness would have caught up with me.

And trying to accomplish something that requires attention to detail when I’m tired probably isn’t the wisest choice anyway.

Rest wasn’t keeping me from getting things done.

It was something I needed.

Ecclesiastes tells us,

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1

Most of us know the familiar words that follow.

A time for this. A time for that.

I’ve known those verses for years.

Maybe the harder part is recognizing when that time is now.

Yesterday, my mind was still looking at everything I wanted to accomplish.

My body was telling me it was time to rest.

Maybe wisdom is recognizing which time we’re in.

I’m learning that on traveling days, I need to plan differently.

Allow time to recuperate.

Plan for what is necessary instead of pushing myself to do everything else.

If the important things get done, great.

Anything else is a bonus.

Maybe that’s a lesson that goes beyond traveling days.

Sometimes the problem isn’t that we didn’t accomplish enough.

We expected too much from the time we were given.

🌿 One Dreams Writing — Finding God’s presence in everyday moments.