Author: Shola A.

Bible-lover, storyteller, scanner/multipotentialite, life-loving,...

Name your Reality

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You may be familiar with the word: hangry. It is when you  are angry because you’re hungry.

My first main experience of this word was when I was hangry without even realizing it. My husband and I were walking home and he said to me, “What’s wrong with you? Why are you squeezing your face?” I snapped back “I’m not squeezing my face. Nothing is wrong.” And then I thought about it a some more and I realized I was squeezing my face. I wondered what was wrong. It had been a good day except that I hadn’t eaten anything reasonable all day. Then I said, “Oh I think I’m hangry.” We got home a few minutes later and I had a nice meal and felt much better.

Whether or not we are conscious of it, we go through life feeling and expressing our emotions. In the example above, I needed a moment of reflection to become aware of my hangry feeling.

Sometimes we don’t address our rest needs because we are not aware when we are lacking it. Please take a moment to think. How are you feeling right now about your work and rest? Feel free to construct a new word to name your reality.

Here are some examples of what you may be feeling:

  • Workstrated is being frustrated because of work.
  • Workilty is being guilty because of the work you have done or not done.
  • Workwhelmed is being overwhelmed from work.
  • Restad  is being sad that you have not rest.
  • Repressed is being depressed because of lack of rest.
  • Suffrest is suffering from lack of rest.

These may be fake English words but they are real human emotions. Name your reality so you can decide what you want to do about it.

Balancing life: God, work, life, play, and Rest

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I once heard someone say that people who are truly committed to God will not mind sacrificing their time. I agree with the general importance of sacrificing especially as believers. But I also wonder to what extent our self-sacrifice is destructive and perhaps goes against God’s command and leads us into a life of fatigue and overwork, and ultimately burn out. Here are some passages to think about.

First is the greatest commandment according to Jesus:

Matthew 22: 37-39 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ c 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

In relation to this verse is another,

1John 4: 20-21 “If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21And we have this commandment from Him: Whoever loves God must love his brother as well.“

The way I conceptualize these two passages is thus: I think of a balance, but one that has 3 sides instead: one for God, myself, and others. These sides have to be equal to one another. Loving God more than myself and others is not acceptable because how can I say I love God without loving my sibling? And how can I say I love my sibling without loving myself?

My encouragement to you is this: failing to rest adequately is failing to love yourself and care for yourself. How can you love others like yourself? How can you love God when you can’t love yourself and others?

No cost or low cost ways to Rest

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Rest is not always about spending money on a luxurious item or experience that you can’t afford regularly. In fact, I think the rest that God instructs should be part of our daily and weekly rhythms. If you can’t regularly afford it, then it cannot be your primary source of TROG. Here are some no cost and low cost ways to rest.

  1. Read a book of the Bible you have never read before
  2. Play a Bible game
  3. Spend time with one of God’s creature: an animal, plant, or nature
  4. Go to a children’s playground and watch children have fun. Aren’t children the heritage of the Lord? (Ps 127:3)
  5. Daydream: Here’s a prompt: If you were God and re-create the whole world, what would you do?
  6. Dress up in your Sunday clothes all day at home and design your own worship
  7. Write a letter to God, Jesus, or any other Bible Character.
  8. With friends: do charades but of Bible characters and stories
  9. Check this website and this website for general ideas.

Valentine’s Day is the perfect day to show some extra love to yourself.

10 Days in the UK

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Just for the fun of it, my sister and I joked that the title above reads like the title of a love story.

Here are the descriptions we came up with

She thought she was just going for a visit. But Fate had other plans. When Sandra met Jimmy, it was like déja vu. All her suppressed memories of a life with her own man came rushing back. Will Sandra return home or pursue new dreams?

Katie Williams had everything she dreamed of. A visit to the UK was all she needed to escape from her overbearing mother. Then came along Jake, who proved to be a challenge to her. Will 10 days in UK be the end of Katie? Or just the beginning?

March 10-20 was Shirley’s spring break from school and a break from men who broke her heart. But her visit to the UK turned out to be another school when she met a fling from her past. Will she take up the challenge to learn how to love again?

Kushida is your average businesswoman: strong willed and determined. A 10-day business trip to the UK brought her face to face with the dreaded Logan Smart- CEO of Apex and Sons also known to bring women down. How will Kushida maintain her aura? Will she be able to escape from this entanglement? Find out in this roller coaster ride.

I hope you enjoyed these descriptions. We have no intention to write a novel based on this but if you write a novel based on this, we would love to read.

Relationship between Sleep and Rest part 2

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People often sleep to get rest but Dr Saundra will say that sleep is the product of rest. The more I thought about this, the more I agree with it. Here is some of my experience.

My sleep is greatly impaired on the days I feel stressed. I feel that there is so much to do with little time. I tell myself “if only I spend 1 more hour to finish up something”, and so on. When my mind races this way at bedtime, sleep is difficult and not fully refreshing. Sleep instead feels like a necessary evil. Little wonder that type of sleep doesn’t feel good.

Also when I am so busy that I haven’t paid attention to my emotions, bed time is when those emotions and thoughts come up. As I try to sleep, I remember how I felt when something happened or how I treated someone else.

Focusing so much on work that I forget other areas of my wellbeing means I’m not promoting restfulness. By the time, bedtime comes, my mind attempts to use this opportunity to address all the neglected aspects. This negatively impacts sleep.

As I read somewhere I’ve now forgotten, getting a good night’s sleep begins when the moment you wake up. How is your day’s work sabotaging your night’s sleep?

Customize your sleep

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Sleep and rest are not the same thing but they are related.

When doctors say that 7-9hours of sleep is recommended for adults, you will need to adjust for your personal circumstance. Most of this sleep should happen at night and you may need to supplement with naps.

You probably need more sleep and naps if

  1. You’re ill
  2. You have young children or other family members needing late night, early morning or overnight care
  3. Your work or lifestyle is physically demanding
  4. You are stressed
  5. You are sleep deprived for any other reason

Are you getting enough sleep for you?

Relationship between Sleep and Rest Part 1

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Sleep is the long stretch of physical relaxation that humans undergo usually at night in a quiet comfortable location. Naps are the short versions of sleep that happen usually midday.

Sleep is a central part of rest but rest is more than sleep.

Rest is the feeling of relaxation, calm, balance, and wholeness in all aspects of a person’s life. Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith considers 7 aspects of life needing rest: physical, social, sensory, creative, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Sleep promotes all these 7 areas of rest but it primarily a physical type of rest.

Day 7: The Holiest Day of Creation

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Genesis 2:1-3 “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.”

In this passage we see that God rested on the 7th day. But this is not the only thing that happens. The second thing that happens on the 7th day is that God blessed and hallowed the 7th day. Of all things that God creates in the preceding days, only the 7th day is sanctified.

Of course, we are not saying that humans and the rest of creation are not holy. There are other passages that attest to that. Within the creation story of Gen 1:1-2:3 only the 7th day is called holy and it is holy because God rested. The Hebrew word for holy here is qedesh. It is the same word that means sacredness, setting apart. It comes up severally in the Hebrew Bible as referring to God’s holy name and holy temple.

Our takeaway from the creation of the 7th day is that God’s rest from work is holy, as holy as God’s name and temple. Your rest is holy too. Say this out loud with me: my rest is holy.

Find your TROG Jam

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Feeling stressed is an excellent time to take a break and remind yourself of God’s presence to help you. Inspired songs are an excellent resource for that.

Here is one of my favorites. “Sanctuary, God is here” by Karen Clark Sheard.

Here is one of the stanzas

There is a sweet anointing in the sanctuary

There is a stillness in the atmosphere

O come lay down the burdens you have carried

For in the sanctuary God is here

Listen now.