Rain and Rest

It’s raining today for the third day in a row. 

It’s a chili and coffee and blanket kind of day.

 
 
  
The sunny days of last week seem far away. The spring sun kissed glow on cheeks is fading too fast. Out my window , wild rabbits hop beneath pines while tulips pop with color along back yard fences.

Our crazy schedule of lawn care breathes and we gaze out the door at the drizzle and wonder when it will stop. I’m thankful for the rain. We need moisture in the mountains and plains to discourage the sparks that escalate wildfires. I find myself a bit stir crazy though. As if I stop too long I may think too much and if I think too much I may not be able to control myself. And if I can’t control myself I may be a mess. 

So I get a bit grouchy and think of things we should do. Crazy big things like car shopping. Crazy small things like organizing my cooking spices. Things that are waiting to be done and not going anywhere like laying our brick patio. Things like folding laundry and vacuuming the floor. Oh! And when my mind starts thinking about things it runs me down the guilt trip ally….like things  I should have done long ago-like send that encouraging card to that person, or remembered that birthday this year. I find myself wanting to panic with THINGS.

I take time to stop and look through Kierra’s last lovely photo albmn and I miss her so badly I ache. I get sad and lonely and I wish I could snuggle her again. Go back to that certain moment in time and relive it for real. 

I also remember. I remember the feeling of dispair and not being in control. I remember thinking I should plan fundraiser walks or sell t-shirts or wrist bands or DO SOMETHING to raise money for research for the clinic on NCS. I remember thinking if I could only do a little something to make all this pain and suffering mean more. As if I could bring value to it by planning a 5K or having her name on a foundation. It’s true. It would have meant so much to me to do something like that. There’s nothing wrong with that and so many wonderful, amazing foundations and fundraisers and awareness have been raised by people who took action and honored their pain and their children in this way. I am so thankful for that. But in that stage of my life, just keeping us all decent was about all I could handle.

I see a pattern here though, a desperate drive to do more, be more, mean more, busy myself more when life hurts. There is a balance somewhere and I don’t know that I’ve found it exactly. I’m thinking and praying about it. One of my passions of this year is to REST in God, like I blogged a few months ago.

In my restlessness today, I opened my Bible to Numbers. I’m working on reading the Bible through from cover to cover. The New Testament is delightful reading. The Old Testsament has me groping for meaning sometimes. Numbers 7 is like that. A lot of repetition and exact identical offerings that 12 men brought to the Temple. But at the end of the chapter was this verse and it blew me away.

“Whenever Moses went into the Tabernacle to speak with The Lord, he heard the voice speaking to him from between the two cherubims above the ark’s cover-

  the place of atonement-that rests on the Ark of the Covenant. The Lord spoke to him from there. (Italics mine)  

There is my word…rest. Atonement rests. 

Perhaps it is a default mode I tend to go into…making atonement for my imperfections and weaknesses by being busy. By planning more and becoming impatient with myself thinking of  the stuff that hasn’t gotten done and that should get done and that could get done. In a mixed up way I’m trying to make amends (if only in my mind). 

The amazing thing is that the place of atonement rests on the Ark of the Covenant. 

Covenant means the agreement in which God promised to protect Israel ( I put my name in there) if they keep His Law and are faithful. 

So while I am not  a Bible scholar, I am a Child of God, and I get this beautiful picture that I can scarcely wrap my mind around. 

The Good News or the Gospel of Christ is all about Christ.

It is the power of God at work….. This Good News tells us how God makes us right in His sight…..this is accomplished from start to finish by faith. Romans 1:16-17

I hear Gods voice-sense His presence in the place of REST, because everything about Jesus and salvation is believed by faith and faith takes trust and trust takes rest! He has made the atonement. He has promised to protect me with His Covenant. 

I just get a thrill when I think of it! 

Now I will go fold my laundry and yes, do the next pressing thing which includes helping set up for a Taco Supper at the local college, but I won’t allow my mind to go into a frenzy of stuff and default into trying to do and be more. Because In quietness and confidence is my strength….and that’s because the joy of the Lord is my strength!

Reign in me, Lord. I Rest.