A Pause for your sabbath

This Lent, I am taking some time each day to reflect on Simplicity, Essentials, Truth, and Life. The library has given me a lovely stack of books to read, and two stand out: Spring, A Spiritual Biography of the Season and The Power of Pause: Becoming More by Doing Less.

In Pause, the author (a Christian minister) gives the reader short reflections on life and what is really important in it, and each little reflection is paired with instructions for a "powerful pause" you could take this week. It's a set of instructions for taking sabbath in your life, for pausing and taking time to Be and not just to Do.

From the book:

"God rested, not because he was tired. God rested to celebrate, to savor, to delight in, to play, to revel in the creation, to say "it is good". God rested and declared it holy. In that rest, God is affirming there is nothing to prove. We are invited to enter that rest. Sabbath is the invitation to rest from the tyranny of pursuit. From that rest we can live, work, and relate out of acceptance rather than do those things for the sake of acceptance. This is enough."

--Terry Hershey

We can live, work, and relate out of acceptance rather than do those things for the sake of acceptance.

Out of acceptance.

Not for the sake of acceptance.

That is huge. That hits me right where I am. I don't do anything out of acceptance, and I do everything for it. How can I be trying to get acceptance all the time, but I'm unable or unwilling to give it? I'll never feel accepted if I cannot accept.

In the days ahead, I want to accept. I want to rest, not because I am tired, but in order to revel in the joy of creation. It is enough. I am enough.