QUIT TRYING
By Jessica Honegger
If anyone understands the tendency to go hair on fire in pursuit of a captivating vision , I confess to you that I am that girl . During the first four years of Noonday , my life was crazy with a capital C . I was traveling way too much , sleeping way too little , couch surfing like it was my profession , and eating less than healthfully , to say the least . I got strep throat four times . I got shingles . I got insomnia , and I got fried . But thankfully , my journey didn ’ t stop there . Eventually , I also got wise .
I remember sitting on the couch with another bout of the flu , googling things like “ rest ” and “ boundaries .” Maybe research about self-care would mean that I was sort of practicing it ? ( My deep longing for this osmosis style of actualization is evidenced by the unread titles gathering dust on my bookshelf , all of which contain words such as prayer , exercise , and habits .) In any case , I felt really committed this time to applying what I would learn . I was tired of feeling tired .
I came across an article by Tim Keller , a pastor in New York , encouraging the keeping of a Sabbath . New Yorkers are known as hard workers ; I figured I could trust his advice on this .
Sabbath , which means “ rest ” in Hebrew , is a Judeo-Christian practice during which from sundown to sundown , one full day of the week , you focus on enjoying God and resting from labor . Tucked inside Keller ’ s exhortation was a line so seemingly insignificant that I doubt any other reader noticed it there . “ Many ... careers ... demand some sort of initial period of heavy , intense work . Starting your own business ... will require something similar . In these situations , you have to watch that you don ’ t justify too little Sabbath by saying you ’ re ‘ going through a season ’— when in actual fact that season never ends .”
For too many years as Noonday was
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