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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