Butter Scraped Over Too Much Bread

Tuesday was a glorious rainy day.  I love days like this when I can stay home and listen to the thunder rolling and I particularly enjoy the fact that my plants are being watered with no work from me.  Due to a combination of doing too much yesterday and the rain which always makes me ache a little extra, I felt utterly exhausted.  Even though I have a bunch of stuff I want to get done (kitchen scrubbed, laundry folded and some editing for the book I'm writing), I decided that I needed to sleep.

With both kids down for naps, the house was amazingly quiet.  This is such a rare occurrence here that I really don't know what to do when it happens.  It was a perfect opportunity to rest and I spent an incredibly peaceful hour resting; falling asleep to the sound of a light drizzle has to be one of my favorite ways to drift off.

After waking up, things went right back to normal: it was loud, crazy and hurried as I made food for our church small group dinner and herded small people out the door.  Our typical chaos that ensued just made me thankful that I had gotten some extra rest.

I often feel (wrongly) guilty when I take a time out and do something like that for myself when there is so much else I should be doing.  I'm really a Martha instead of a Mary from Luke 10:38-42 since I always feel the pressure of what "should" get done.  The truth is, my "shoulds" like most people's are probably more self imposed and end up a slave to the "should". 

I feel like I need to give all my time to my family but it comes at a price of utter exhaustion from me and ironically, the quality of "me" is so depleted that I'm not actually sure that it is doing them any particular good.  Whereas when I am taking care of myself and being the person that I need to be, I have so much more to give and can make a much bigger stamp on their lives. 

I've decided that pretending to be able to do it all is basically denying the fact that I am human and that I do, indeed, need sleep.  It doesn't actually get me anywhere so I intentionally decided to not be, as Bilbo says in Lord of the Rings, "...butter scraped over too much bread." 

And while I have less than most people thanks to chronic illness, this is really true for everyone.  We sacrifice taking care of ourselves in the busyness of the moment and we neglect to be the people who God wants us to be.  That is the only thing I really should worry about!