One of the best sermons I’ve ever heard was one on the subject of Sabbaths. Jesse, the director of Radford’s CRU, gave a talk on keeping the 4th Commandment: ““Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God… 11For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.” (Ephesians 20:8-11). As you can imagine, this message was well-received by an audience of college students. 🙂
But then I graduated from college and ventured into “the real world,” where I was working and planning a wedding. And somehow the Sabbath became just another day to get stuff done (sound familiar?). And I was tired. Exhausted. Burned out. Last fall was the worst of it- I was working really hard to build my business, so hard that I forgot to take time off. My health suffered, my quality of work started to slide, I had about 4 total meltdowns and I was tired of not being able to spend time with my husband. I was too scared to take a Sabbath though, because I was drowning in editing and if I took an evening/day to relax, I panicked at the thought of my workload that would await me the next day.
And then wedding season came to a close, and aside from blogging my workload went from “overwhelming” to “manageable.” I no longer had to work until 11:30 each night to make the deadlines I set for myself, and Matt and I were able to spend uninterrupted nights doing absolutely nothing together. It was MARVELOUS. As a result? I came back raring, guns blazing, ready to embark on this year’s wedding season. I was full of fresh ideas, changes for my business, and inspiration for my work. I was able to take better care of my clients and my business after I took care of myself and my mental health.
God knows that we can’t keep running at 90 miles an hour all the time- if we do, we’ll run out of gas and our engines will give out, and we won’t be the most awesome versions of ourselves that we were meant to be. This applies whether or not you’re a Christian- I think we can all agree that we need to take time away from our daily grind to just relax, whether that’s curling up with a good book, going on vacation, taking a sabbatical, whatever. I know that whenever I take a break I come back that much stronger, that much more ready to take on the day, whereas if I never took the time off I needed I’d be performing at sub-par levels.
So the next time you’re feeling hideously run down, completely overworked, or just plain burned out, do yourself a favor and take a day (or a week!) off. You’ll be able to recharge your energy AND your passion for whatever it is that you do, and your work will improve as a result. I think my motivation behind this post was to serve as a REMINDER to myself because I so often forget the value of taking time off! Now I have a reason to stay accountable.
Happy Wednesday!
Lessons Learned: Taking a Sabbath
April 11, 2012
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we ALL need this reminder! no one expects us to be perfect and on our game 24/7/365. Not even the Lord. it’s time to TAKE A BREAK 🙂 I’m off to enjoy a diet coke… 🙂
LOVE this Abby! It’s so true. And as a Christian, I think it’s even more vital…it’s SO easy to get caught up in our to-do lists that not only do we forget to take time to rest, we forget to spend time with and rest in Him. Any moment spent with Him is never a wasted moment, yet it’s so easy to push that time aside to get done what we think needs to get done. 🙂 I’ve actually been working on taking a Sabbath every week…amazing how hard it is, but even more amazing how refreshed I feel the day after. Thanks for the great reminder in your post!
This was so perfect for me to read right now! I am THIS close to a meltdown and its hard to give myself permission to take a break when it feels like there’s so much to do, but you’re right about needing to do it to be better in the long run!
This is SO true! We are always busy working on stuff and my husband doesn’t often know how to sit still. I think it’s SO important to have a day off to just enjoy life:-) Thanks for the reminder!
I totally agree with you on this one, Abby. I have never worked on a Sabbath outside of feeding my family and a few chores. When I’m bogged down with work then by Saturday I’m ready for the break Sunday gives. Any work that didn’t get done waits for the next week and it doesn’t bother me.
well said! i’m with you all the way. it’s hard to not feel guilty or anxious taking time off, sometimes, knowing all of the things i need and want to get done. but more and more i’m trying to remember that LIFE – my life of being a wife, a sister, daughter, friend, member of a church, etc – HAS to come before just being a business owner. if i want my business to thrive, then i have to first be thriving as an individual. definitely a constant reminder that i need! thanks for posting this!
Amen Abby! So true.
So great! This is completely necessary and so true. Thanks for the reminder!
This. Is. TOO. GOOD! Love it!
You have learned some valuable lessons, probably the only way you were going to learn them, by experiencing what the outcome of not taking a sabbath is. I was pretty worried about you for a good part of last year. I’m grateful to see that God has taught you what you needed to learn. Our failures at things often lead us to see things in the right perspective. My best and most dearly counted lessons I’ve learned have so many times been the result of trying to do something MY way in spite of good advice to the contrary. My girl, I’m proud of you!