Today is the first day of Spring Break and I am under the weather (that is a weird idiom for sick….), and I am laying on my couch. I don’t have much energy to do anything, and I don’t really have anywhere to be.

I should be doing something, like my laundry, like cleaning my room, writing, and maybe even homework.  I have been given this time, I should really use for productive things, right?

Recently, I have been sick and injured. Sadly, I pride myself on having a pretty great immune system, however, I am realizing that lack of sleep and my busy lifestyle is catching up with me.  During one of the bouts of sickness, I told a friend that I felt bad that I wasted a whole day and wasn’t very productive.

She promptly told me that life…. wasn’t all about being productive.  

This wasn’t the first person to tell me to rest.  My family, my friends, my trainer tell me continually to get more sleep.  Every article I read about stress and anxiety, it talks about the need for a proper amount of sleep. I was also reminded by one of my favorite bloggers, Ruth, who talks about glorifying busyness.

Somehow in my mind, I think that if I push through, if I use these 2 extra hours tonight, I will cross off more on my to do list.  I think that I can stay up later to write this paper or grade these papers.

What really happens is this: I spend 1.5 hours watching TV, or eating, or browsing the internet.

Seriously, I don’t really have the brain power at 9pm to do any work, I just think I do.  Those extra hours that I think I need to stay up are actually wasted rest hours because I think I can use them to be productive. 

Even more so, with a foot injury, I continue sometimes to push through, even though I should really stop and let my foot rest.  I think that I am just being a wimp or weak.  I am just injuring myself further and making my recovery much longer. 

Machines only run when there is gas in the tank.  So what I really need to learn first is to rest well, to fill my tank, to use my rest time wisely, then….I can actually be more productive and fruitful with my life.

Yes, the Lord is concerned with our fruitfulness, but he has created us to need sleep.  We need rest to remind us that we cannot do it all, we cannot alone do everything ourselves.