Why is rest needed to help you heal?
If you are going through a painful season, you may notice how exhausted you feel as you wrestle with the difficult emotions brought on after a loss, transition or trauma. Researchers are finding more and more how interconnected our mind, body and spirit are so it is no wonder that emotional pain will bring with it physical repercussions like fatigue.
In our normal everyday lives, our body, mind and spirit need rest. Rest, however, doesn’t just come through extra hours of sleep or a nap here and there. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith talks in her book, Sacred Rest, that we all need a variety types of respite including physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social and sensory just to name a few. As we process through our pain, the need for rest in all these areas can grow.
Most of us find it hard to delve into the healing process so we attempt to ignore our hurt by keeping ourselves busy and distracted. But just like a physical wound that requires care and rest, our emotional wounds need to be tended to as well.
Sometimes in an effort to keep our pain at bay, we will lean on practices that we believe will help us heal but in actuality are just draining us more and more. It could be that we are binging out on Netflix or constantly scrolling social media when what we really need is rest from the constant distraction and noise. We can fill our calendar with never ending events or time with friends, when our soul is in need of some quiet and solitude. Or we can start to sleep too much, when what would really be restful to our spirit is a long walk in nature. Our idea of what can bring rest can quickly get skewed in our suffering.
But when we look at Scripture and what Jesus offers us in our pain, it is this:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30 NIV)
True rest is what our hearts long for in the middle of our hurt and there is no better first step in finding it than bringing our burdens to Christ. As we pour out our hearts to Him, we exchange our burdens for rest in Him.
When you think about what you’re going through right now, how are you seeking rest? Is what you are reaching for bringing you the actual rest you need to heal, or is it a cheap substitute for the kind of relief Christ wants to offer you?
Start there, bringing your weary heart to Him and then look around and see if there are areas that God is showing you in which you need to redefine rest to something that will actually help your heart heal instead of draining what little emotional, spiritual and physical energy you have.
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