Musings at Altitude

I always wondered where that phrase came from…but I most certainly understand what it means.  The more I do, the more there seems to need to be done.  The more I focus, the more things there are that seem to need focus.  The more I know I need to relax, the less I feel I have time to relax.  Maybe that blowout on the candle was telling me something? 

I find myself burning more candles now, and I do indeed find myself today “burning the candle at both ends”.

For those of you who also are “burning the candles at both ends”, it’s not sustainable.  We all know that.  It always catches up with us, and eventually our minds and bodies just shut down.  They know we need rest, and they’ll find a way to force us to rest if we don’t moderate our actions and get to that restful state ourselves.

I’m so thankful that our Creator gave us the example – “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.”  For me, the seventh day sometimes comes on the third day…that’s all my mind and body can take.  At other times, that seventh day comes after three months of high pressure and intense focus on some particular effort.  In one particular case, that seventh day came after 14 months of relentless work to get 3 years worth of work done in time for an important mission activity.  On that “seventh day”, I collapsed.  I was way beyond the need for rest at that time.

We’re all different and our minds and bodies signal us in very different ways.  The headaches I have right now from the focus on specific facts and detailed data is telling me I’m beyond the time for rest.  The creaks from my bones and the moans from my joints also tell me it’s beyond the time for real rest.

I need to learn from the example given by our Creator, and listen to the clear and increasingly loud voices of my mind and body.

It’s time to rest.