penny goes decaf

what a week!

i am promising myself that the next time my checking account is compromised, my phone gets replaced and my internet is hijacked that i will NOT fix them in the same week.  possibly the same month, but that's it. 

the dumb errands tend to build up until they reach critical mass, which then causes me to go into a whirlwind of activity and knock things off the to-do list one after another.  then i make cookies, clean the kitchen, organize the room, and begin 2 new art projects.

and forget about the laundry.  again. 

but anyway. the important stuff is done (hypothetically speaking.  in reality, each item on the list will come with at least 2 new complications).

in addition, the workplace has been crazy-busy lately.  i love my job, i love my coworkers, i love working.  i love my patients, i love serving, i love those small moments in the dead of night that nobody else gets to see.

but still, it's been busy.  that overtime check is going to be simply glorious.

i don't remember what was going on at the time this thought first occurred to me, but it was similar in enough ways that the thought occurred again this week.

whatever was going on, there was a lot of it, and i was tired.  so very tired. and busy.  with a long to-do list and a short time span.

a little voice in my head remarked its doubts that there was enough caffeine in the state of tennessee to get me through it.

and then immediately following:

"Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.  take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.  for My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."

and then immediately following:

what?!?!

for some reason, that day it struck me differently.

why, if i was tired and busy and had so much to do….

why would He offer me rest?

why not an espresso?  or chocolate?  or a giant mango smoothie?  or all the above- super-size?  why on planet earth would He offer me rest?!?

Jesus knew yokes and probs saw them every single day.  even if His dad was a carpenter, there's a decent chance He helped out at a cousin's farm and even learned how to steer those giant walking hamburgers up and down fields in the roasting hot sunshine.

He didn't have to personally experience the "american dream" to know intuitively that a lot of the time it's more like a nightmare that only ends when you go to bed...to relive it all over again.

the "american dream" is all about oneself.  getting more, getting ahead. being faster, smarter, cooler, prettier, richer, better- and being all of that immediamente.

yokes are about… none of that.

yokes are about teamwork, hard work, side by side work. 

they generally work best when the animals are of equal size and strength, but if one is slightly shorter or having an *off* day, or a bit slower, that poor cow knows that a foot away is another cow that can bear the rest of the load.  as long as that one is heading straight, sure-footed and strong, the weaker one will fall in step. it will learn, in its time, how to keep up and not fall or veer or surge ahead.  mostly because they are attached to each other by the neck. 

but this week, i don't particularly mind being attached by the neck to Someone who is able to bear the whole load and still not be pulled off course by me, as my eyes go bleary or my mind wanders, or my entire self just collapses from exhaustion and gets dragged along with the plough.  not to encourage laziness, but it really is okay sometimes to rest.  quit doing the solo-yoke thing- you'll just wind up ploughing the field into a maze, not a garden. the double-yoke thing works better- as long as you're with the right partner.  that's what Jesus says He is.  the yoke is easy and the burden is light because He's carrying 99.9999% of it already, and offering to carry you along with it.  you don't need an energy boost- you've got Him, the One who'll stay right by your side the entire way.  no refills or extra shots required.

i usually go crazy if i stay around the house "too much" without getting, or doing, or fixing, or seeing something.  today, i needed to rest.  so today, i rested. mostly because i'm skeptical of the phone's reliability and the checking account situation is still being resolved, so i have a little bit of cash to tide me over for a while, and going too far from home doesn't seem smart.

but still, i'm resting.  i worked on a painting.  i listened to fun and enlightening podcasts on systematic theology.  i read some of John outside. i found a fascinating, yet disturbing, display of God's weird world outside our window.  that monstrous garden spider that hasn't moved more than an inch in two days finally nabbed a huge catch- i take credit because i moved a fake flower display to the window to see if it would attract bugs.  i guess it worked.  i can't tell if i'm more curious or creeped out. 

but it doesn't matter, because i'm resting.  He gave me a day to rest so that i can learn from Him and also function well in the days to come when the work needs to get done- or at least some of it.  maybe not all of it.  i'll let the yoke-mate set the pace.