March 27, 2008

If you would like to read her previous monthly columns click HERE.

By Dr. Mary C. McDonald

Secretary of Education, Superintendent of Schools

Not long ago, while waiting in line at the grocery store, I overheard a very weary-looking young father with a baby in his arms and two toddlers sitting in the shopping cart, say to the clerk, "My wife is sick, the kids are sick, the baby was up all night, and work is piling up on my desk. I feel like I'm sixty." I looked at him and thought, "No, you feel like you are thirty-something with a family to raise and a thousand bells to answer. If you were sixty you would have gotten a good night's sleep, wondered if your grandchildren's colds were better, and your work would be piling up on someone else's desk." Survival has its rewards. But when you are in the midst of the storm, it is sometimes difficult to even imagine that any calm will follow. It will. Just hold on.

The incident reminded me of a time in my life when I was where that young father is. I had children who were sick and had been up all night. I had work piled up on my desk. I had overextended my obligations to church and civic groups. It was two o'clock in the morning and I was baking cupcakes for what seemed at the time like a very important event. As I stood at the kitchen counter icing the cupcakes I found myself thinking wistfully about the last real rest I had. It was when I was under anesthesia having surgery. As strange as it seems, in my exhaustion, came insight. I thought about the times that Christ went off to a quiet place to rest. He programmed His life for endurance. Maybe I should do the same. Perhaps I should trade the excitement of the sprint for the measured pace of the long distance run. If Jesus prioritized the time to rest, leaving the multitudes to be healed, then surly I, too, could cut back on a few of the demands on my time. I needed to immerse myself in some downtime, to rest and pray, to pace myself, even a little, so that I also would be programmed for endurance. If we are always consumed by the things we are doing, then we will lose sight of the person we are becoming. And who we are, not what we do, is what endures.

It takes the grace of God to recognize and treasure the time we have, even when times are tedious and difficult. To remain faithful to the day to day is all we are really called to do. But there may be times when that faithfulness is challenged, when the clamor of the demands on us drowns out the whispers of the soul urging us to things eternal. When we try to please everyone, we please no one, including ourselves. When we try to accomplish everything, we accomplish nothing.

When we neglect our own needs, we eventually lack the moral and physical stamina we need to become the person God intends us to be. We cannot give what we do not have.

What is it that we need in order to meet the challenge of faithfulness to do what we are called to do? Perhaps we need to do what Christ did _ rest and pray. If you find this solution impossible to do, then you may need to do it more than you realize.

In the meantime, we can ease the overburdened lifestyle we seem locked into with sensitivity to each other's weariness by encouragement, understanding and hope, and by being wise enough to unburden ourselves of our own weariness, so that we have the endurance we need for life's long distance journey.