I knew I was in trouble one day when I was at the grocery store and discovered that being there was the high point of my week. It had come to this: buying groceries was exciting! I was shopping not just to get food but to relax, to relieve stress, to rest.
Perhaps you have been at such a point in your life: overworked or under-utilized, in need of re-creation. When you are under-utilized you are unable to use your gifts and abilities in challenging ways that offer growth. Such can be stressful and fatiguing. This is one reason the unemployed get tired.
In our baptism, we became God’s own. We are therefore accountable to God for the stewardship and care of our lives. And in truth, we are, with God’s help, the only ones who can take control. No one else is going to—or can—tell us when to rest.
This message is adapted from “Fatigue and Sabbath” written by Bertha T. von Craigh in the September 1992 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine.”
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