Rest

Brian and I are going to celebrate our six year anniversary next month. I've been thinking about these first six years and how FULL they have been. We have had five babies. (Clarification: Allie was here before Brian, and we have had four babies live, one whose heart is still beating in Heaven.) Five babies in six years! We have bought a house and sold a house. We have been renters. Brian has quit his steady job and started an electrical testing company that started with $0, a computer and one employee. There have been lean times and abundant times. We have both buried grandparents. We started homeschooling. Changed churches. Dealt with custody and visitation issues over Allie. At the moment we have an 11 year old and 5 year old who will be homeschooling this year; a 3 year old who wanders around the house getting into trouble at night; a 2 year old who talks nonstop; and a 1 year old who still isn't sleeping through the night. We are busy. :)

We are also in what I feel is a sort of "holding pattern" right now. We want our family to keep expanding, but it hasn't happened yet. We want to sell our house and either buy a farm or build one, but it hasn't happened yet. We are watching our children grow and become people that they aren't. . . yet. That "yet" really gets me. :) Sometimes I think about a word, such as "yet", and I look up all the places it's found in the Bible. That one is ALL OVER the Bible. So is the word "rest". Check this out: In Deuteronomy 12, God was about to give His people the Promised Land, and He was giving them instructions for when they went in and possessed the land. Deuteronomy 12:9-11 says, "For as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you. But when you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you dwell in safety, then there will be the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide." God desired to give His people rest in the Old Testament. Deep, true rest where His name abides. He desires to give it to us today through Jesus; "Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you REST." -Matthew 11:28. The Psalms command us to find rest in the Lord; "Be at REST once more, o my soul, for the Lord has been good to me." -Psalm 116:7. "REST in the Lord and wait patiently for Him." -Psalm 37:7. There is a promise of rest in Hebrews 4, and there is an admonition to strive to stay in that rest and not come short of it. Studying the Song of Solomon, I find that the Bridegroom longs to give REST and refreshment to His bride. He is always calling her to springs in the wilderness and to the shade of a tree. He gives the bride a picture of Him leaping and skipping over the mountains, symbolizing His power and victory over the exhausting mountains in our lives. And I think that is the key to rest- constantly beholding Him in His power and glory, leaping and skipping over any mountains we face as if they were nothing under His feet. I made an acrostic for rest :) Realizing that in Everything, He is Sovereign and Trustworthy. I put in my journal this morning to remember that there is a REST in the middle of the "yet" that He longs to show me. There is a resting in His sovereignty, whether I am working or waiting or doing or hoping.

If you follow me on Pinterest :), you know that I am planning a cross country road trip for our family in September 2014 and I am collecting ideas for building a house. Just so I don't get restless in the middle of all the waiting and resting that God seems to be telling me to do in this space. :) But it helps me to know that there is a promise in the yet. I hope it encourages you too.