The Recliner on the Sidewalk

A few of my faithful readers may remember when I began this blog over three and a half years ago, with the first post titled, “The Toilet on the Sidewalk”.  For lack of creativity, it also became this blog’s name.  You may recall (but if not, I’ll fill you in) that nearly every night since my 14-year-old son had died, one of the only ways I could function and process what was going on in my world was to plug in my earbuds, crank up the worship music on Pandora, and go on one of my nightly walks. One particular October night , I came across an actual toilet on the sidewalk, directly blocking my path.  I stopped for quite a while looking at that toilet and decided it was appropriate timing, given my present circumstances.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that toilet was significant, and not just for me.  I’ll let my previous blog post explain:

We all have a “toilet” in life, don’t we?  Something we didn’t see coming, something we didn’t plan on happening.  Something we wish were different in life.  But we don’t need to stay stuck in that reality.  We can chose to, by God’s help, get off “our” path and move forward.  Keep fighting the fight.  Keep running the race of the Christian life.

In case you’re wondering, I finally did bypass that toilet.  I kept moving forward.  And I am still running the race.  Just with more of a limp than before.

But recently I found myself thrust into yet another “toilet” moment as soon as this past school year ended (as if COVID and teaching remotely for the last quarter wasn’t a toilet-worthy moment of its own).   It was definitely a moment which fueled my anxiety, caused unreasonable fear and panic, and precipitated the need to leave my home of several years to move into the desired high school district for my daughter.  June became a flurry of legal dealings, apartment hunting, online postings to sell half our furniture, garage sale organization, packing of boxes, moving (which is a story unto itself)…and then the unpacking of said boxes.  It was a series of tasks that required just as much emotional energy as physical energy.   Mainly because it required letting go of “Joe’s room” and the last home he lived in.  And that was going to be tough.

It was at the height of all this chaos that once again, I found myself plugging in the earbuds, cranking the worship music on Pandora and walking around the neighborhood to try to sort out and process all this change.  As I tried to calm myself and prepare for what I knew was going to be a particularly tough day ahead, it just so happened that as I looked up in the middle of my prayer, there it was.  You guessed it:

The recliner on the sidewalk.

Right in my path.  Directly in front of me.  After six years of living in my ‘hood, I can’t say I was that surprised to encounter such an item just out there on the sidewalk.  (I still attest that you could furnish a small apartment by simply walking around the block.)  But this recliner, much like the toilet, was dead center in my path, facing me head-on.  I stood there for a while, chuckling to myself.  “OK, God.  Surely You have something to say to me through this,” I said out loud.  But as I continued on my way, back home to the daunting to-do list and the fears and worries that overwhelmed me, that recliner or what God was trying to tell me left my thoughts.

Fast forward a few weeks, past all the moving chaos.  Even though the boxes were unpacked, the child got enrolled, and the to-do list shrunk, I still found my brain unable to shut down.  I worried about my daughter’s future, I stressed if I’d have time to do everything I needed to get done, and lost sleep trying to figure out all the new rules and procedures if we’d be returning to school.   And before all the craziness of a new school year comes…quick!  I’ve got to feel relaxed and rested for at least some part of summer, right?

Since July, I’ve been chasing some kind of elusive rest for my heart and mind and can’t seem to find it.  I feel like I’ve tried it all….sleeping without setting an alarm, watching Netflix, playing games, lounging in the pool, aimlessly scrolling on Pinterest and Facebook whenever my heart desires.  I even thought getting up to the mountains would do the trick.  I thought by getting away from the heat and the to-do list and even the temptation to get a jump-start on school work that I would achieve some type of soul rest.  But even that didn’t accomplish any type of relief from the anxiety and fears that plagued me.

So….why didn’t I feel at rest?  What was I doing wrong?  And in desperation, I opened my Bible app, as I often do much too late in the game.  Perhaps Scripture had some answers for me.

“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” ~ Psalm 91:1

“My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” ~ Exodus 33:14

“Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” ~Matthew 11:28

Those were great verses, but OK, God – where is this elusive rest you keep referencing?  I can’t find it! How can I get some of that for myself?  Maybe God and I had different definitions of “rest”.  Or perhaps, it was that I kept trying to find a deep kind of soul rest, when all this world really offers is, at best, physical rest.

I came back to words, “Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”  I repeated it over and over in my head.  And in doing so, what I realized was that I kept trying to focus these words on me and what I  hoped to gain.  Don’t get me wrong, “I will give you rest” is a beautiful promise.  However, that promise is a result of the first three words of that verse, “Come to ME.” 

It didn’t say “Come to the mountains” or  “Come to Facebook” or  “Come to the swimming pool” or “Come to Netflix” to find rest.  It says, “Come to ME.”  It’s like God was saying, “Hey, remember that recliner I put in your path when you were overwhelmed?  That was my reminder to you to REST.  To rest in ME, not in the things of this world.  Stop walking and talking and thinking and worrying.  It’s accomplishing nothing! Come sit in the comfy, familiar recliner of My love, put your feet up, lean back and look up.  Take a break from this world and spend time with ME.  Pray to ME, talk to ME, worship ME, listen to MY Word.  I am your rest from everything this world throws at you.”

It sounds so basic, so simple, doesn’t it?  Just pray, read the Bible, worship, and focus on God to find rest. Check! Done!  But let me be honest here.  If all we need to do to achieve true rest in God relies solely on us, we will fall short.  Every time.  Friends, the reason we can even come to God, whether it be in prayer or the Word or in worship is because He first came to us in the human form of His Son.  Jesus came to this earth to relieve the burden of sin and death and everything else that overwhelms us just so we could have access to the Father forever.  Not because we deserved it, but because of His great love for us and His great desire to be with us in eternal rest one day.

That eternal rest is sounding better and better with each passing day, isn’t it?  But until that day is here, we can still come to Him, shelter in the shadow of the Almighty, and find rest for our souls whenever we need it.  It may not mean getting more sleep or having more time to watch Netflix.  But soul rest is so much deeper and so much more satisfying.  So sit down and put your feet up in the recliner of God’s love and mercy.

And REST.