rest

Work is good, creation is good, and rest is good also

This Saturday, my daughter competed in a jiu-jitsu tournament in Pennsylvania, about two and a half hours away from where we live. She had some really tough matches, but came away with a silver medal in one division and a bronze medal in the other. It was a submission-only tournament, so there was no way to win by points. Someone has to tap. 

In this particular tournament, if no one submitted in regulation time, the match goes into an overtime cycle. The overtime cycle consists of several positions intended to put one competitor in an advantageous position from which to submit the other. For the kids, if no one wins in the overtime positional rounds, the match goes to a sudden-death takedown round where the first takedown to a pin wins. 

Of the four matches my daughter had, two in the gi and two in nogi, all four matches went into overtime. Her and her opponents truly battled it out and showed immense amounts of heart. Their grit and determination was so impressive that there were multiple spectators unrelated to either child watching their matches and cheering on the kids. 

After a long day of competing about two and a half hours away from home, we drove back and stopped for dinner. We let our daughter choose where she wanted to eat and she chose Ethiopian food. So we stopped at our favorite Ethiopian spot in Baltimore, had dinner, and then went home to unpack, shower, and go to bed. 

This morning, before church, we went to the jiu-jitsu academy so that my daughter could work with a couple of the coaches and one of her friends on the weaknesses the tournament exposed in her game. This was her choice. She wanted to go and, with the help of a good training partner and several generous coaches, she got a lot done in the hour and a half we were there while still having fun. 

After church, we went to my wife’s sister’s house to have lunch and relax for a while. On the way home, my daughter asked if we could go for a bike ride when we got back to the house. Even though my wife and I both agreed it was better to rest, my daughter continued to ask if we could go for a bike ride and told us, in spite of her physically, mentally, and emotionally draining Saturday, she wasn’t tired. 

I explained to her that, even if she doesn’t feel tired, it’s important to rest. “But resting is boring,” she said. 

“Maybe,” I replied, “but resting is necessary and resting is good for you. Do you know what God did after creating the heavens and the earth?”

“He rested,” she said begrudgingly. 

“That’s right,” I said. “From the creation story in Genesis, God teaches us three things: work is good, creation is good, and rest is good. Yesterday and even this morning, you worked really hard and that is good. You also got to enjoy creation by doing jiu-jitsu and using the body and mind God gave you, and that is also good. But now it’s time to rest because God tells us that rest is good as well, and it is good for you. God willing, there will be other days to ride our bikes.” “Okay, daddy,” she replied. 

After this, we went home to curl up on the couch, hang out, and watch a movie as a family. Moments like these are as important for her as they are for me. Through her, I learn how to do better because I want the best for her and have a bad habit of accepting less than the best for myself. Together and with the help of God, we make each other better. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Sabbath rest by choice or by force

Days like today make me realize how human I am. Once again, I have found myself overcommitted and overtrained which means that I was exhausted to the point of a migraine. Some ibuprofen, a hot shower, and an unusually long nap later, and I am still feeling the after-effects of the physical and emotional drain that a migraine can cause. 

My friend and jiu-jitsu mentor came in to teach this morning and, since he was coming down specifically to see and train with me, I didn’t want to miss it. As a result, what is normally a morning of rest and spiritual renewal for me turned into a morning of work, fun work, but work nonetheless. 

This isn’t a bad thing and I’m not complaining, mind you. I love jiu-jitsu and I’m glad I got to see my friend and learn some of his new strategies and techniques, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, and I paid the price after class. 

The older I get, the more I understand why God gave us the Sabbath rest. We only have so much physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy we can give to the world before we are drained. Once we are drained, if we keep going, instead of our labors making us stronger, sharper, and more useful, they make us weaker, sicker, and less effective for God and those around us. 

Each of us has a certain capacity for work, whether it be physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual, and that capacity is limited by the limited nature of our humanity. If we attempt to exceed this capacity, if we try to draw more from the well than the well has to give, we start taking from our health. Much like with finances, overdrawing from our well of health is an unsustainable way to live. 

In the past, I would have simply popped some ibuprofen, downed a cup of coffee or two, and kept going. Lacking the sense to see that my body was trying to tell me something, I have medicated my way through many a migraine over the years. While it made me relatively successful, this drive eventually led me to panic attacks and a near ruined marriage.

After several years of therapy, prayer, meditation, spiritual work, and a lot of soul searching, I have begun to see things from a different perspective than I was capable of in my younger years. The push forward is not as important as my health and longevity. And as I have gotten older and more sensitive to what God is trying to tell me, I’ve begun to see that sickness, in whatever form it takes, is my body or mind’s way of telling me to slow down, rest, and recover. 

So today, after I crashed from exhaustion and a migraine, I took a couple of ibuprofen, a hot shower, and a long nap. When I woke up, thinking about the rest of the week ahead and realizing that a decision to rest and recover now would mean that I will be more capable of doing the things that are required of me later, I rescheduled a private lesson I had set up for this afternoon and took some time for Sabbath rest. 

“The Sabbath was made for man,” as Jesus said in Mark 2:27 (NIV). It is a gift from God for us and it’s free. We need only accept it. And Sabbath rest is not only available to us on Sundays (or Saturdays depending on your belief). Sabbath rest is available to us any time we decide to set aside time for God and rest. My friend who is a pastor takes Monday as his Sabbath because, even though Sunday is a day of worship for him, it’s also a work day because he works at the church. 

Having a whole day each week for God and rest is obviously desirable. God gave it to us for us to take advantage of. But that doesn’t mean we must limit ourselves to only that day for Sabbath rest. God is happy to spend as much time with us as we are willing to spend with him, whenever and wherever we are willing and able to do so. We don’t have to wait until we crash before we rest in God, like I often do. His arms are open for us now and forever. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

In stillness

“I invite you to sit still, sit straight, fold your hands and bow. Repeat after me:
Be still, and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10 NIV).
Be still, and know that I am.
Be still, and know.
Be still.
Be.” 

Followed by several minutes of silence, this simple, but beautifully powerful prayer is how Dr. James Finley closes out each podcast episode of Turning to the Mystics. In addition to leading theTurning to the Mystics podcast with co-host Kristen Oats, Dr. Finley is an author, clinical psychologist, retreat leader, public speaker, and former student of the late, modern mystic Thomas Merton. In each episode, drawing from his vast knowledge of and experience with the material, Dr. Finley gives listeners modern, practical perspective on the writings and teachings of various figureheads in the Christian mystical tradition. 

A now devout listener of the Turning to the Mystics podcast, which came into my life at exactly the right time (funny how God seems to always work that way), this prayer was on my mind this morning as I did my morning meditation. Being still has always been difficult for me, especially in the sense that God means it in this particular Psalm. I’m a worrier, a planner, and a doer. Sitting in silence for an extended period of time, being still and allowing God to be God, goes against every instinct I have. 

This resistance to stillness has come at a cost. Several years ago, I essentially worried, planned, and worked my way into a series of anxiety attacks. I had reached my limit, the jumping off place, where my best best ideas and my best thinking were no longer working. I was working two jobs, one of which was my own business, training jiu-jitsu as much as I could, and trying to navigate family life to the best of my ability, all while neglecting my physical, mental, and spiritual health. 

As covid swept through the world and things began to shut down, I crashed. Life came to a grinding halt and I, who had been running full speed for longer than I can remember, broke down. At the time, I had no idea what was happening, but it felt like my life, and my sanity, was ending. I couldn’t sit still, let alone be still, and I had no where to go. Forced to be with myself, undistracted by the hectic pace I to which I had grown accustomed, I crumbled under the weight of my own unresolved issues. 

Like so many times before, in this moment of desperation, I said a prayer. At the time, I didn’t know it was a prayer. I prayed on my knees every day upon awakening and before going to sleep, but this was not like that. This was my soul crying out for help. From the deepest part of my being, I admitted that what I was doing wasn’t working, that who I had become was not who I was intended to be, and that I couldn’t go on anymore like this. 

I’d like to say that I changed immediately and all was well from that moment on, but the truth is that it has been a long, difficult road from there to here. Along the way, I began working with a therapist, I left my job of twelve years and my career of almost twenty, I refocused my attention on my family and my health, and, most importantly, I was led back to my spiritual path in a deeper, more meaningful way than I previously thought possible. God is now at the center at my life where he belongs and it is easy for me to see where and how things went so wrong when, in spite of my stated beliefs and habitual prayers, my life did not reflect this simple truth. 

That brings us back to stillness. As I sat this morning to read, pray, and meditate, it occurred to me that what was once the most difficult thing in the world for me to do is now the thing that feels the most natural, the most necessary, and the most fulfilling. That, in spite of my resistance, obstinance, and even defiance, I can, and do, sit down every morning to simply be with God is nothing less than a miracle. 

In stillness, I find the peace, rest, and connection that no amount of running, chasing, or hustling was ever going to bring me. In stillness, I learn that life goes on around and without me, and that I do not have to involve myself with or react to every little thing that crosses my mind or my path. In stillness, there is freedom from boredom, worry, and desire. In stillness, I surrender to the love that sustains me. In stillness, I am allowed, or rather commanded, to merely be, to trust and know that God is God.

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Anxious or simply exhausted

Have you ever been so tired that you thought you were having an anxiety attack?

I recently drove my wife and daughter to New Jersey to visit family. We had an event to be at by 11am and it usually takes about four hours to get there. In order to account for the unexpected, we woke up at around 5am to leave by 6am.

The trip went smoothly and we were actually early, so early in fact that I has time to stop by a jiu-jitsu academy I’ve visited a few times prior for some morning training before going to our event.

We went to our event, grabbed some food, and then went to our hotel to check in. I tend not to eat or drink very much while I’m driving because food makes me tired and fluids make me have to pee, both of which make the trip take longer.

This, combined with waking up early, and the general stress of being on the road all morning, and I was in a somewhat fragile state. As a highly sensitive person, I had put a lot of strain on my body and mind over the course of the day.

My wife took my daughter to the hotel pool and I laid down for a nap. But as I laid there trying to rest, I was struck by a wave of what felt like anxiety. I hadn’t had an anxiety attack in a long time so this disturbed me, but I allowed it to wash over me as I laid there with my eyes closed.

I began thinking about what could have caused the anxiety I was feeling and I concluded that I wasn’t over-stressed or worried. In fact, nothing was really wrong at all. I was just tired, so tired that my body and mind had had enough.

I had basically pushed myself as far as I could go and now I was feeling the effects of that. What felt like anxiety was really just me being overly tired, dehydrated, and hungry. I wasn’t having an anxiety attack. I just needed some food, water, and a nap.