Prayer of Rest - June 2022
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Chai Chat - June 2022
A Prayer of Rest
A Prayer of Rest
Hello ,
I’m so glad you’ve joined me here! If you found me via the 30 Prayers eBook you downloaded, welcome!! I’d love to hear how that’s going!
I recently learned my favorite strawberry farm is going to stop growing strawberries after this year. I was crushed! Picking strawberries has been a family tradition since my children were young. We’d go to the strawberry farm, pick among the rows of ripened sweet fruit, bring home our piles of berries, and make jam, pie, and freeze whole berries. It’s one of my favorite summer memories!
After 72 years of growing strawberries, though, the ground is tired, and my local farm can’t grow berries for a while anymore. They will let the ground rest and recover needed nutrients, so that one day in the future, it will once again yield fruit. But oh, how I will miss going to that farm to pick strawberries!!
Our piles of berries from a couple of years ago!
We also need times in our life to rest, refuel, and relax. With summer in full swing, and after two years into this pandemic, I see that many of us are traveling again and taking deliberate steps to rest. Sometimes our rest is a season, sometimes it is a short trip or vacation.
Rest comes in different forms: emotional, physical, social, spiritual. What kind of rest are you longing for right now? Are you weary? Physically tired? Drifting away from God? Desiring some time alone? Whatever it is, know that you were designed for rest. We weren’t made to be working nonstop, day after day after day.
Remember the Energizer Bunny, that little robot bunny that ran on Energizer batteries, and kept “going and going”? We were made to work, yes, but not without rest. We weren’t made to work as if we were machines and to keep going and going like the Energizer Bunny? (Google it if you don’t know what the Energizer Bunny is!)
Truly resting means putting away other distractions. It means resting our minds and bodies from the usual onslaught of work and information.
What are your plans this summer? Are you traveling? Flying on a plane? Taking the Great American Road Trip? Planning a staycation? Taking a social media break? Reading more? Taking a weekend off here and there to rest? Hit reply and let me know! Whether it’s a trip or a staycation, my hope and prayer is that you will carve out some space to truly rest this summer.
Taking rest is part of God’s design for us. He took a whole day to rest and tells us to rest as well. Matthew 11:28 says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Psalm 62:1 says “Truly my soul finds rest in God…”
With that in mind, here is a prayer of rest.
***
A Prayer of Rest
Dear Lord, it is wondrous to taste juicy ripe strawberries, marvel at a fully-leafed tree, and see flowers in all colors blooming around us. These signs of summer remind us that a season of growth and beauty come after a long winter, and for that we are grateful.
The long, hot days of abundant sunshine lull us into a slower pace, forcing us to reduce our activity, and slow down just a bit. Lord, some of us find it hard to slow down and stop, and rest. Others of us don’t know how to rest.
Show us when we should stop, and slow down. Remind us that we aren’t machines, that we are creative beings made in your image, and need to rest. You took a day of rest, and we find it harder and harder to do the same, in a culture which values activity and productivity as a sign of our self-worth and self-identity.
Just as the ground needs time to rest and refresh, so do us, God, so do we. We can’t bear fruit if we’re run down and tired. The soil of our souls need times of rest and refreshment, where we allow you to pour the richness of your word and your care back into us, refueling us for our work in the world. How can we do this without you? Eventually our efforts will tire, and our results will be thin and lacking.
Lord, thank you for this season when we can travel or stay indoors and rest. Help us to recognize when we need to stop, so we can avoid burnout. Lord in this season, two years in the pandemic, we’re finally getting to see family and friends we haven’t seen. We are traveling again. The world is still tumultuous, yet we are still living and doing our best to thrive and grow.
God, thank you for rest. We don’t know how much we need it, until we find ourselves at the end of our ropes, or when we’ve taken the time to stop and reenergize. Show us how we can find rest this summer.
Amen.
Image source: Unsplash
News! News! News!
My dear friends, as subscribers of this newsletter, you will get to hear it all here first. I have some exciting writing news to share! As soon as I am able, sometime in the next month, you will get to hear this news FIRST, as my way of saying thank you for being here! I cherish each one of you and am grateful you are walking with me on this journey. I CAN’T WAIT to tell you all about it here.
Dear friend, you have yet to meet all the people who will love you and will celebrate that you were born! Celebrate your ethnic and racial identity. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, and you are beautiful. Do you believe this about you? It’s true!
It would make my day to hear from you. Hit reply and let me know your travel plans, how you heard about me, etc. If you’re making your way through the 30 Prayers for When You Feel Lonely and Left Out eBook, I’d love to hear how that’s going, too!
Also, what would like to see from me in this newsletter? I want this to be a resource for you. You know the drill—hit reply to this email and let me know! :) I will respond (though it may take a day or two!!)
Until the next Chai Chat!
Warmly,
Prasanta
Thank you, friend, for reading and subscribing! If this is your first newsletter from me, you probably subscribed from my website, signed up for the prayer Ebook, for a giveaway, or other resource. I’ll share helpful links, resources, and inspiration each month (and sometimes in-between). If this newsletter encouraged you in some way, would you consider sharing with a friend? (Make sure you check your spam folder and move this email to your inbox!)
Until the next Chai Chat!
Make it a lovely one,
Prasanta
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