For When You Need Fresh Wind

Wind chimes jangle a constant song, and the maple trees whoosh long loud sighs of summer.

Twenty-one year old Morgan contemplates virtual art classes, scrolling through her phone, long legs curled up under her on the honey-colored couch. Daniel’s noises are distant, quiet, away down the stairs, his tiny blonde head dwarfed under large white headphones. He speaks into a microphone to his twenty-five year old brother who lives ten miles away and they build virtual worlds and cities with square video game blocks.

Photo Credit: Nicola Pavon, Unsplash

Mark stares at the laptop screen in front of him on the dining room table, surrounded by yellow highlighted-in-books, drafting a paper on textual criticism for his Masters of Divinity program.

Huge gusts of wind keep stealing my attention. The wind blows loud warm air through the two maples, splashing sunlight on the tops and undersides of the leaves, a dazzling display of yellows, greens, and whites. I love the sounds of summer. Lawn mowers in the distance, sleepy droned airplanes hum quiet on the horizon, and far-off highway trucks rumble.

Saturdays and Sundays are my enforced rhythms of rest. I stretch toes luxuriously even now, at the thought that it’s not about any legalistic day, but a manifested idea by our Creator God that rest is good and should be worked into each week as a gift, a decadent and desired dalliance into play, and fun, joyful savoring.

“I love Saturdays!” he had exclaimed it happily not too long ago. My eleven year old Daniel had been building Lego cities in the sunshine beneath the south-facing window. Black and white cats stretched languidly beside him, soaking up the sunshine heat, lying in between red, blue, and green Legos. I had murmured happy agreement from the table not far from him, raising my favorite blue mug filled with hot french press coffee, my journal and Bible beside me.

We were made for creative work and we were made for creative rest, and as we cycle in between those days, our best selves emerge, I’m convinced of it. Wherever our work happens, whether in landscaping, engineering, teaching, medicine, sciences, social work, security, computers, or construction, we get to flex our problem-solving skills, our creativity, perseverance, and innovation.

In between our day jobs and then loving and caring for the people in our lives, we get to reserve moments and hours to recharge and rest. Yesterday that looked like long conversations with a smooth Americano coffee while watching an emerald green mallard duck and his feisty brown feathered mate climb grassy pond-lapped hills. This morning, I grabbed hot coffee and slipped outside in cool 8:30 morning air to rock on an ancient wooden and olive lichen-covered swing. Pine bark mulch compressed beneath bare toes. Robins and cardinals called. Branches swayed and rushed overhead. Fragrant white and pink peony flower heads hung heavy with their scent and beauty, and I drank them in. Later my family curled up in chairs around our computer screen to sing along in virtual online Covid 19-quarantine church service, with friends on their screens around the state and world singing and commenting too.

Photo Credit: Hannah Olinger, Unsplash

Tomorrow, I slip back into work and I’m excited. In summer breaks from teaching and speaking, I get to give more time to my creative work of writing. One of six writers working to complete our ten-week Old Testament small group Bible study, we are in the last legs of revising and editing this study which has already been Beta-tested with several Bible study groups. We are excited to implement their feedback and to get this Old Testament Bible study to the publishers, ready for use this fall! I am excited about this project, my friend, and will keep you posted on the inside scoop too.

“What? You keep looking over at me,” my husband asks, looking up from his work on the paper.

“No,” I laugh. “I’m not looking at you. I’m looking at the trees behind you. I love seeing the wind blow!”

Happy resting today, my friend. May our God blow fresh wind and rest through you today.

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