Mamaw Knew How to Rest

Get off your apps. Turn off the t.v. Put your hands to work and you might just live the life you want.

Why do you scroll your phone?

I’ll tell you what I’ve realized about the moments when I find myself aimlessly picking mine up and tapping an app—

I am looking to be still.

I don’t want to be a wife or a mom or engage my brain. I just want to be.

Scrolling seems like the perfect way to claim that little bit of empty space for ourselves. It’s passive. It doesn’t encourage you to get up and fold the load of laundry or even talk to the kid coloring at the kitchen table beside you. You can simply sit and let the comfortable void of your thoughts envelope you.

Which is, of course, a lie.

Scrolling your phone is actually a form of connection. The depest form, actually. Scrolling engages your brain, intimately, with whatever pops up. It gives direct access to your mind and your heart, pressing in to your thoughts. The very part of you that you are to patrol the most, you literally throw open to the whims of an algorithm that does not answer to the Holy Spirit.

Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life.— Proverbs 4:23

I get it. You’re tired. You just want a moment’s peace. A minute’s respite. A little breather where you’re able to refresh.

Except it isn’t actually refreshing, is it? Answer me this: do you actually feel more encouraged to get up and live for Jesus when you’re done with your scroll?

Maybe you do! Maybe you only tune in to content that speaks truth over the din of funny cat videos and thinly-veiled ads for supplements to solve all life’s ills. Maybe you have curated a feed free of the distraction of “buy this!” and “look at this!” that only points you back to your purpose in Christ Jesus. If that’s the case, scroll away.

But if you’re like most of us, you have a good sampling of those accounts you follow, mixed in with a heavy dose of (dare I say it) stupid—silly, fluffy, distracting dance videos or comedy tirades that are the social media equivalent of downing a Twinkie. You scroll and you scroll, telling yourself you’re resting even as your brain is going a hundred miles a minute, exhausting itself processing the junk food you’re shoveling toward it.

Mamaw didn’t have a cell phone. Never did. She passed in 2014, well into the season where we were all shoving tech into our pockets and pocketbooks. But there was no allure for her there. She saw a phone as a phone, not entertainment. You want to know what was entertaining for her? Want to know how she refueled on long days?

She sewed.

She cooked.

She crocheted.

She gardened.

While she did these things, she prayed (usually out loud) or sang. She carved out time for this every day that she could. It was productive time, yes. But primarily, what was produced was a heart that felt fed, nourished by the act of engaging in something solitary and still. When Mamaw wanted to disconnect, she actually disconnected. She set aside the world and she put her hands to something that fed her soul, gave her space, and watered the parts of her that weren’t necessarily wife and mother and grandmother.

Which is what we want when we scroll, right?

We want to breathe. We want to have a little corner without being tugged at by people. So naturally… we go looking for the main way people connect these days, right?

Make it make sense!

You’re right. You do need a break in your day. Your spirit needs a drink. You do need to step back, and to find the still waters promised to you by the Savior (Psalm 23:2). But still waters are not found where feet are stirring. They are found where it’s just you and Jesus, minus the noise. Want to refresh your mind? Want to grab a small sliver of something that gives you rest? Put your hands to work, and set your mind free to talk to God. Work the soil and praise the Lord for what He has done in your family. Knead the dough and ask Him to give you clarity on that doctrinal conundrum. Thread the needle and sing a hymn in your mind.

We are doing it backwards, friends. We think that we can find peace by stilling our bodies and putting our brains on a treadmill of nonsense when in fact, the opposite is true. Give your hands a task that creates, and allow your mind and heart to bask in quiet. You will finally find the rest you crave.

Mamaw’s generation wasn’t perpetually exhausted. We look at the labors they undertook, we see what they were able to do with the same hours in the day that we have, and we assume that they were purposefully busy at all hours. But that’s not quite the truth. These women claimed their own rest, just as we attempt to do today. But theirs was actually restful and ours? It’s not.

In Christ,

Heather