Beth Troy's Blog, page 4
June 22, 2020
A Misnomer
I did not lock the boys out of my room last night, though that is how the story will be re-told – similar to the story of “The Time Mom Ran Over Ezra’s Foot with the Car.”
Did I once run over Ezra’s foot with the car? Yes. Intentionally, No. What happened is I have a kid who likes to pop out of the car while I slow to brake in the driveway. I’ve run him through the sequence many times – Park, Off, Out – but he never listens, and one time, he popped out of the car while I rolled to a stop … right on his foot.
It ended well for the foot, but I’m forever the villain in the story that should be titled, “The Time Ezra Didn’t Listen to His Mom and Got Stuck.”
Last night’s story is the same. Did I sneak to my room for peace and quiet? Yes. Did I shut the door behind me? Yes. I did not lock the door, but sometimes it has the feel of locked, courtesy of sticky 1960s hardware.
So, when a boy tried to bust in 6 minutes and 11 seconds later, found the door “locked,” and shouted for brother reinforcement, who also found the door “locked,” I did not correct them. I held my breath. I heard the boys run downstairs, shouting “locked!” I heard Matt’s footfalls coming up the stairs.
He opened the door just fine and threw me a look. I threw it back, sighed, and headed downstairs, thus concluding the tale of “The Time Mom Took a Breather,” otherwise known as, “The Time Mom Locked Us Out.”
It all depends on your perspective.
Are any competing titles being plopped on your days right now?
June 12, 2020
Day 15: A Rest Wrap-Up
So, this whole blog series on rest started because I wasn’t quite sure what to do with summer. If vacations, pools, and camps are all canceled, is there summer? And how would this “summer” be any different from the last couple of months that we’ve all been at home? Sure, there’s no school, but summer is more than the absence of school.
Summer, like any other season, brings a rest from and a rest to, and I guess I was hoping that somewhere in all of this, I would flesh out those blanks. I think we nailed the first – what we really need a rest from and why? But to be honest, after 15 posts and 8000 words, I’m no closer to figuring that to – beyond my daily and weekly rest practices – of what Summer 2020 will be for my family and me.
So much for tidy endings! But I’m going to leave it here and explore the to, starting today by meeting up with a friend and her boys at a creek.
Before I go – thank you! Thank you to those of you who:
Checked here every dayChecked here every day-ishHappily journeyed through rest with me and would do it all over againAre patiently waiting for me to write about something else, pleaseAre impatiently waiting for me to write about something else, alreadyFollowed up with what you’re thinking about rest, either in comments, emails, or conversationsFollowed up with me in your mind only
It’s been fun, and I’m now I’m going to take a little rest from this space for the next week. I’ll be back after that to talk life, writing, faith, and whatever else you want.
What about Lu2?
Yes, and I will talk about Lu2! Don’t worry. She’s coming.
June 11, 2020
Day 14: Practicing Rest Every Week
“No Sunday Funday!”
I thought it was pretty solid branding on our part, but as you can see from the above exclamation, Sunday Funday in the Troy house has been rejected – by Tommy, in this instance – for the sole reason we lay all screens to rest on Sundays.
No screens. The boys hate it. They push back. They needle. They cajole. They barter. When all these fail, they set to make our Sundays as miserable as possible. Jesse mopes, Ezra claims boredom around every corner, and Tommy shouts.
Sunday Funday, indeed. It’s more Sunday-Used-to-be-Funday because when we kept the screens around, Mom got to nap, and there isn’t a Sunday that I don’t want one, which means every Sunday, I’m tempted to throw out the “Funday,” bring back the screens, and quit this little digital ascetism experiment.
We’re a year-and-a-half in, and it all started from an unfortunate sermon about recreation vs. restoration. Basically, some things are fun and numbing in their fun, and these serve a purpose. I would put watching The Office in this category, and it works great on the days where I need to end somewhere, and I’m not quite ready to descend into my drooling, exhaustive heap (see yesterday’s post), but the thought of picking up a book or going for a walk or doing anything, really, sort of sends me there. So, I turn on The Office and tune out.
But my soul needs more than a tune out. It needs rest – strong rest that proactively takes on the hurry, demands, distractions, work, and worries of the week. I need a practice that helps me to step back from what is and turn to what also is but harder to see.
So, this is how weekly rest started for our family – as a No – and like many exercises in faith, it took a little time to see how God would fill the void with something greater than a nap. It turns out, it’s a crazy exchange where I give him a day, and He gives me a week.
Sundays change Mondays.
My Sundays actually start on Fridays now. The energy and enthusiasm I brought into the work week is gone by the afternoon, and I’m happy to close my laptop. Saturdays, we putter. I’d call it chores, but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels nice to put things in order (for the hot second order lasts in a house with young kids). I’d call it errands, but it doesn’t feel that way, either. It was nice to get out of the house and go to the Farmer’s Market last Saturday. Combined, they feel like a necessary transition between work and rest, so that when Sunday Funday hits, I’m ready for it. I’m a day separated from my work, and I’ve set up the house for us to rest.
If you’d asked me last Sunday what was coming up this week, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. I suppose I could have thought about it, but why? Monday would come soon enough, and I’d get to it when it came.
Sundays change Mondays, and I enter into the week now with a renewed mind, body, and soul. I can see why Sabbath is God’s gift to us – a gift with teeth, sometimes. I can see why it’s also a command. If I don’t step back to see how He sustains, I’ll start to think I do. Thanks to Sunday Funday, I don’t. I see I play a part, and I’m happy to play that part. Tomorrow.
I’m interested to know how you rest every week. How do you break and what measures do you put into place to ensure that?
Also, for those of you with families of young kids – HELP! How do you find rest outside of a nap? How do you find rest together? Let me know in the comments below. I will be taking notes.
We’re talking rest right now on the blog – what it is, why we need it, and how we get it. If you just jumped in, go to Post 1 to catch up. Sign up for the blogs to go straight to your Inbox so you don’t miss any!
June 10, 2020
Day 13: Practicing Rest Every Day
Two disclaimers with this post, and Disclaimer #1 is scripture.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1
The vision of freedom God has for us is how I want to operate in this world and this freedom vision starts in how I relate to God.
Disclaimer #2
What I am about to share is my practice. It’s not a copy-paste standard for anyone else, and it’s not a standard at all because that brings a sense of good/bad that goes against Disclaimer #1. It’s a practice – how I rest every day – because if I don’t set up some sort of structure it remains in the land of good intention. Rest doesn’t happen.
Cool? Cool.
Some context. I love to work, and I’m well suited for the work I do, which at the time of this post looks like teaching entrepreneurship at Miami University and writing novels. I enjoy my work, and I have lot of work to do. As such, I’m prone to overworking. If I don’t set up barriers, I will overwork.
So, I practice rest every day by beginning every day with rest. Why the morning? It’s when I’m at my best. I wake up ready – clear-headed, energetic, and excited … so much so that I’m tempted to whack away at the to-do list when my productivity and quality are at their peak. Sometimes, I give over and start working, and you know what?
I get a lot of work done!
I prove to myself, yet again, what an amazing worker I am, but I’d like to think I’m more than that. I’d like to think the day is about more than that, but I can’t conjure this vision myself. I need to receive it.
Starting the day with God stands in stark contrast to starting the day with work. It still includes an alarm and coffee, but from here, it goes an infinite number of ways. Entering into God’s rest isn’t some legalistic maneuver through scripture, study, prayer, or any other trappings of what a good Christian should do. What I’m doing isn’t the goal at all. Knowing God and what God has for me is the goal, and how I go about that, and the time it takes to go about that changes every day. Sometimes it’s 15 minutes, and I read a psalm. Yesterday, it was two hours, and included listening to a sermon, journaling, and praying.
What doesn’t change is entering into God’s rest every morning, every day. Ish (I’m not perfect). In doing this, I pray that everything I go on to do will draw from this rest. It sounds like a paradox, but I’ve come to see that working from rest is best (and also a little rhymey).
Stuff to Consider
The best time to rest is your best time of the day. Don’t get caught up on my early alarm or anyone else’s. Find your best time and challenge yourself to hand it over.There’s freedom in how you go about it. Nothing kills a relationship by being something you are not. The God who created you is the God who knows you. Be that person in your rest.There’s grace when you don’t go about it. Shame is obnoxious and cannot stand in the light of God’s grace and mercy. Maybe you’re reading this and thinking – Shoot, when was the last time I did this? There’s a better question you can ask, like – How can I rest today?
Where I Need Your Help
I tank as the day goes on and sort of end it in an exhausted, drooling heap. Do you have any practices for resting touchpoints at the end of the day that might help a girl out?
Fill the comments below with your daily practices to help all of us along!
We’re talking rest right now on the blog – what it is, why we need it, and how we get it. If you just jumped in, go to Post 1 to catch up. Sign up for the blogs to go straight to your Inbox so you don’t miss any!
June 9, 2020
Day 12: Rest in Practice
The forecast promised a break in the weather, and I opened my windows in anticipation on Sunday night. When I woke up the next morning, I felt the change – not that stagnant settling of heat, but the coolness of wind passing across my skin. It left goosebumps behind, and I put my arm under the sheet. The first time in a week.
I turned over and fell back asleep.
When I woke up a couple hours later, I nudged Matt awake so he could make us coffee. He brought it up, and we stayed in bed a little longer. Our boys, in what can only be described as a Summer Miracle, synchronized to the slow morning. It wasn’t until after 7 that the first one found us.
I liked the restful pace and wanted to keep it going. I realized I could keep it going. I changed my plans. No working, no writing, no blogging. I said no to everything I’d intended. Starting the week now looked like a long drive in the country to get a sandwich and the drive back. It was a great way to start this last week of talking about rest, specifically about how to practice rest in our lives.
Two weeks ago, we kicked off our conversation on rest by figuring out what we really need a rest from and then last week was about why. I posed we can only find true rest, soul rest, in the Gospel narrative – It is finished. It is good – but entering into that narrative requires belief + practice.
Rest doesn’t just happen. Anyone who’s coming off a season of intensity can tell you that. I can talk about sitting all I want, but can I when the moment arises or will I pop back up to adjust a frame on the wall a little to the left, which reminds me I haven’t watered the plants and now that 5 minutes has gone by, I might as well start dinner, but first I’ll check my email.
Practicing request requires discipline built around an awareness of our limitations and vision of how we fit into God’s plans at this time. To get us thinking, here’s a great sermon by Jon Tyson of Church of the City New York. He’s Australian, so everything he says sounds cool, but strip away the accent, and the content about setting and maintaining a sacred pace is stand-alone cool:
It’s a 55m listen – listen while you weed, or listen while you sit. Ha!
After you’re finished, I’d love to know:
What long-game are you in right now?How does seeing your role from a long-game lens give you ideas of how to pace work/rest in the daily, weekly, and seasonally?
I’m aiming for super practical this week, and I’ll be sharing a lot of what I do. Please pepper the comments with your own tips! I’d love to get a brainstorm going.
June 5, 2020
Day 11: Rest in Salvation
I read about George Floyd, and I thought about my friend’s son – born early and so small. Over the last couple of months, I have prayed for him to grow strong. Not once did it occur to me to pray for a world that would accept and embolden her strong black son.
This is my ignorance, and it’s willful. I can’t say I didn’t know. It’s passive. Problems don’t fix themselves. In sitting back as I have, I am complicit.
It’s from this perspective that I share Titus 3:3-8. If last weekend’s Rest in the Shepherd through Psalm 23 was more of a “reading” than a study, this is more of a “riff” than a reading to guide your prayers this weekend.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is clear – we are all wrong – but with this accusation, God delivers salvation – a free gift to all that we each must receive. What starts with a finger point ends with an open hand to step into the rest God offers for our souls. It is not a rest that allows me to sit back and leave this world to itself, but a rest that spurs a restlessness to love as Jesus did – a love that doesn’t turn aside or shift blame but gets right in there to love people, whatever the cost.
The blog this week has been all about exchanging the restless stories for the only one that brings rest – the story of God so loving the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
We have every reason to be honest before God – our past wrongs, our present comparisons, and our future worries. He doesn’t turn away from who we are. He takes it on, and He moves us on to do good work that all may know so all receive.
It is finished. It is good. The Titus riff is coming to the inbox of all blog subscribers tomorrow morning, but here’s The Good Word now.
3 At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. 8 This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.
Titus 3:3-8
June 4, 2020
Day 10: Rest from the Future
Do you really want to know what’s going to happen?
What would you do with that information?
Would you receive it?
Personal history tells me I wouldn’t.
Flash a picture of my current self to 18-year-old Beth, and she would not be happy with the sags and scars of her future body.
26-year-old Beth hoped for a girl when she found out she was pregnant for the first time.
27-year-old Beth wouldn’t believe just how many times she would go on to yell at her oldest son after promising him on the day he was born that she never would.
28-year-old Beth was not moving back to her college town. The phrase went something like, “anywhere but Oxford.”
Actually, Beth was supposed to have an adventure out West. Ask her at 20, and she would have told you she was moving to Seattle.
Our present choices come with projections and sometimes questions.
God, can you tell me how this will all work out?
In his grace, no, and thank goodness, no, because I’d receive the information like an outline – all the facts without the richness of what living within those lines is actually like. My present self is limited in that way, and in there lies the difference between knowing something with my mind and knowing something with my life.
This is what I think about when I read Matthew 6, where we are told do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
Even if I’d been granted future information, I wouldn’t have received it because I couldn’t understand how – yes – I would go on to miss my younger abdomen, but not at the expense of conquering my fear of childbirth. I may look otherwise, but I feel and know now that I am strong. And then there’s those children – male and bashy. We all yell around here. We all apologize. And praise God we live in this small town. When Jesse and a friend got lost in our 10 acres of woods the other day and eventually found their way out, the landscape was familiar enough to lead them back into the mile-square where they were only another mile from home.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:34
I wake up. I pray. I read the news feed. I pray again. Jesus is right. There is enough trouble of its own today, and if I’m going to be a helper, I need to be present.
It is finished. It is good.
Restlessness comes when I divide myself and step past today’s pace into tomorrow’s concerns.
Do not worry.
It’s a command. Behind God’s commands are reasons. Wrapped around those reasons are promises that’ll I never know if I don’t stop insisting for information that’s not mine to have.
Lay tomorrow’s story to rest. Exchange tomorrow’s concerns for today’s. Exchange worry for hope. Exchange a scattered mind for a focused one so you can help. Our world needs help.
Today is enough. Today is where God has you. How wlll you be here today?
We’re talking rest right now on the blog – what it is, why we need it, and how we get it. If you just jumped in, go to Post 1 to catch up. Sign up for the blogs to go straight to your Inbox so you don’t miss any!
June 3, 2020
Day 9: Rest from the Present
Can I get an hallelujah for swimsuit season?
No, never. I never get an hallelujah for swimsuit season. You won’t give me one because of your thighs.
“No, not my thighs,” you say. “Her thighs. It’s her thighs. They make my thighs feel lesser.”
And by that you mean “bigger,” thanks to our “more is lesser” body culture.
Let’s try again.
How about an hallelujah for “taking kids to public places?” Now, I’m getting some cheers, but it’s only those of you with little girls. Typical.
Any high fives for Instagram feeds?!?!?!
And, we’re back to silence.
After we put the stories of our past to rest, we have today’s story to contend with, and nothing keeps us restless like comparison. You know, comparison, which Webster defines as … eh, we don’t need Webster to describe that sensation of looking sideways and feeling small.
As with the guilty stories of our past, the comparison stories of our present are not what Jesus has for us today. Check out this verse from Galatians 6:4-5.
Each one should test her own actions. Then she can take pride in herself, without comparing herself to somebody else, for each one should carry her own load.
I still remember reading this verse for the first time, and it was such a revelation. So often, we (me) complain that the Bible doesn’t speak to our current problems, but here was this verse, so direct in stating the problem and so non-negotiable in the solution. It opened my eyes to the under-currents I’d felt as the younger sister to the smart older sister, as the friend to the pretty girl, as the new Christian to the Sunday Schoolers, as the stay-at-home mom to the working moms, as the self-published author to the authors under contract, as the (your turn for a descriptor!) to the (your comparative) …
Is someone else’s business my business today? Nope. Actually, I should be too busy about my business to bother with what someone else is doing, unless of course I’m looking sideways to help her out. Do you know what isn’t helpful, ever? Comparing. Envying another’s load. Trying to prove something. Judging how another is carrying her load.
Galatians 6:4-5 tells me I don’t have anything to prove and more than that, I can take pride in how I’m doing with what I’ve been given. Obedience is sufficient for today.
It is finished. It is good.
We can say “enough” today. We can smile over what we accomplished. There’s rest in the sufficiency of a job accepted and a job well done. I hope you’re emboldened to get to it.
Tell me … how does Galatians 6:4-5 encourage you to carry your load today? How could you spread a little Galatians 6:4-5 to help another woman as she carries her load today?
We’re talking rest right now on the blog – what it is, why we need it, and how we get it. If you just jumped in, go to Post 1 to catch up. Sign up for the blogs to go straight to your Inbox so you don’t miss any!
June 2, 2020
Day 8: Rest from the Past
I’m talking about waking up heavy from what happened yesterday. The timeline can also stretch farther back – to the decisions we made months, years, and even decades ago, but wish we hadn’t. Let’s up the ante – how about decisions we made, wish we hadn’t, but are still dealing with the consequences of in very real ways today?
The past is hard to let go, and the more we ruminate over what has happened, the more we tie our identity to it. The past becomes part of who I am.
An example – I changed my mind a lot growing up, and I wasn’t always great at going about changing my mind because I was growing up. So, I’d start something one day and stop it the next, which sometimes meant I was unreliable. I’d be friends with some people for one year and then friends with different people the next year, which sometimes meant I hurt people’s feelings. This habitual behavior became a running joke – Beth can’t stick with anything. Beth is a quitter – that I internalized and would bring out at low moments to bang myself over the head with.
Super helpful, right?
It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that a friend confronted my restless story. There I was, trying again to write my first book but wrestling with the fact that I’d messed up writing it the first time and quit. I felt like I had something to prove while simultaneously helpless to prove it because …
“I’m a quitter,” I told her.
“No, you’re not,” she said.
I disagreed and brought up reasons for I was right. She countered with reasons for why I was wrong. The main difference between our reasons was the timeline. All of my supporting examples were 5+ years old. Her examples fell within the last 5. She pointed that out, too (bossy, beautiful friend)!
I saw how skewed my perception was, so skewed it had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I mean, if you sit down with a hope to write in the morning, but you start that morning’s internal story with, “Let’s see if you do better than the last time, Quitter,” you’re not going to get very far.
This is not the story we have in Jesus.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30
And what was the soul rest Jesus offered in exchange for my wearisome quitter story? Look at 1 John 1:9.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
There was a lot I needed to apologize for in my quitting, but then I needed to “be forgiven” and let them go. In not letting them go, I grafted to my past and became “a quitter” instead of “a girl who has sometimes quit.” Do you see the difference? The first has a chronic quality to it, whereas the second is an action. I don’t need to identify with it, and I certainly don’t need to carry it around. My 18-year-old self wouldn’t want that for my current self, and my today self wouldn’t want that for my tomorrow self.
Most women don’t have a problem admitting when they do something wrong; they have a problem moving on from it. The restless stories brew in the after. We confess, as 1 John 1:9 tells us, and then we … ruminate. We hold tight.
The verses tell us to do the opposite. We are to let go so we can receive. First, confess, then … receive forgiveness and purification and rest for our souls. We don’t need to rewind on repeat because what has occurred will be restored and man does that restoration give us something to think about! To turn over and over and over until the truth spurs us to speak, act, and rejoice like every other person Jesus healed.
Take John 4 and the story of the woman at the well, who finds in Jesus what her soul really thirsts for. She receives his living water and moves from being an ashamed woman, hovering on the outskirts of town, to a bold one, proclaiming in the center of it.
Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.
Take Mark 5 and the story of the woman who bled for 12 years before finding complete healing in Jesus. She touches his cloak and moves from an anonymous crawl to standing.
Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.
Take us.
It is finished. It is good.
This is the story of your yesterday. Have you let go of what Jesus has forgiven? Have you received the rest he offers in exchange for your burdens?
I’m praying it’s a yes for you today. I’ve shared some of my favorite stories that help me put the past to rest. What is your go-to when you’re tempted to re-hash? Share in the comments!
We’re talking rest right now on the blog – what it is, why we need it, and how we get it. If you just jumped in, go to Post 1 to catch up. Sign up for the blogs to go straight to your Inbox so you don’t miss any!
June 1, 2020
Day 7: Restless Stories
It is finished. It is good.
Last week, we journeyed through the Seven Levels of the Candy Cane Forest and the sea of swirly-twirly gumdrops (June 1 … not too soon for Elf references, right?) to get to the bottom of rest. It took a little time and a lot of honesty, but hopefully you got to it – what it is you really need a break from.
This week, we’re going to talk some more about that from because our anxiety doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It has a beginning – a Page 1 of when it all started, and I bet what you uncovered last week wasn’t a new worry. Not really. There’s probably a whole story of this anxiety coming and going in your life, and it carries implications because it’s skewing your perception, cutting your peace, and keeping you restless.
There is no rest in a story where the plot is driven by restlessness.
If we’re going to find rest, we need a new story.
We need a story that begins with the last page.
We need a story where that last page is victory.
It is finished. It is good.
The first sentence was Jesus’ last before he sacrificed his soul for ours. The second is the one God repeated after each step of creation. Each sentence is an assertion. Combined, they are that victorious conclusion I both work from and work toward. Within them is the story that offers infinite rest and infinite reasons to spend my life waging a war of light against the sin within me and within this world.
It is finished. It is good.
I live this story best when I am undivided. We need to let the restless stories go. This week is about how to stop telling ourselves the restless ones about our past, present, and future so we can step into the one.
We’re talking rest right now on the blog – what it is, why we need it, and how we get it. If you just jumped in, go to Post 1 to catch up. Sign up for the blogs to go straight to your Inbox so you don’t miss any!
