Time to Rest

Exodus 34:21 - Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.

Growing up we were taught that you worked Monday – Saturday and you rested on Sunday because it was the Lord’s Day.  When we don’t rest, we cannot think clearly on what needs to be done and what should be done.  The body can only run for so long without a break. 

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

I just wanna praise you forever and ever and ever for all you've done for me blessings and glory and honor they all belong to you thank you Jesus for blessing me What's going on, part of people? Hadn't talked to y'all in a good minute. Everything has been going on. I think when I went through my thing, I think the last time I saw I posted something may have been in July, as far as a podcast, and I'm like, oh my gosh, it has been that long since I have talked to you all. Oh, we got to do something about that. What's been going on since I last talked to you all? Well, I came up with the genius idea of when the kids are out of school in May, from May to August, take break, take time for me to do, you know, some things and get some things done. Well, apparently that led into something else, and then the world decided to join in and the party, and time just got away from me. Um lately, it's been me that has done things to myself. I'm always one to tell people, you know, if you don't take time to relax, if you don't take time to chill, if you don't give your body time to re-energize, your body will sit you down. For some people, I tell them, if God's telling you to sit down, if you don't sit down, he will sit you down. And you will not like it when he sits you down. Amen, somebody, because I know I got testimonials on that. When you don't sit, God will sit you, and you have no choice but to sit until he releases you. Well, guess who had to take her on medicine? That would be me. I work for the Department of Correction. I ain't gonna hide it. I ain't there's nothing to be ashamed about. I like what I do. And we have a chance to where we can work some little overtime. Well, been trying to do that for a while, finally saw fit to do it, and I started in January. They have this little incentive program because they need the help. So they have this little incentive program. Outside of that, you know, you can work outside of your regular. So I work regularly 8 to 4:30, then I go work at the prison from 5 to 10. So that's a long day for a 50-something-year-old woman. Well, what genius didn't take under consideration is in the first, if I started toward the end of January, like a week before the last week of January, in eight days, I worked 48 hours over time. Yeah. That's a lot. That's a lot. And I'm stupid. Yeah, I I realize that too. But by February, slowed that down a bit. By March, was down to a creeping crawl, but apparently by the time March rolled around, the damage was done. Whatever I did January, working those hard eight days, working so many hours over time, not to mention that keep in mind, I'm working my regular eight-hour day, then going working five more hours a night. I'm not 20. And apparently, last month my body wanted to remind me, Heifer, you are not 20. You cannot work like that anymore. And because I kept pushing it, God stepped in, sat my tail down. How did he do that? You say, I'm sitting at work, and my supervisor, love her dearly, just came by one day and just told me that I look terrible. She said it one night when we was at work, because we work, we do the same overtime. She said it one day when we was at when we was leaving the the overtime job that I looked tired is what she said. She said I look tired. Well, I'm like, well, darn, I thought I was doing good. I could still function. But she said I looked tired. Well, then a couple of days later, we sitting there at the office, and she said it again, but she had a more concerned look on her face because the way she put it, she basically put it as I was there, but I wasn't there. Like physically, she could see I was there. I was still doing what I needed to do, but mentally she could see that I was not there. So I'm like, okay, after then, and plus the body started hurting. I started having aches and pains in places I didn't think I could have an ache and pain. Come to find out, it was exhaustion. Is exactly what they said. I mean, I was hurting so bad a toddler just learning how to walk could walk faster than me. That's how slow I was walking, and it hurt. Every step I took hurt. So I got a salon pause on the hip, popping Tylenol every four hours. That's not how you're supposed to live. And it was due to exhaustion. Okay. So I started, I rested. I took a week off. I really hadn't been. I'm gonna go back next week because I it's been almost a month since I've last worked there. When I knew issues popped up. Leg swelling, arm swelling, and being diabetic, mm-mm. We can't have that. We we cannot have that. And the funny thing about it is I lost weight. Even the doctor was like, that's not right. That's that's I'm confused. I'm like, welcome to my life. This is the life of Stephanie. So come to find out now, Arthur wants to get into it. I'm like, I'm 50. Arthritis? Really? So your girl needs to sit her fluffy self down somewhere. But today we're gonna talk about time to rest because I'm not gonna tell you to do something if I'm not gonna do it, and the Lord has made me do it, which means I got a lot of other stuff done around the house because I wasn't ripping and running somewhere else. But we're gonna talk about time to rest. Exodus 34 and 21 says, Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest in earring time in harvest, thou shalt rest. We're gonna talk about this later because I have um a topic where I talk about what is your Sabbath. But growing up, if you old school, a 70s, 80s babies, 70s, 80s, and before, babies, growing up, we were taught you worked Monday. Back then it was through Friday, nowadays it's through Saturday, but regardless, you rested on Sunday because that was the Lord's Day. Now, was that written somewhere in stone? No, but growing up, that's what you knew. Mom and dad work Monday through Friday, Saturday, daddy be out doing whatever yard work or whatever, maintenance on the car, whatever. Mama's in the kitchen cooking dinner for the week. When I say cooking dinner, cooking the meat. So when it came time for Monday to Monday through Friday with dinner, all she's doing is the veggies, the side dishes, stuff that don't take that long. But that's what it was. Sunday, nobody did nothing. You did your church, you did your Sunday dinner, that was it. Sunday, they said was the Lord's day, that was Sabbath. But in this day and age, that that that that doesn't happen anymore. By the time I started working, Sunday was no longer my Sabbath because I had to go to work. I may have to work on Sunday, so Sunday was no longer my Sabbath anymore. And now it's really day, even adults with their jobs, they may not have a Sunday off. They may have to figure out a way to work Sunday morning, and if they have a service, they can have Sunday evening. Sunday is no longer the Sabbath, but at the same time, it's still the Lord says you take a day of rest. He just said take one day. He didn't say what day. You know, man came up with days of the week. He just said take one day where you just rest. Times have changed where people's work schedules or life schedules does not give them that option to rest on Sunday. What I love about God is he said work six, rest one. To him, as long as you rested one day, he's okay with it. I'm telling you now, back in the day, that did not fly. Your butt worked on a Sunday, you heard about it. Before you got to rest, when you got off work, you heard about it. About working on the Lord's day. You should be in church. Even now, with the younger generations, them getting off on a Sunday isn't an always guaranteed thing because most jobs are looking for young people for the weekends. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Now, some will work with you because a lot of them are recognizing, you know, people and their religious beliefs and everything else, because you know, they don't want to get in trouble if they say no because you want to take off a church. But a lot of them are realizing, you know, that young people do go to church, as shocking as that may is, young people do go to church, and they may work with you to let you come afterwards. I know when our son JJ went to work, that's the first thing I told him, you can't do Sundays. You can do Sundays after one o'clock. Because where he worked wasn't that far from the church anyway. So you can go to work, but it has to be after one. And that was okay with it. I mean, all they want is young bodies in there to help on the weekends. That's basically what it is. But what bothers me is when the older generation tries to chastise those young people because they work, or they can't make it to something church related because they have to work. Well, they don't have that option like we do. You know, some of us have been in our jobs long enough. If we say, no, I can't work on a Sunday, they figure out a ways to make it to where we can't work on a Sunday. Young people can't do that, they're just starting off in the workforce. You have to work wherever the availability is. And it it bothers me when young people try, I mean, not young people, when the older generation tries to say something to the young ones about them not making it a church, well, they have to go to work. That's all that means there's nothing they can do. They have to go to work. We are doing too much and forgetting to rest. When we don't rest, we make mistakes. The hubby in this house will tell you that I am now forbidden to touch a stove, think about a stove, look at a stove until I take a nap. Why you say? Because there's too many times I'm over here doing something else, left something on the stove, don't know what's on the stove until it starts to boil over. Or I'm doing something, forgot I got something in the oven, and now it's almost burnt to where, okay, now we gotta call out and get something to eat because I just messed that all up. After that second time, the hubby said, You are no longer allowed to look at a stove, don't even walk by the stove until you take a nap first. When you don't sleep, we make mistakes. Not just necessarily in the kitchen, on our jobs, in our lives. We make mistakes when we're tired because we're tired. We're not thinking of anything else, but I need to go to bed. I'm sleeping. Some of us sleep stand. We don't even know that we're sleeping until somebody says something. We don't know that we're we're tired, we're tired, but we make mistakes when you don't rest, which is probably one of the reasons why God said on that seventh day, rest. You worked your butt off for six days. Take one day to just rest, recoup, reconnect. Whatever it is you got to do that will calm your nerves down to wash out everything else for that particular day, do it. Those mistakes may cost us our lives, our jobs, our finances, and our families. When we don't rest, we cannot think clearly on what needs to be done and what should be done. When we're tired, the needs and the wants get swapped. Where we need to pay a bill, but we want to buy something on Amazon. And what we want cuts out on a bill needing to be paid, or we're on the job and we mess up something that has repercussions down the line if it isn't immediate, and now you got to figure out what you did and how you did it. When it comes to our lives, because we're tired, we may agree to something that normally we wouldn't have had we been fully awake. Or we may start doing something that we don't do it to the best of our ability because we're tired, which means now you got to redo it over again, and then that gets us frustrated. Now we're mad. But forget being tired, now we're mad because now we got to do it all over again because we didn't do it right the first time, because we were tired. The body can only run for so long without a break. So either you rested willingly or your body will make you rest eternally. Which do you choose? And you can say whatever you want to say. There are some people who have worked themselves literally to death. I have heard of people sitting in the office one minute they're fine, the next minute they're gone. Now, it may not have been because they overworked themselves, but we don't know what people do outside of work. You know, a lot of people come to work because that's the only time that they have to communicate with people. You know, that's the only time they can socialize because their home life, there's nobody there for them to talk to. Family doesn't talk to them, kids don't even fool with them. So some people work a lot because that's the only place where they feel the love, they feel the support. They got a social dynamic because they're at work. But at the same time, you cannot work yourself to death. The body tells us, okay, you need to sit down. Okay, you're doing too much, okay. You need to sit down, and hence I'm saying this because my dingling self. The body started hurting shortly after I did all of that foolishness. By February, I cut some of that time out. You know, I wasn't working so many days. I went from working maybe four or five days, I just narrowed it down to three. Let me just work it down to three. Well, by the end, like I said, the body the damage was done. When you're moving, when you're constantly moving, the adrenaline is what's keeping you going. You know, you don't realize that this is going on, this is going on. By the time you go to bed, you still pumped on an adrenaline from the day, you don't realize. And then you get up in the morning, you keep moving. The body is constantly moving. With me, the problem was when I cut some of that stuff out, when I started to slow down, that's when the problems that was probably already there really showed itself. Because I wasn't moving so much anymore. My mind wasn't focused on okay, I gotta go to work, gotta get here to get to there by this time, so I can get off by this time. My mind wasn't focused on that anymore because now I was able to sit down, but by then the damage had been done. Because before I started doing this, I was fine. I may have been walking a little slow, but hey, that's what fluffiness does when you don't exercise like you're supposed to. But when I got to working and I started to move, I was losing weight, yeah. But I was also doing too much too fast. Like had I gradually worked my way up to working that many hours, it probably wouldn't have been an issue. But again, I thought I was 20. The body had to remind me, no, you're not. And so I had to sit down. I recently went to the doctor a couple of days ago, took x-rays because he was trying to figure out with you, like I said, when you're diabetic and you're talking about swelling and all this stuff, yeah, you need to get seen. But when they took the x-ray and they said there was nothing there, that's when he chalked it up to arthritis. I'm like, oh arthritis is for older people. Then I thought about it. I'm older.

unknown 15:38

Dank it.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Time for the body to rest. And that's what I've been doing. I've been taking more breaks than I normally would. But then here's the other side to that. You need to be careful when you do that. Because once you get complacent into resting too much, now you're really not getting nothing done because now you're too tired. Because every time you move, gotta sit down. Do something for 15 minutes, sit down for 20. Now you now you're doing too much, you gotta find the balance in between. So I'm at that point where now I'm trying to find the balance because I've rested too long. Now I got to get myself back and get myself back motivated. So I apologize for not being on here, but I've been through so much menopause. Oh, that's a subject for another day. I'm like, are you kidding me? But the body needs time to rest. For some people, I tell them you either do it on your own or God will do it for you. And I don't mean death. Let's just get that clear. I don't mean death. But I have seen, and now I'm a witness, where I've seen people push it, push it. And I understood, like me, I understood why you were doing it. This is extra money. Get the house together, you know, keep stuff, keep the bills current, have some extra money just in case stuff happens. You know, I understand why they were doing it, because it's the same reason why I was doing it. It was an opportunity to get a little extra funds, to get a little stuff done, get a little ahead of the bit. I understood. But then I also saw what happened when they did it too much. And when even when I tried to tell them, okay, you need to sit down, okay, you need to sit down, just like my supervisor, you need to sit down. And they kept going because the body, the adrenaline, the things that the mind was going of things that they had to do, and this money could help with this, and this money can help with that. That finally God sat them down. And when I mean sat them down, sat them down to where they had no choice but to rest. Again, you're listening to a witness right here. When they said you are exhausted, you need to sit down. I already was gonna take that week off from work because they said take a week off. I was already gonna do that anyway. So that helped with that. But then when the other pains kicked in, where it made it hard to walk, because it was in the hip joint. It was in that hip joint and in that upper thigh. So you got one in the hip joint, so it hurts because you know with the hip joint, that that's your mobility. That's what keeps you moving. That's what you know when you get up, when you get down, when you walk, all of that. But then in that right next to that hip joint in that upper thigh, that started hurting to where even if the hip joint was okay, that thigh muscle wasn't. Then at night, the lower leg was pulsating because it was in pain. So I'm like, okay. That was God's way of saying, didn't I tell you to sit yourself down? Since you don't want to listen, since you want to be hard-headed, since you want to think you've grown, I'm gonna sit you down for you. And that's what he did. He made me sit down. And it's fine because it gave me time to do things around the house, spend time with the kids, go back to looking over the homework, you know, talk to the grandbabies, get things done. It made me slow down. You know, I thought I was slowing down on my own, but apparently I wasn't. So when I say your body is telling you it's time to rest, do not ignore it. For me, I consider myself one of the lucky ones. Because you have people that are way healthier than me that keep going and going and going and going and going stroke, they're dead. Or they do something and they really hurt themselves. That being taking time for rest is not even an option because you have no choice. There's a broken bone, there's a sprained muscle, there's something else. So, to me, God knew how to sit me down without really sitting me down. He knew how to put something in my pathway for me to realize, okay, no more playing. I need to go sit down somewhere. I mean, even my church members, when they found out I was doing the overtime work, even my church members was like, um, you're doing too much. But it's like I said, it's the the excitement of being able to bring some extra money in the house for a while, to do some things. I really wasn't paying attention. The adrenaline was going. Thinking of, okay, this bill can get paid, can get up to get a little ahead on the mortgage, can get this bill caught up, can do this, can do that. That's all I was thinking about. I wasn't thinking about the damage it was doing to the body. Because again, being diabetic, I wasn't eating. Or I would eat when I got off, or didn't eat at all, or I'm snacking, like having a Pop-Tart or something. You know, something that'll make it to while I'm in while I'm in the facility. You know, something easy, you know, pop some cereal, some dry cereal, like honey nut Cheerios or something, popping some cereal and drinking water. I was drinking water, so I get credit for that much. I was at least drinking fluids, which don't mean a hill of beans if you don't have the proper nutrition to go with it, but hey. I told you, I'm that diabetic, you don't want to be. I'm that poster child of what not to do as a diabetic. And surprisingly, even through all of that, still lost some weight. A1C is still kind of high, you know, by their standards, but great for money. But the body needs time to rest. And now more than ever, we need time to rest. Things are happening in the world. This may get taken away. So security may be doing this. Jobs over here hiring and giving you the incentive of the extra money. Keep in mind, you need to keep in mind what's what's the priority. You, your focus, your health, your well-being is is the priority. Whether you by yourself or whether you got a family, somebody is going to miss you if you do too much. Somebody is going to be crying while they're praying over you at night because you did too much. And now you laid up somewhere, and now they have to call to check on you to make sure. Do you need something? Are you okay? Are you taking your meds? Are you sitting down? We have got to get back into that time of rest. Everything pre-COVID is gone. That's just long gone. It's not coming back. You may have something similar to it, but that life is gone. Pre-COVID, we rested. Dang the job. Whatever, I'll see you back again on Monday. Post-COVID, everything is moving and grooving. You're gonna either catch on or you're gonna get left behind. But we got to think about the priorities. And like I said, I'm holding you accountable just like I'm holding myself accountable because now I'm on that other end. Need to take care of the priorities, which is yourself. In my case, my family cannot replace.

unknown 22:00

Me.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Just like you hear parents talk about when their kids pass on, whether it be naturally or by the hands of someone else, those kids cannot be replaced. Spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, partners, whatever. If something happens to you, you cannot be replaced. And depending on how much damage you have done to yourself, it cannot be repaired. You probably will not be back to the way you used to be. Like I said, I give glory to God that I listened. I may need a little help with the pain now. So now I got medication for the pain and for author. So I got some anti-inflammatories to keep me moving. And the first day I took it, I was like pew, gone. All over the place with this good hip. But I have to remember there are people that rely on me. Not only in my house, but my mentees. The people that follow me. The people that depend on me to give them that comforting word. I can't do it if I'm laid up in the bed high on legal drugs because of the pain, because I overdid it. Take time to rest. Focus more on what you need to do instead of what you should do. No, you should be sitting down somewhere. And you need to sit down somewhere. But we got to take time for that rest. You know, he said work six, rest one. For some of us, we can work five and rest three, or however many days of the week it is. Look, I forgot how many days of the week it is. And I ain't taking a medication today. Work so many days, rest so many days. You can work it out how you need to to get the rest that you need. The world can't make you move unless you let them make you move. Which means if your job is Monday through Friday and they want you to volunteer to come in on Saturday, the word in your vocabulary is new. Because your behind needs to sit down somewhere. Because, like everybody tells you, and I've seen it done too, if you leave, they can easily replace you. I mean, it may take a moment to replace you, but you can be replaced. In your household, you cannot. With your family, you cannot. With your friends, you cannot. So start to take time for you. Which is what I'm doing. I'm sitting up here talking to you in the middle of the day. I should be at work, but once again, I'm sitting, well, this is for a total, this ain't got nothing to do with physical. This is something to do with a vehicle. But either way it goes, I took time to slow down for me to be able to get back into this. Because you know, I got some people who love to read. So I got some people who love to listen to it. You know, I got some people that just love texting me. You know, I'm people text me all the time. Oh, yeah, we'll talk. Instagram, Facebook, they'll send me something. I'm sending them words now. Not only do I have an email list, I have a text list now because of a person that started that couldn't get the email, so I started texting them. Now I got a text list that I send the daily words to on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. But I wouldn't have been able to do that if I hadn't been able to sit down somewhere. Still doing all this moving and grooving. Wouldn't have been able to do it if I wasn't able to sit down. So I'm telling you, no, I'm asking you. Sit down. Some of you right there listen to me now know that you are tired. You are on the verge of losing all your marbles. Your cheese has nuked off your cracker. You are gone. Sit down. It ain't gonna hurt to take the rest of the night off. To just chill, relax, read a book, look at your favorite show, listen to some white noise, whatever they call it, with the music and the sounds and whatever. To relax. Some of y'all don't even it don't even take that long. Give you a good 15-20 minutes. You're good. Well, you can't even slow down long enough to do that. Chill. Today, get some much needed rest. The world will still be spinning when you get up. Time to take your health and your strength back. But first, you need to rest. And let me let's make this clear. The devil didn't do this. We're so quick to blame the devil for every bad thing that goes on in our life. Mm-mm. The devil didn't do this. It's to the point now with the generation, now the devil's sitting back there just having his popcorn and whatever he drinks with it, chilling. Sitting up there writing notes, like I couldn't even thought of that. Because the things that we're doing, we're doing to ourselves. Or we're letting the world do it to us. He doesn't even have to do anything anymore. He just sit back and relax. You know, taking notes. I would have never thought of that. She did worse to herself than I could have thought of. So it's not, don't sit up there and say the devil's trying to steal my job. No, it's not. You did that to yourself because you keep moving. Sit down. Whatever it is you need to do can wait until you get rest. And that's what I had to learn. You know, the family's gonna get fed regardless. Jethro can do that. That's why I call it a hubby. He got so many names, it's amazing. He knows who he is. You know, Jethro can do it. So it's not like I have to get up and do it. He is capable of doing that. Give your body time to recharge and renew itself. Better to rest now and get things done right the first time, the first time, than to keep pushing your body, messing things up, and having to pay for it later. Standing here as a witness to that too. When you get mad and you because you kept messing stuff up because you didn't sit down somewhere, you can't blame nobody but yourself. Because you knew you were tired before you touched it, but you thought this was something simple. I can get this done. And now you're more frustrated than you were to begin with because you couldn't. Take time to rest, especially pay attention when people that you trust. You know, people that won't say something to be funny because you can tell by the look on their faces sitting up and telling you, Are you okay? You don't look like yourself. Take that seriously because you probably knew for a fact that you wasn't feeling too hot, but you was gonna keep pushing. You was gonna keep going. I'll rest in a minute. When I sit down, when I get through doing this, I'll sit down for a couple of minutes and then I'll get up and now take it seriously when somebody is looking at you and telling you, Are you okay? You don't look too good. You feeling okay? Take that as a sign you need to sit down somewhere. And for people like me who took it a step further, because okay, yeah, this is the second time my super done said that. Plus, I've been walking a whole lot slower and I've been in a whole lot more pain. Maybe I do need to go see what's going on. Do that. Because it's something that can probably be stopped at the curve before it gets any worse. Because the more you keep pushing, the more you're gonna keep straining the body. You know, everything can be seen externally. That's why stress is a silent killer, because stress is something that goes on the inside. You know, you can look at us in the face and we seem fine, well rested, we ready to go, beaming, glooming, ain't missing a beat. Well, on the inside, blood pressure sky high, cholesterol sky high. We about to stroke the crap out because we're doing too much and the body cannot fight much longer. Take time, get some rest. Amen. Let us pray. Father God, we come here today to say thank you. Father, I pray for those under the sign of my voice, Father, that they heed the words that you are saying and take time to rest. Whatever's going on, Father, can wait till they get up, Father, because we know we want them to be have it done right the first time, to where it doesn't have to be redone over again. Father, we give you grace. We give you glory, Father, even though we know we are not worthy, Father. We thank you that you bless us to keep moving anyway. Because Father, somebody did not wake up this morning. Father, somebody went to bed fine last night, but for some reason can't walk, can't talk, can't do anything on their own, Father. So we say thank you and glory for seeing grace and mercy within us. Father, bless those under the sound of my voice. Father, they can do all things through Christ that will strengthen them. All they need to do is listen and relax. Take time to hear the word while they rest their body, their minds, and their souls. Father, we praise you. We give you all the honor, all the glory. In your son Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. And I will see you again. And stay blessed, be that light in someone else's darkness, like my supervisor was for mine. Thank you.