Today’s guest in the “Celebrate A Sister” series is Joanne, a clinical therapist, researcher, and mother joining us from the U.S. In this 🎙post, she shares on “rest and work” and highlights the significance of each individually, and together harmoniously. This is something a lot of us struggle with – not so much the working part…it’s the resting that’s often challenging in a world that hollers “hustle,” “push” “get it! get it!” Joanne invites us to acknowledge and embrace that we are also designed for refreshment through pockets of rest.

“We all know that when we work, and when we work hard…we become weary, whether it’s naturally weary or situations make us weary…circumstances make us weary – engagement with the world – engagement with ourselves…make us weary. There’s this cycle of working and weariness – working and weariness that we all engage and we often fight and wrestle in our spirits when we’re weary – for some reason we feel like we need to be ashamed about it; we need to hide it…we need to hurry up and get strong again so we can do more work.”

When you’re so driven…

We live in a world where everyone says “what’s your goal?” and “what’s your purpose.” No one says “have you rested today?” No one says “have you relied on grace today?”

But the truth of the matter is, we should be living in that cycle of work – naturally expecting to be weary…and then entering into a rest. You have more on the journey. He has prepared work for us to do before the foundations of the earth.

To the precious people who are on this treadmill, and not allowing God to take them off…for moments of rest…

expect to have a divine appointment…expect to be excited about the great things that you’re called to do…expect to be weary and exhausted when you complete them, and then expect to lay down on green pastures after they’re done, and then after you can do that you can be cognizant and present to what the next task is.

Appreciating that cycle in life is part of life.

The Bible talks about coming to the throne of grace to receive help in time of need. If we are not aware of when we have that need, then it’s hard to come and lie down and rest. {Hebrews 4:11, 4:16, Matthew 11:28-30}

That word I hope blesses many women out there who are working hard – burning the candle on both ends,’ and also I hope that it blesses amazing men and kings out there who are also striving for greatness.” – Joanne Nicholls (Clinical Therapist, Researcher, Mother)