Take Heart

How to Find Lasting Rest with Carrie M. Holt

• Amy J Brown, Carrie Holt and Sara Clime • Season 3 • Episode 106

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This month on the podcast, we are talking about rest. You may think, how can I ever experience rest as a special needs mom? It may seem impossible. The type of rest Carrie is talking about is where, as Sally Breedlove writes, “we are meant to flow from a solid garden core of spacious inner quiet.” This comes from a connection with Jesus and gives us the resilience we need when hard things come our way. It's something that she’s personally been working on lately. Listen in!

November 8, 2022; Ep. 106

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Show Takeaways: 

  • [2:06] Three parts of rest as defined by Sally Breedlove
  • [6:53] Listen in to hear the spiritual practice Carrie is finding helpful as she is learning to rest
  • [8:56] An opportunity for you to try this practice of rest 

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Carrie M Holt  0:09 
Welcome to Take Heart where our goal is to offer encouragement, give hope and insight, so you can flourish in your journey as a special needs mom. As we explore monthly themes, and share inspiring stories and practical tips, our desire is for you to feel connected and encouraged. If anything you hear today would inspire a friend, would you please share our podcasts with them? All of our resources, including an entire written transcript of this episode, is available on our website at www.takeheartspecialmoms.com. There are also links to the things we mentioned in the show notes of this episode. Thank you for joining us today.

[1:03] Hey, there, it's Carrie, and this month we're talking about rest. Rest, you chuckle to yourself; how can I ever experience rest as a special needs mom? It might seem impossible to ever enter into rest. This type of rest doesn't mean that we never have work to accomplish or that our life isn't chaotic, but it is the place where as the author Sally Breedlove puts it, "we are meant to flow from a solid garden core of spacious inner quiet." I believe rest and this solid garden core comes from connection with Jesus. It especially gives us the resilience that we need when hard things come our way. It's something that I've personally been working on lately. Sally Breedlove, who I quoted earlier, wrote a book called Choosing Rest; she defines rest in three different parts. I want to chat a little about each one and talk about how it applies to us as special needs moms. 

[2:06] The first part of the definition of rest means to stop. God chose to give us an example of rest and resting when he stopped creating on the seventh day. Sally says that the word Shabbat means to take a break or to stop. When I think about us as special needs moms, what do we need to stop doing? This can be difficult because sometimes the answer is nothing. We don't feel like we can stop thinking, worrying, and advocating. You name it. But truly, deep down is that we do need to stop. For me, it's stopping the mental figuring out of everything. You know what it's like. Our minds are ever thinking, planning, processing, pondering, and caring. We have so much on our plates that our brain never turns off. It's hard to sleep at night; it's hard to get real rest. I have this tendency not to worry about the things I can't control. For instance, my son could have an unexpected shunt failure. I can tease the stuffing out of my daily tasks, insurance issues, and mundane medical details, trying to figure it out all on my own. After all, God gave me this child to care for; I'm going to do it to the best of my ability. But lately, I've been learning that one of the downsides of mentally trying to figure out everything on my own is exhaustion and caregiver fatigue, to the point where there are times that I just don't feel like I can care for one more thing. When we think about rest, we need to think about stopping. What is something that you need to stop doing? To give up, take a pause and think about it.

[3:54] The second part of that definition of rest can also mean "to celebrate." This might seem a little bit ironic also. But when God rested on the seventh day, and also at the end of every day of his creation, he took an evaluation of what he created, and he declared that it was good and very good. When was the last time you took the opportunity to celebrate how far God has brought you or one of those inch stones that your child has reached? What about the beauty of the day? If we don't take the time to notice, evaluate, and celebrate, we're just going to continue running on the hamster wheel. When we don't take the time to celebrate, we're also not recognizing God's goodness in our lives. Recognizing God's goodness is something that we're going to need in order to face the next things that come. The third part of that definition of rest means "to suffer to be lacking." Now that might seem a little bit confusing, but this is where we see everything that is left undone, and we suffer or struggle because we feel like we need to do it all. We feel this the most as special needs moms, when we look at our other children if you have them. Oftentimes we know we cannot spend as much time with the other kids because our child with special needs, whatever those might be, requires so much of our time, effort, and mental energy. This is where we need to remember two things. God never promised any of us an easy life. I know this might sound cold, but I think our kids are getting an amazing perspective. Sometimes we forget that we all have to learn that life is hard. We can't make our kids' lives have this smooth and easy path because it's actually not helping them. We also need to remember that their life experiences are teaching them to be patient, kind, and compassionate. I'm not saying that we are not attune to their needs, and that we don't allow them a voice to their frustration, and that we hear them out. Let's face it, life stinks sometimes, and they need a safe place to voice those concerns. That would be us or a trusted friend or counselor. The second thing about that is when we rest in relation to our kids; we realize that we have to leave the outcome in God's hands. Sally Breedlove says, "we find rest in the incompleteness of the present moment as we learn to recognize the goodness of what is and as we trust that what is needed for the future will be added at the proper time." This means that whatever tasks we're leaving undone, we feel like we can't be everything to everyone or do everything for everyone, that the outcome rests in his hands. 

[6:53] How do we rest? There is one spiritual practice that has been very beneficial for me lately in learning to rest. It's called benevolent detachment. I learned it from John Eldredge's One-Minute Pause app. What is it? On his website, he says, "with benevolent detachment, we are aiming for release, turning into the hands of God, whatever is burdening us and leaving it there." That's the key, isn't it, friends, that we turn over the things that are burdening us, the things we're caring for, and we're leaving it there. In the app, (I would encourage you to check it out), we practice praying the words, morning and evening, in a rhythm of rest. "I give everyone and everything to you, Lord." One of the things that I've learned in doing this practice is that this just doesn't mean what I'm concerned about or the burdens that I'm carrying. As a special needs mom, I can be concerned about a lot of things. What I realize is that I was holding back my daily plans, everything I have to accomplish in a day. God cares about our plans to and everything that we have to accomplish" the phone calls, the doctor's appointments, grabbing meals, deciding which therapy to choose or which therapy to step away from. He is asking you to invite Him into that space. Will you do that? The benevolent part of that word means kindness, something done in love. We are overloaded with empathy. Social media does this to us. If you're an empathetic person already, (this is me), then we get to the point where we are burned out and we just don't care anymore. We don't care because we don't have the space to care. Learning the practice of benevolent detachment, we're learning to turn everything over to him, everything that we care about, and leaving it there, so we have the soul space to care about the things that truly matter. 

[8:58] What does this look like practically? Well, I've been using my Kairos journal and the One-Minute pause app. Sometimes when the app is encouraging us to walk through that practice, I'll just make a list and make a list of all the things that I have to care about that day, things that are on my schedule. Then I pray, "Lord, I give everyone and everything to you." I want to ask you, what are you caring for today? What burdens are heavy on your heart? Pause the podcast right now and pray. Lord, I give everyone and everything to you. In closing, I want to share something that has been encouraging me lately. Toby Mac is one of our family's favorite Christian artists, and he just came out with a new album called Life After Death. If you're interested, it is truly an incredible album of his thoughts, emotions, and prayers through the gift of music, and in this music, there is lament, grief, and praise over the tragic death of his 21-year-old son. The last song on the album is actually just a little bit hidden away. It's actually my favorite. Do you want to know what the name of that song is? You guessed it; it's called Rest. In it, they read the verse from Isaiah 26:3, "You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts and you trust in the Lord forever. For the Lord God is an everlasting rock." Do you remember what it was like to hold your baby in your arms, or your toddlers, and they would give up their fight? They would just rest or fall asleep on you; their arms go limp. Their breathing would get deeper, the air would release from their lungs, and they would begin to sleep. This is what we need to do with God. The picture of our mind being stayed on him means to lean upon, lean against, and have God supporting us. I want to encourage you today to rest, dear one, climb up into the lap of God and give him all you care about, lean on his chest and listen as his heart beats in love and rhythm for you, and trust Him. He will keep us in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you. Just rest.