Rest in the Process 🤍🦋

Healing isn’t just about doing the work.

Sometimes it’s about allowing yourself to rest while God restores your strength.

Day 24- Rest in the Process 🤍

#40DaysToWholeness #BeautifulMe #HealingJourney #FaithAndHealing #EmotionalHealing #RestAndRestore #MentalHealthMatters

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Good morning, good morning, good morning, my family, and welcome back to the Beautiful Me Empowerment Ministry Podcast. I'm your host, Monique Anderson. And today I just want to give God praise. It has been a rough couple of days. Uh you would have noted that I have not done a recording. It has been, like I said, it has been a few couple of days, but I was reminded just now that God is my fortress. He is our fortress. He is our backative. He is our strength. He is our keeper. He is our healer. He is our father, our teacher, our friend. And he is faithful to carry us through every season of our lives. And so this morning, you know, I woke up and I said, God, I have to. I really want to be obedient. And I really want to make sure that I am putting God first and I am putting God's business first. Because beautiful me empowerment ministry, it is not Monique's ministry, it is God's ministry. And at the end of it all, He gets the honor, He gets the glory, He gets the praise. And so uh I want to thank you for everyone who has reached out for those persons who have been tuning in day in, day out. I appreciate you, I appreciate the comments, I appreciate you sharing with others, and I do pray that you know God is doing his work in you, that you will surrender to his will for your life, and that you will invite the Holy Spirit in those places and those spaces of your heart, your mind, your body, your soul, your spirit, and allow him to you know complete his work. We are all a work in progress, and you know, process can be hard, especially when you are in waiting seasons for a very long time. Trusting the process can be really hard, but I just want you to know that it is all worth it to trust the master, the master potter with your life. Hallelujah! So, Father, this morning we come before your presence with thanksgiving in our hearts. Father, you are indeed an amazing God, you are such a good, good father. We really appreciate you. We appreciate, oh God, your intentionality towards us. We thank you this morning that you are our fortress, that you are our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. Father, we praise you this morning, God, because you are indeed faithful in every single season of our lives. You are the God who sustains us when we feel tired, and you are the God who strengthens us when we feel weak. Father, today we lift up our eyes to the hills from whence cometh our help. Where does our help come from? Our help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. You will not suffer our foot to be moved because you are our keeper, and you who keepeth us, you will not slumber nor sleep. The sun shall not smite us by day, nor the moon by night, because you have and you shall preserve our soul even forevermore. Our help comes from you. So, Daddy God, today we lift up our eyes to you, and we thank you for carrying us through this journey called life and this journey called healing. We thank you, God, for carrying us through different seasons, different stages of our lives, Abba Father. God, we thank you for every step forward. We thank you, God, for every breakthrough. We thank you, God, for every moments of restoration, oh God, and divine alignment this morning. Father, we thank you for the courage you've given us to face what once felt impossible to confront. We thank you, Abba Father, for every person. I thank you, God, for every single person this morning. I thank you for their lives. I thank you for their families. I thank you for their businesses. I thank you for their ministry. And I thank you this morning, oh God, for what you're doing even in this moment in their lives. I want to thank you that you're the God who sees, the God who knows, the God who hears, and the God who answers. I want to thank you this morning, God, that we are seen, we are heard, and we are fully known by you, our Father. Hallelujah. Fully known and loved by you. And even in this moment, oh God, I recommit this ministry to you. I recommit myself to you. I recommit my life to you. And everything that concerns me. Father, I ask for forgiveness for the moments, oh God, when I've allowed self and doubt and fear and anxiety to creep in. Procrastination. Disobedience. I ask for forgiveness this morning. Almighty God, I ask you to wash and cleanse me. And remove everything from me, God, that is not of you, that does not reflect you, Abba Father. Cleanse me with hyssop. With the hyssop of your blood, and I shall be whiter than snow. Father, thank you one more time for the opportunity. Oh God. To pour in. I avail myself to be used by you. Abba Father. For your glory. I thank you, God, for every listener this morning. For those who feel tired in their healing process. I pray, oh God, this morning that you will remind them that they do not have to carry everything alone. Because your word says, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. And so today we come with our emotions, we come with our memories, we come with our questions, and we lay them down at your feet, Abba Father, and we declare even in this moment that you are restoring our strength, you are restoring our mind, and you are healing our heart. Even when we pause, we believe that you are still working in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. Hallelujah. Many people think that healing requires constant effort, but today I want to let you know that healing requires rest as well. And so today our topic is resting in the process when God heals while you pause, and the Holy Spirit, some persons would say one sweet Holy Spirit, because I I had to rest to be honest with you. Hence the reason I did not share the past two days or so. I had to break, I had to pause, I had to rest. For those persons who don't know, I am hosting a conference in my hometown, in my community, and you can only imagine how planning a conference, how taxing it can be on your mind, body, soul, and spirit. There are so many different parts to it that you know they all need to come together. You know how God is able to coin every single area, every single part of our lives, and cause it to come together for our good, cause it to work together for our good. It is the same in planning a conference where you know all the different pieces, the speakers, the persons providing the catering, the um the persons doing the prayers, the the praise and worship, the items, the the travel, just everything, you know. And so sometimes as you go through that process, there are certain other areas of ministry that may have to pause, you know, while God is putting together all of these other pieces to cause them together to work for good. And so this morning, I like I said, you know, I felt some type of way because I I didn't do the recording, but he is reminding me that it is important to rest, right? Healing requires healing, healing. Sometimes people think that healing requires constant effort, but and you know it doesn't. We think that it requires the constant processing, the constant reflection, the constant emotional work. But the truth is healing does require rest. You cannot process pain every moment, you cannot carry emotional weight without a pause. Because then what is gonna happen is your mind, your body, and your spirit, you're gonna be burnt out. So those places, those spaces need space to recover. So your mind needs space to recover, your body needs space to recover, your spirit needs space to recover. It's just like physical healing. Physical healing requires rest for the body, right? Emotional and spiritual healing also requires rest for the soul, and it doesn't mean that you you've given up, or it doesn't mean that you are quitting, it simply means that rest is part of the process. And I reminded one of my girls the other day of the fact that from the beginning of creation, God established the principle of rest, and we see this in Genesis 2, verse 2, where after God created the world, he rested on the seventh day, and we know God, it is not because God was tired, but it was because rest is a rhythm built into life, and later he also established the Sabbath as a reminder that human beings were not designed to function without pause. We live in a fast-paced world, and everything is going by so quickly, and we tend to feel that rest is failure, and and and and by going and going and going and going, we think that that is success, and we we think that that is an accomplishment and that is an achievement, but to what end? Because whilst you're going and going and going and going, there's some form of depletion taking place in your body, and the body has a way of just literally shutting down because if you don't rest, if you don't stop, if you don't pause, your body will do it for you, and you may very well the money that we are um in so much of a hurry to make, and all the the businesses, and even the ministry. When your body shut down, somebody's going to pick up the slack and the finance it. Somebody not not necessarily the slack, the slack, but somebody is going to run with the baton. God always sends help, and even the money that we are chasing after while we won't rest. Don't be surprised when that body shut that body shuts down. That same money, you're gonna have to use it to pay medical bills. So pause is important. Rest is important. You are not designed to function without pause. Rest restores strength, rest restores clarity, restores perspective. Jesus invited the weary to rest. In Matthew 11, 28 to 29, he said, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Jesus spoke directly to He was speaking directly to people who felt overwhelmed by life. Is that how you are feeling this morning? Overwhelmed by everything. Because in my in my gratitude check the other day, you know, I mentioned the fact that life is life in, but there is something that is so amazing that even though life is life in, God is guiding, and it is important that you rest. Sorry, whoo, Sam, Matthew 11, 28 to 29. God is basical, it's an invitation where Jesus is saying, Come, come to me when you have come to me when you have everything figured out. That's not what he's saying. Instead, he's saying, Come to me when you are weary, he's saying, Come when the journey feels heavy, he's saying, Come when life feels overwhelming. He's inviting us into rest. And as I said, it's not that he's saying that we should come to him when we have it all figured out, and that is what we try to do. We try to figure everything out, and we rest, and we feel like if we pause, it you know, it's like we fail, like pausing is a weakness. It is not, it is not. Jesus invites us to rest, God is inviting us to rest. Emotionally, healing requires the brain and nervous system to process difficult memories and experiences, right? Processing requires energy. And one day a student said to me, they said, Miss, your work seems easy. All you do is talk to children and and adults and and write notes, you know, or um do admin stuff. Your work is easy, and I said to I smiled and I said to the student, I said, It may seem easy, however, the brain, my brain is constantly working because if I see 10 kids per day, I'm seeing 10 different children, they may have similar challenges, however, it cannot be the same solution for all 10 issues that they present. So it means that my brain is constantly trying to process how I can help this one. And they were like, Whoa, miss. And I didn't even mention, you know, to them that yes, you may see Miss Money going, going, going every day, and and even any other counselor, any other therapist, any other job, our brain is constantly going, and it really and truly takes a lot of energy to process everything. Processing requires energy, and sometimes when I come home, let me tell you something. When I open my door, especially on a Friday evening, my shoulder blades just start hurting, and I I feel like I have boulders carrying on my shoulder. Because the thing is, when you're when when you don't pause, so during the week, when you're going and you're going and you're going and you're going, right? Is and you don't pause, you don't feel the weight of with of that which you're carrying. It is on the weekend now when you have to slow down, you have to rest, and I just feel so heavy. And so uh a pastor had reached out to me because, truth be told, I could not understand at one point in time in my journey why every Friday evening I felt so weighty, I felt so heavy, and as soon as I opened my door, I would start bawling down the whole place, and I couldn't understand it because I'm like, but God, nothing didn't happen to me today, you know, things may not be 100, but I'm okay. So why am I crying down the whole place? Like for the whole weekend, I would go into a space of depression. I would the anxiety would kick in. I mean, I would be crying in the shower, uh, I I would be crying for hours, and I remember the Holy Spirit. And trust me, when I say one sweet Holy Spirit, oh my god, the Holy Spirit would just place me in the mind or in the thought of this uh minister, and he called me one day and he said, Monique, I know you have questions, and I said, Yes, and he said, The weight that you carry on the weekend, and I'm like, Okay, he said, it is just the weight of every single person that you carry throughout the week, and it all began to make sense. He said, When you're going during the week, you don't pause, you don't rest, nothing, you're just going. But on the weekend, you have to pause, and so everything comes down. And he said to me, He said, This is what you do in the afternoons when you get home, give it to God. As the scripture says, Lay down every weight. He said, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Lay it all down. Talk to God about it in the night, in the evenings, when you come home, and just release it. And I started doing that, and I realized how much it changed. That pause, it may seem simple, but that pause when you get home from work in your little quiet place, in your little quiet time with God, where you just say, Okay, God, I am handing over to you all of today, everything that I carry. One of the things that I do, especially on my therapy Tuesday, is I do box breathing where I ask persons to just inhale for four seconds. Inhale every single thing that you're carrying, and then for four, just feel it, let it sit for four seconds, and then release it all as you exhale for four seconds, and then just bask in the peace of the almighty God, and you would be surprised to see how that little pause can literally reset your nervous system because that's what rest does, and rest does not necessarily mean a week or a month or or or A year it can just be a minute, five minutes, ten minutes where you just release. It allows the brain to integrate new experiences and new ways of thinking, right? It is regulation, it helps to restore emotional balance. So rest is important. Sometimes we feel guilty when we need rest. We feel like we should be stronger. We feel like we should be doing more. But rest can actually be an act of faith. Rest says, God, I am trusting you in the pause to continue working. It recognizes that healing does not depend solely on human effort. God is actively involved in the process, even when we rest, He continues the work inside us. I'm so grateful for the Holy Spirit this morning because honestly, I got up off my bed this morning and I sat and I was there and I was like, God, I have not recorded. You know, I have not recorded, but I was just there and I was like, when I wake up in the morning, I just feel so exhausted. And I was there and I was saying, God, I'm not praying. Like two weeks ago, I would be up and I would I would be praying for for an hour, like I would be seeking you, and I'm like, but I'm not doing that. And I felt so guilty, not even realizing that today's topic would have been about rest. One sweet Holy Spirit, and I'm so grateful. As I've said to you, people of God, that as I go through the journey, and as the Holy Spirit would speak to me and download in me each morning when I pour out, He is helping me first, or somewhere as I go through the recording, like those little areas that I am struggling with too. So don't think that you're alone. Don't look at Miss Monique. I'm saying Miss Monique, don't look at Miss Mo, like the kids would say. Don't say, don't say, well, Monique seemed to have it all together. I don't have it all together. I am still figuring out life as I go along. I'm still trying to maneuver just as you are, and I am still healing. Right now, I'm in a chapter of my life that is most terrifying. And every night I go to God and I'm like, okay, God, here I am again. You know, I am going to be like that persistent widow. I am going to be coming to you like how she went to the judge, and she was so persistent because she needed answers. So I tell God in the nights, I said, God, this chapter of my life, it is very new, it is very scary, and I overthink and I'm learning not to do it. I'm learning to regulate my emotions. Amen. But I go to him and I say, God, I'm coming back to you again with this. This is new, this is scary. You know, help me. I need answers. Where do I go? What do I do? What do I say? When do I say? How do I say? So I am on a journey myself, and it is not easy. I am I am learning, the Holy Spirit is teaching me, and I have mentioned this before. One of the things that I say, I said, Holy Spirit, take me to school. I am teachable, I want to learn, right? And God has really been using this podcast every episode, and He has been teaching me, right? And sometimes when I record, honestly, I I am sometimes in such a low place and a low space. But God, He gives strength for the journey, yeah. And I thank God this morning that the Lord has reminded me that it is okay, Mo. It is okay that you took the few days' pause, it is okay to feel tired. It is okay, and to remind myself that I am allowed to rest. So if you are listening today and you feel emotionally tired, I want you to know that you are allowed to rest. Pat yourself on your shoulder, call your name, and say, for example, I'm gonna say mo, you are allowed to rest. Rest doesn't mean that you are giving up, it means you are care caring for the strength, you will need to continue. Healing is not a race, it is a journey, and every journey requires moments where you pause, breathe, and regain strength. So today I'm encouraging you, take a moment and ask yourself: have I allowed myself time to rest during my healing journey? Am I trying to carry more emotional weight than I was meant to hold at once? What would it look like for me to pause and let God restore my strength? Thank you, God. Hallelujah, Father. We want to thank you for reminding us that rest is part of healing. Help us to release the pressure we carry, the pressure to carry everything at once and restore our strength, renew our mind, and continue the work of wholeness in each and every one of us. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. Healing does not only happen in the work, just remember that sometimes it happens in the rest, and God is with you in both. I also want to take this opportunity this morning to thank you again for tuning in, and I want to invite you to my birthday Zoom YouTube channel and book launch party. It is tomorrow night, Friday, the 27th of March at 7:30 US Canada time. 6:30 Jamaica K-Man time. I will share the Zoom link tomorrow in the recording. And just keep the conference in prayer if you are led to do so. The conference will be in Jamaica on the 4th of April. If you can sponsor an adult or a child, thank you. If you cannot, just keep us all in prayer. I am believing God for something massive in my community. I am going large, I am believing him for big. I am expecting big. Amen. So I want you to agree with me on that. Remember that healing isn't just about doing the work, sometimes it's about allowing yourself to rest while God restores your strength. God bless you and have an amazing day. And just remember, I love you, but God loves you even more. Like, share, and follow this ministry. Blessings.