*culture is not optional

Warning: Shared burdens ahead

by Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma

Somehow, the month of rest turned into a month of insanity.

While the bi-weekly pressure was off to produce a well-rounded, thoughtful magazine issue, I somehow found myself engaged in a somewhat unbelievable scheme to establish a retail store start-to-finish in one month. Now the store is up and running, but there are still volunteers to coordinate, materials to design/print/mail?all of this on top of what was being neglected before the store. I can?t deny that I feel called to do what I?m doing, but how long will I be able to survive without true rest?

I should say that I did enjoy a brief rest toward the end of August when I had the pleasure of spending a day with my aunts. Amazing, wonderful women, they drove out from the Chicago suburbs on a Saturday morning only desiring to enjoy fellowship with us and pick up some Michigan peaches along the way. We talked and had lunch and talked some more and had dinner and talked again. Their wisdom and storytelling abilities never fail to refresh and humble me. In their presence, I can?t help myself?I remember how to laugh again. Even two of our friends who drove out from Chicago in time for supper and had never met my aunts before were immediately enchanted. And it was in that somewhat unlikely combination of people over the unlikely combination of steaks and almond cookies that I was able to breathe.

But right now, miles of road clogged with impenetrable traffic separate me from both my aunts and true rest. I?m a long way from those wintertime editorials musing on our snowy cloister. There is poetry in my head that will never get written down, sleep that will never be slept, stars that will never be noticed. I?m left feeling that I don?t have time to do anything really well

. And I?m left wondering?is it ever God?s will that we be perpetually exhausted, even when everything we?re doing is in an attempt to fully serve Him with all of our gifts? There are saints and role models on both sides of that issue.

In the meantime, I need help. I need the hands and feet of God to constantly remind me that the war has already been fought and won, that there are others doing good work for the same good cause, that the work I?m doing is worthwhile. And I need others who are equipped to choose a task from my overflowing basket of notes and to-do lists.

I?m sorry if this editorial is a downer?for me in one of my more lucid and energetic moments, see ?Waiting for the rising? in this issue. The fact is that I?m too young to feel as tired as I do right now and I need to find time and ways to heal.

Discussion topic: Well, is it?

What about the question in the article: is it ever God?s will that we be perpetually exhausted, even when everything we?re doing is in an attempt to fully serve Him with all of our gifts?