overdoing it: how we get back to equilibrium

the october 2022 newsletter

Three times this week I slept so terribly that I was a living illustration of why you shouldn’t operate machinery on only four hours of sleep. Machinery, of course, should be loosely interpreted to include any complicated operation involving things like moving vehicles, two-handled faucets, and putting pants on in the dark.

I walked upstairs with my arms full of clean laundry, a knitting project, a glass of water, and my phone. I’m holding water, so don’t lean over and spill it, I told myself. And wouldn’t you know, two seconds later I bent over to tuck the knitting into a basket and poured water all over the floor as I did so.

I’ve been recovering from several years of insomnia and thought I had it beat, but now I’m wondering again. I identify with this meme a lot:

Like most things any of us have to overcome, insomnia is a multifaceted beast. For me, it was triggered by several health issues, a baby who wasn’t sleeping through the night, and other noises that kept me awake. And the health situation was a real booger because I needed to sleep to heal, but I needed to heal so I could sleep. One of those issues has been cropping up again and I know this is the time to deal with it before it gets out of control.

When we’re alert enough to pay attention, we can live on offense to deal with these things before they take over and force us to live on defense, instead.

If you’ve read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, you’ll remember the concept called “quadrant 2.” (If you haven’t read this book, it’s one you should probably add to your list.) The author points out that we spend our time in four categories: Things that are urgent and important (like emergencies), things that are urgent but not usually important (like notifications and phone calls), things that are not urgent and not important (like busywork or video games), and things that are not necessarily urgent but important (like rest, prayer, reading, and other things that fill the lake).

This last category is quadrant 2, and it’s the preemptive strike that allows us to live on offense rather than defense. When we focus on what is important before it becomes urgent, we are preventing future crises and moving upstream to cultivate a better culture for ourselves and our communities.

Sounds great, right? It’s right up there with “Work smarter, not harder.” Then when emergencies do come, we’re better equipped to deal with them since our tank is full.

And here’s something else: Our tank has different compartments, don’t you think? Rest doesn’t just mean sleep. It also encompasses taking a break from activities or events or people. It can mean stepping away from certain responsibilities for a while. It involves setting boundaries with others and delegating. And it could also require carving some things off our list entirely so we have more margin to be alert and available to other things the Lord calls us to.

We must rest so we can be alert when we need to be. Too many days of up-too-late combined with up-for-hours-in-the-middle-of-the-night robs my days of the time I need to spend doing other things.

On Sunday when I’d only slept for an hour by 5:30 am, Vin tentatively walked into our room at 9 to see if I was going to make it to church.

“Let the potato rest,” I mumbled. (So if I usually see you on Sunday but didn’t last week, that’s why.)

The Lord knows we need downtime after we’ve overdone it. He’s designed us that way. And He knows we don’t always have a choice when it comes to overdoing. But He also withdrew to rest and napped in the boat during the storm. He knows there are circumstances out of our control that require our attention. And if we’re trying to do the right things in spite of it all, He knows that, too.

Did you hear that? If you’re trying and still not feeling like you’re getting it right, He knows. If you’re exhausted because things are out of your hands, He knows. (And if you’re just staying up way too late reading novels or foodie memoirs because you haven’t disciplined yourself to shut the book at a reasonable hour, He knows that, too...mea culpa.)

He is both more firm and more gracious to us than we are to ourselves.

When we’ve overdone it, we usually hit a point when we need to overdo it in the other direction to get back to equilibrium: We need more sleep than normal, more quiet than normal, more space from people than we would normally need to have. If we can’t keep our eyes open, we need to put the book away and turn off the light, no matter how much we want to read about Frodo’s journey or olive tapenade.

The Lord has designed us for peace and steadiness, but we often need to go in the opposite extreme to help us get there again.

For example, I was in the shower, freezing – had been cold all day, my feet were ice – and I turned the water way up, and then up again. And again. I didn’t just want to be warm, I wanted to be as far from cold as I could get. I wanted to be warmer than I normally needed to be, because I was colder than I should’ve been.

(Sidenote: Every Alaskan knows that this is not what you do for hypothermia, but I wasn’t hypothermic, just stupidly cold.)

And there was plenty of hot water. I thanked God for it; there are plenty of people who don’t have the luxury of long, overheated showers.

This isn’t the only thing I’ve overdelivered on, He said, and it won’t be the last, either.

He immediately brought to mind the abundance of time He’s given us to recover from the hard years post-adoption. We had no time in those years because Vin was commuting 60 hours a week and every day was a sprint of hypervigilant survival amid the trauma and mayhem of almost a dozen special needs. But suddenly, out of nowhere, God gave us time we never dreamed was possible. It’s come with a cost for sure, but He has given us more time to recover than it seems like we should have needed – because we really have needed it, and He really knows what we need better than we do.

He overdelivers where we would cut corners, sell ourselves short, and tell ourselves to suck it up. Whether it’s with cold, or time, or rest, or any other lack that is the opposite of His design for us, He often sends us the extreme opposite direction until we find equilibrium again. He is out to dismantle our religious mindsets of getting by with just barely enough, and is countering them with the truth of His abundantly more than we can ask or imagine.

You’ve seen it with sleep – it’s why if you pull 20 hour days for too long, you’ll suddenly sleep for twelve or more hours every night as soon as you get the chance. Your body knows you need it, and if you don’t get it, that same body will force the issue and demand it in all sorts of unpleasant, dangerous ways. Been there, done that, got the echocardiogram to prove it.

So we need to listen and take advantage of the Lord’s opportunities rather than keep plowing forth on autopilot, ignoring our need for rest. Because, friends, if you think you don’t need rest (or warmth, or time, or provision, or anything else the Lord has designed you to need), you might want to check who you’re actually worshiping.

We don’t want to shrink back from what He is calling us into. We want to live in wholeness, desiring all that God has for us, not just selective parts while clinging to manageable mediocrity in other areas. Because we are made to reign:

For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

– Romans 5:17

And because we are called to live as overcomers:

Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

– Luke 10:19-20

But to reign and overcome, we need to live on offense, not defense. And that means we need to rest, allowing the Lord to give us more than we think we need.

We might need to go extreme to get back to equilibrium. This is one of the ways He equips us, because – speaking of extremes – He will give us more than we think we can handle, too. And we need to be ready for it.

Praying for you,

Shannon

P.S. Updates around here:

• Attention movie nerds, fans, and enthusiasts: You might want in on this! Movie Fight Club is open to everyone and it’s a ton of fun. Vin started this two years ago on another site he used to write for, and it quickly became one of the most popular weekly events for the members there. Now he’s moved it to his own venue so everyone can fight, and I hope you’ll join us. :)

• Local friends! You can now find our books at both Chickadee Gift Boutique in the Clock Tower, and Wagon Wheel on the Parks Highway. These are wonderful local businesses and we’re super happy to partner with them.

P.P.S. Links for you this month!

• Got questions about quail? Want to know how it’s going around here? And hey, where’s Kebab? (He was delicious.) Here’s a six minute video on how we raised our second batch of quail in our bathroom (!) from incubation to harvest in just 2 months.

• How does music make plants grow bigger? Sure wish this worked for chocolate.

• Do you know what narrating is? It's just making information that you've learned your own, and it’s a terrific tool for homeschoolers, students, and (cough) well, nerds like us. Here's a great example.

• A fun prepping video: This was fascinating and encouraging (some salty language).

• Interesting and important: There’s more and more evidence coming out that shows vaccines for pets are just as overused and dangerous as vaccines for everyone else.

• Great post here from Mr. Guerra: Have you noticed an uptick in significant dreams lately?

• How does the Kingdom of God respond to the threat of nuclear war? This was an amazing teaching, full of practical info and spiritual equipping we need right now.

• If you are doing early Christmas shopping, check out our Wholesale option. Keep in mind that media mail is taking about a full month to deliver from Alaska to the States, so if you want to save on shipping as well as save 40% on your signed books, now is a great time to order.

• What kind of guilt trip does the attitude of anti-farming burden our kids with, and what can we do about it? This was a great article by Joel Salatin.

• Aaaand...we celebrated our 25th anniversary this month. Here’s 5 minutes of oversharing: old photos, bad haircuts, tiny kids, several cats, one dog, and lots of Alaskan adventures. xo