Ben Wilson, LPC

Here are the previous rest stops,  1  2  3  4  5  Check them out to get more of a sense of this journey. 

You are doing great to get to this place! It's hard work and worth celebrating to get to this sixth rest stop. You have come a long way. No doubt you feel energy knowing the distance you've traveled and no doubt your legs may feel weary from the length of that same journey and knowing there is still a ways to go. 

Rest is essential on this journey. I've come across some readings recently about the value of rest. Let's go to the favorite book in the bible for many of you, Leviticus :::dripping sarcasm:::  

Leviticus 25:3-4 says, Sow your fields, prune your vineyards, and take in your harvests for six years. But the seventh year the land will take a Sabbath of complete and total rest, a Sabbath to GOD; you will not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.

This recovering from infidelity is hard work. You wouldn't have made it about 3/4 of a year to this point if you weren't willing to engage in some hard work. It can be illuminating, freeing, frustrating and taxing all at once. But you can't go hard all of the time. It's important to take a break from all the sowing and pruning that you've been doing. Don't take a whole year :)  But rest. Leviticus goes on to talk about the ongoing rhythm of work and rest. 

Leviticus 25:8-9 Count off seven Sabbaths of yours--seven times seven years: Seven Sabbaths of years adds up to forty-nine years. Then sound loud blasts on the ram's horn on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement. Sound the ram's horn all over the land. Sanctify the fiftieth year; make it a holy year. Proclaim freedom all over the land to everyone who lives in it--a Jubilee for you...

God sets up an amazing rhythm to work and rest and when you go through that process over and over again after seven times he says take an extra year and make it really special. And so for you, trudging through the ups and downs of affair recovery it's important to get some rest and take some time off from the work while you are at this rest stop. 

While building a terrific marriage is a fifty year deal, healing from infidelity has a shorter duration. And that's a relief! It is significant that the Day of Atonement is mentioned. Both spouses need this Atonement from the Lion of Judah, Jesus. A rest stop is a place to be still and lean into what God is about in your life. 

It's not just scripture where the value of a rest extolled. Truth is truth and emerges in many places. I recently read Chrissie Wellington's, A Life Without Limits. Chrissie is a three-time Ironman World Champion. One doesn't get to that level of success in Ironmans (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run) by being a couch potato. 

Eventually, she learned the value of rest and has this to say about it,

The idea of rest flies in the face of every value I have lived by. I should be the last person to preach downtime, having indulged in so little of it during my life before triathlon, but I am fully converted now. I realize it is not the actual sessions of swim, bike and run that make you fitter, it is the periods you spend between, during which your body adapts and regenerates. That's why I say that I train 24/7--recovery is training. It's the most important part of it, in fact. 

So biking has been our main metaphor for this journey. Here we'll add swimming and running too. Work and rest. Your body and soul are designed just for that rhythm. The resting helps our marriage adapt and regenerate. Chrissie Wellington has been made aware of this and is reaping the benefits of three world titles. You can reap the benefits as well. You've worked hard to get here and now is the time to rest, replenish, experience the new strength you've developed and then head out on the next leg of the journey.