​It is possible, I suppose, for me to believe that life had no creator. That life is in one way or another an accident of sorts.

I don't believe that. But there is no great distance between those who do believe it and me who does not.

What I can't come to see as an accident, however, no matter how far my imagination allows me to go, is love. Love to me feels too far beyond an accident; love just had to overwhelm one so deeply that the one couldn't help but long to share it.

Couldn't help but re-create it.

I feel quite lucky to believe that, honestly. Lucky because I never wanted children and yet there he was, my firstborn, me staring at him just a few hours old, overwhelmed by something I had never in my life experienced.

Not like that.

Love.

And in the very midst of that wave, as if they were one in the same, the only thing I could think and feel was God. I didn't invited God into the emotion. I didn't intentionally ponder if this feeling was somehow connected to God. God simply showed up, barged in, as if dying to make sure I knew there is no difference in this thing I was feeling and the God who created it.

As if needing, in the most powerful way he ever had, to make sure I knew that my own life was a creation made out of God and this love.

It has been over 18 years since then. And today I will watch that first child walk across a stage and accept a high school diploma. There will surely be many emotions. But my intention will be to sift through them to find the one I most want to focus on.

Gratitude.

Gratitude, for even though in many ways I still have no idea what I believe about this life, I know beyond any doubt of my own what love is.

And I do know that if God created your life, he most certainly must love mine.

My life changed drastically just over 18 years ago. No graduation will add even a single thing to that. But it will indeed serve as a powerful reminder. A reassurance beyond any assurance one could ever see coming....

Love.

Love beyond anything I will ever be able to see as accidental. 

​You graduate tomorrow. If I could give you one gift it would be to assure you that after you graduate high school, life is a downhill journey.

Smooth sailing.

Easy it goes.

But I'm afraid that promise would pretty quickly turn into a lie. At least that has been my experience.

So instead of assurance I'll offer some advice - or maybe we'll just call it encouragement; enjoy those trips down the steps. And even more, as much as you can, find ways to enjoy the steps when they start feeling more like a climb.

For the real joy in life is coming to know the greatest joy comes AFTER a climb. ​

We have climbed mountains to see the joy of sunrise.

We have climbed roller coasters to feel the joy of the hands-raised downhill races into nowhere.

We have run 5Ks to feel the joy of the finish line.

You see, the trick to life is to not get scared off when the steps start going up. Don't be intimidated. DO NOT let life become a bully. Don't allow yourself to believe that life is suddenly out of order when life starts to feel uphill.

Because that IS the order.

Uphill-Downhill.

Struggle-Growth.

Ashes-Beauty.

I've come to believe that is about the only predictable thing in life. It is life's only real version of order.

Uphill-Downhill.

My hope - oh, my very deepest prayer - is that your life won't encounter many of the uphills mine has.

I hope your uphill resume doesn't come to include battles with substances, battles with your mental health, battles with countless broken relationships.

But it if does, I hope you will at least take a glance at me and see a man still climbing. A man always throwing punches back when life starts punching. And every once in awhile - still - a man raising his hands on the downhill races to nowhere, joy and laughter pouring from his downhill soul.

You don't always get a say in your uphills - when they show up and what they look and feel like when they arrive - but you always get to choose what you say to the uphill when it shows up, or even when you mistakenly choose the uphill path.

So, say to your uphills, "if you're here to defeat me, well, that's not going to happen. But if you're here to grow me, well then, let's go."

Let's go, because I know a downhill is coming.

​"Time me running the bases, dad," he begged.

Time.

It can be such a game.

I hit start on the watch. He ran around those bases, fully aware the seconds were ticking away. Trust me, dad was watching those seconds, too.

He stood there. Suddenly back in front of me. Staring. Too young and anxious to know the answer to know how out of breath he was.

"How fast, dad?"

I don't remember how fast. But I know I told him he'd just ran the bases faster than any human ever had. You're now a world record holder, buddy.

That's the fun age. The age when dad gets to invite time to play a part in the fun. And when time is humble enough to allow dad his superhero moment. When time lets a superhero dad make his kid feel like a superhero.

Yet, sometimes time doesn't play along. Sometimes time doesn't tell you the rules of the game.

Time did not tell me the clock would keep running as he ran around those bases, and then one day around a high school track, until he finally slows just enough to march up on a graduation stage.

A stage where it will suddenly feel like time is now the superhero.

I could be mad at time, I suppose. But isn't it time that is giving me this moment right now? This image time stamped in me from well over a decade ago. To recall with sweet clarity. To the point of inhaling once again the dust in his tracks. To be overwhelmed again by the joy of a tiny world record holder.

It's time traveling, like only a superhero dad could do.

Time steals, I think. But maybe in some way time feels bad about that - because time always seems to find a way to give back what it has taken.

Give back, that is, if we are willing to humbly let time play the role of the superhero from time to time. If we are willing to treat time as our friend and not our enemy.

So, Saturday will come. And Elliott will touch another base in this game time has been playing with me. And although I still don't know all of the rules of this game, I am forever grateful for my friendship with time.

​There’s a scene early in Jerry Maguire where Jerry has a crisis of conscience and writes a 25-page mission statement titled, “The Things We Think and Do Not Say: The Future of Our Business.”

Jerry thinks his colleagues will celebrate him for his honesty and boldness.

They do not.

In a dramatic (and forced) quitting scene, Jerry bags up the office goldfish and proclaims -like he’s accepting an Oscar -“I am starting something new and the fish are coming with me. If anyone else wants to come with me, this moment will be the moment of something real, and fun, and inspiring in this God-forsaken business and we will do it together. Who's coming with me?"

His colleagues stare at him like he’s lost his mind (in fairness, the audience probably agrees).

No one follows. No one except the meek and mild Dorothy Boyd.

The scene ends as these two lost souls walk out of the office together.

On one hand, you’re left thinking, What are you doing, Jerry? Especially those of us who’ve made emotional decisions that later proved to be FOOLISH emotional decisions.

But on the other hand, those of us who’ve been the foolish underdog can’t help but root for them.

Mike Birbiglia once said, “I find that if I write in my journal what I'm saddest about or angriest about, I can start to see my life as a story. And if you start to see your life as a story, you can start to encourage the main character to make better decisions.”

I think that’s great advice.

To start seeing ourselves as characters in a story.

Because so many movie scenes pull us from our seats - anxious and relieved, saddened and hopeful - because we care about the choices the characters make.

We leave the theater totally invested in their outcomes.

But how often do we look at the story of our life with that same intensity? That same hope? That same cheering-them-on spirit?

How often do we pause long enough to celebrate our own boldness - or ask ourselves, what are you doing?

Yes, Jerry Maguire is just a movie. But it resonated because parts of that story are tangled up in our own.

Maybe we turn to movies for escape a little too often when they instead could be reminders to lean back into the plotlines of our own stories.

In the end, Jerry does rebuild his career. And Jerry and Dorothy discover they “complete” each other. It’s a happy ending.

We all deserve that kind of ending.

And no one should be a bigger cheerleader for that happy ending than you.

It’s easy to say to a screen, I’ll go with you, Jerry.

But are you willing to go with yourself?

I hope you are.

I’m cheering you on. 

​I know my writing is a gift from God. I know it because many days thoughts and words come to my heart and then to my mind and then to paper that could never get there if it was totally dependent on me.

I think, feel, and understand things in ways I never did before I understood God.

This gift - writing - it is a beautiful thing.

Beautiful, that is, until I start believing the gift is THE thing.

Some mornings I don't write. And if I'm being honest, I feel guilty those mornings. Sometimes very guilty. A guilt that has little to do with you the reader who may have desired to read something that didn't arrive, or me the writer who gets great fulfillment out of having written something one might read.

No, the guilt comes from this feeling that I denied God the chance to use my gift in the way he desired it to be used that day. Which, in some strong ways, can leave me feeling more loved by God on the days I write than on the days that I do not.

I believe we are all susceptible to these feelings. Feelings that come from losing sight of God's greatest gift to us.

His love.

And the second greatest gift - not far behind - our recognizing and receiving and treasuring that love.

Neither of those gifts require more from us than us sitting in a quiet place alone, feeling God's love, and echoing it back.

I love you too, God.

Have my sons ever done anything more beautiful with my love, any act or any project that meant more to me than hearing - I love you too?

No.

It is true that God wants to use my writing - his gift to me - to share him and his love with the world. But God wants me to do that as a reflection of his loving me and not as the pathway to him loving me.

This gift God has given me isn't to be used to gain a bigger gift, it is to showcase the most beautiful truth that I've already received the biggest gift of all.

His love.

Maybe there are days when we all feel like we aren't doing enough with the gifts God has given us. I would encourage you on those days or in those moments to sit in a quiet place and thank God for the greatest gift of all.

Thank him not with an article.

Thank him not with a mission trip.

Thank him not with a donation to the poor.

Thank him, simply, by saying - I love you too.

I love you too, God - little fuels the tank and the desires to do more with the gifts you've been given.

​A gardener holds a seed in his palm. He loves the seed and fears what the soil might do to it. So he polishes it, protects it, keeps it safe. But it never grows. In saving the seed, he sacrificed the tree.

It's the story of so many lives. Sacrifice, the brave thing, the key to life, becomes the grave thing. That which we avoid. Refuse. Until death.

In maybe his most radical invitation ever, Jesus once said: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”

Jesus was essentially saying, true life is only found on the other side of surrender.

Many centuries after Jesus offered his invitation, P.T. Barnum would say, comfort is the enemy of progress."

Today is a day that we honor the sacrifices of many. That is a good and worthy thing to do. But while doing so, it may also be a good day to take measure of - to meditate on - our own willingness to sacrifice.

To ask, is my unwillingness to sacrifice holding me back in life.

Is my unwillingness to sacrifice ego standing in my way of growth? Growth demands humility: the willingness to admit we’re wrong, to be stretched, to fail in front of others. When we won’t sacrifice ego we stay stuck at the edge of change, never stepping into the refining fire that growth requires.

You can’t heal what you pretend doesn’t hurt. And you can’t grow what you refuse to look deeply at.

Refusing to change can be it's own grave sacrifice.

We say we want more joy, more peace, more connection. But when it comes time to put down the phone, say no to the drink, speak the hard truth, get out of bed early, or walk away from comfort food or numbing behavior - we tell ourselves we’re not ready.

And maybe we’re not. But the longer we wait, the more we sacrifice. We think we’re preserving comfort, but we’re trading away life.

What if the thing you’re clinging to isn’t keeping you alive… it’s keeping you from coming alive?

Jesus didn’t come to just make us morally better. He came to make us fully alive. But the road to life passes through the grave of old patterns.

And what about the sacrifices we refuse to make that quietly stand in our way of intimacy - whether with God, others, or even ourselves?

Like sacrificing the need to be right.

Like hiding behind strength and sarcasm and self-sufficiency to avoid the sacrifice of revealing the soft sides of ourselves.

Like holding on to secrets to avoid sacrificing the need for hard conversations, sacrificing the possibility that hidden wounds become our own vulnerable and naked truth.

Secrets don't preserve intimacy, they slowly kill it.

We say we want intimacy, but we often want it on our terms. We want love without vulnerability. Connection without disruption.
But intimacy doesn’t grow in safety, it grows in surrender.

ALL life grows in surrender.

We live in a world that wants to offer us the latest hack, the latest secret to comfort, the 'simplest' paths to navigate life.

Then you get older and wiser like me, and one day you realize there are no hacks, there is no simple solution to comfort. There is no easy path. The greatest sacrifice of all is giving up the pursuit of the easy path and looking for sacrifices.

For sacrifice has been, is, and will forever be the only answer.

Today, I honor the bravery of those who have sacrifice all.

And at the same time, write a warning to myself and anyone who like me who might need to hear it - that there is a gravery (my word) in avoiding sacrifice.

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” — Jim Elliot

There is no foolishness in sacrifice; yet much in running from it.

​We don't have much control in this life. Not in the grand scheme of things. But one thing we can almost always control is our focus.

Where will I focus my attention?

One critical choice we get to make about our focus each and every day is this: will I focus on what I have, or focus on what I lack. And if it's the latter, if I focus on what I lack, well that always begs an even deeper question - do I really lack that person, place or thing - or have I simply convinced myself I do?

Gratitude protects us from believing that more is the only way we'll ever feel whole. And yet, being forever focused on more might be what most stands in our way of ever feeling truly grateful for what we have.

Grateful isn't a gift. We don't wake up one day magically overwhelmed with a sense of appreciation for the life we have. No, gratitude is an intention. It's a skill. It's a practice.

It is a practice to look at a broken life and see I am not nearly as broken as I once was. It is a practice to look at the trail of my failures and misgivings and glean from them the wisdom that can only be gained through failures and misgivings. Did they really indeed leave me without a chance at life, or did they prepare me for opportunities otherwise impossible?

We get to choose the answer, practice it, every day.

It is a practice to write in the morning and acknowledge that I write not because I am a writer but because I have been given the gift of writing. Gratitude is often the difference between simply doing something and being blessed by the chance to do it.

And we get to choose, every day, actually practice it - am I doing or am I blessed?

We get to look at our children, each day, and decide, is my joy found in what they might one day become or in who they already are? Is my blessing found in being a great dad - or in the great gift of getting to be a dad at all?

I get to choose. Every day.

I believe most days that when all we have is all we ever wanted, we indeed have all we ever wanted.

That is not to say there is harm in wanting more. Or to suggest that everyone has enough. But life can quickly become, if we are not careful, a habit of seeing life through the lens of not enough.

Never ever enough.

And if you believe like I do, that gratitude is the quickest path to wholeness, that's a risky bad habit to fall into. An unhealthy lens.

We don't have much control in this life. Not in the grand scheme of things. But one thing we can almost always control is our focus.

​In a little over a week Elliott graduates high school. Obviously, that makes an already reflective dad quite reflective. I've been going through some old blog posts this week. I came across this one from 2009. Over 16 years ago. And I am sitting here wondering - does this capture one of my best or worst dad moments?🤣🤷‍♂️

I may re-read and ponder that one until the day I die. With pride.

I also wonder, like many of you with pending graduations, where on earth does time go?

**

We started another round of sleep training with Elliott this past weekend. Elliott routinely abandons his bed in the middle of the night for more luxurious accommodations next to his daddy. Now I admit, the last time we tried to break this habit I caved in like a sandcastle under a tsunami wave. No matter how many times I carried the boy back to his bed it amounted to nothing more than the first leg of a round trip vacation, accomodations included. I'd put him in his room and close the door (back before he could reach the doorknob) and he would scream and pound on the hinged blockade until even the door was begging for me to bring him back to bed. So I did.

Many months have passed since those days. And what seemed like the simplest way to maximizing sleep for all of us has turned into a nightmare, literally. I believe everyone in the house has been sleeping more but me, at least as far as Elliott's influence goes. I have been hugged and tugged and kicked nightly into a state of sleep deprivation that is nothing short of a winter hibernation's cure away. Only I'm unwilling to wait for snow to fly; it's time to go on the offensive.

We set Friday as the official start of operation "sleep in your own bed." It put a bit of a damper on the traditional Friday evening Cici's pizza trip. It felt more like a family gathered for an inmate's final meal on death row the day of his execution. Only in this case, the inmate was the only one unaware of the execution. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. There were stickers after all - the sure cure for every child development challenge. Katie had done an illusionary job of convincing Elliott that skipping out on bedtime dates with daddy was a small price to pay for a paper lion whose backside was coated in glue. A lion that would forever mark his first night sleeping alone on a homemade refrigerator calendar titled Elliott's Sleep Chart.

I didn't have high hopes for the sticker method but I supported it nonetheless. I think it is wise, though, to have back-up plans. Mine was a large gate. I knew Elliott could open the door now and just in case he wasn't totally sold on conforming in the name of stickers, I thought imprisonment would be a good plan B. Boy was I wrong.

Elliott went down to bed as usual. And as usual, he showed up at my bedside shortly after midnight ready to climb in. I escorted him back to his room, tucked him back in, and encouraged him to stay there: "remember the stickers." Five minutes later I heard the creak of the door that is ever present in my nightmares. I met him halfway along the path from his door to my bedside and again showed him back to his room. But this time I put up the gate; it was time for the big artillery.

I made my way back to bed to the screams of Elliott's protests. He had obviously spent very little time behind bars before. The situation had escalated. He began to pound on the gate and from a distance you could tell an escape attempt was underway. I smiled at the thought of his futility. I had barely quit smiling when the house went quiet and I transitioned into a victory celebration. And then there he was - standing next to my bedside with that look of contentment he gets just before he climbs up next to me and smothers me with tugs, kicks and hugs.

"How did you get out of there?" I asked, with the same frustration the warden had in the Shawshank Redemption when he got word that Andy was gone. I walked him back to his room, put him back in bed, and then investigated the scene. The bottom corner of the gate had been kicked out leaving an opening just big enough for an escaping toddler to crawl through. I reconstructed the gate. In less than five minutes, it was obvious that either I knew nothing about security gates, or Elliott's objections to sleeping in his own bed were stronger than my ability to keep him there. At this point, I was unwilling to accept the latter. I thought about offering him bigger stickers, but instead settled on the Plan C I developed somewhere between tossing aside that worthless gate and walking Elliott back to his bed.

I was standing in the hallway outside his closed door when Katie joined me at the scene. At first she seemed stunned at the sight of me standing there with a bundle of rope and a pair of scissors. If she were to be honest, she would admit that for at least a moment she wondered if I was going to tie Elliott to his bed. If I were to be honest, I would shamefully admit the thought crossed my mind. Instead, I tied one end of the rope to Elliott's doorknob and the other to the laundry room door directly across from it. Elliott's next attempt to open his door would be met with a tethered resistance capable of holding off up to 300 pounds of pressure. His will was about to be tested.

Test it he did. After several minutes of energy draining effort to pull the door open, Elliott realized he had met his physical match. He then turned the crisis into psychological warfare.

"Daddy, I need to sit on the potty," was his first cry. Of course, surely they won't deprive me of my needs just to dictate which bed they want me to sleep in.

Then came "Mommy, come see me please." Oh how pitiful, the cry of a prisoner begging for just one visit from his mama.

Then came the final plea, the one that let me know we had been victorious in at least the battle. "Daddy, it's daylight now." (I had told him he could get up when the sun came up). And although it was 3AM and the sun was still hanging out somewhere over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, I knew we had reached his final cry. Moments later he called out for me to come cover him up, followed by complete silence that lasted until the sun finally arrived.

I think he slept on the floor that night. He offered a small taste of the same resistance Saturday night, maybe fifteen minutes worth. But the last two nights, he has gotten out of his bed but quickly ran back when he heard me coming and went back to sleep for the night. And Oh, the last two mornings he has received stickers. I guess the sticker method really does work.

​Norm!!

Maybe no other name so publicly demonstrated the value of being seen and known.

When I heard that George Wendt (Norm from Cheers) passed away yesterday, my heart hurt a bit. Until it smiled. For over a decade I related to this Cheers barfly named Norm. Until I reflected on his death yesterday, I'm not sure I ever understood quite why. Certainly not with the depth I do now.

Norm was funny.

Norm hung out in a bar, which I did quite a bit of back when I was relating to Norm.

Norm was a friend - a good friend.

But in so many ways, again, in more ways than I knew at that time, Norm was me.

Every time Norm walked into Cheers, the whole bar yelled, “Norm!” I wonder if Norm walked into Cheers more for that yell than he ever did the beer? When you are lost in the world, people yelling your name is often the sweetest kind of way to feel found.

When you wonder if you belong, hearing your name is assurance that you do.

I don't know if we offer each other the gift of name enough these days. I think we should.

Norm and Cliff. What an unlikely friendship. It was often comically misguided. In their relationship, Norm showed us that friendship isn’t about perfection, it’s about presence. He was always there for Cliff, even if being there was often all he had to give.

Presence. In a world full of the next luxurious gift, we seem to lose sight of the gift of presence. Norm showed up to hear his name: I wonder if Cliff showed up to simply hear Norm's voice?

And then there was Norm the mentor. In his own mentor way. I loved how he was always trying to help Woody when he was struggling with his job at the bar or with life in general. Norm wasn't a pedestal mentor, he was a shoulder to shoulder mentor. Always beside you, never looking down on you.

I think Norm got that in return. Here was a man who couldn't keep a job, had a struggling marriage, battled his weight, maybe drank a little too much - but at Cheers, no one ever looked down on Norm. Maybe that's why a man you just know was wrestling some inner demons - demons he hid with his jokes - never disappeared.

He kept showing up.

When we keep showing up in spaces free of judgment and full of acceptance - we don't feel a need to hide. We feel drawn, not pressured, to keep going.

In many ways that is what we come to call home in life. The people and places that give us the most permission to be real. Even when we are broken and struggling, the people and places that call our name out loud, with excitement, the moment we walk through the door, they define home.

Norm!!

There's a moving scene in Cheers' final episode.

Norm: "You know, Sam, I always knew you'd come back to her."

Sam: "Her who?"

Norm: "The bar."

Norm's exchange here shows that to him, and many, Cheers was more than just a place; it was a community. A friend.

For many, it was home.

Norm!!

Rest easy friend. May your enduring loyalty and warmth remind us all of the value of steadfast friendships and the comfort of familiar places. May your legacy be found in the truth that being a good friend doesn't require perfection - just consistency, empathy, and a good sense of humor.

I would like to imagine that when you walked through the gates of heaven you received a simple but thunderous roar:

Norm!!!

​One in three adults do not get enough sleep. The results - insufficient sleep is linked to chronic conditions such as heart disease, obesity, depression, and diabetes.

Seventy percent of adolescents don't get enough sleep. The results - sleep deprivation among teens is associated with increased risk of depression, poor academic performance, and accidents.

Why is it that we have a hard time sleeping, or, that we don't see it as important? Why is it that we see the burdens we carry as medals of honor that are somehow diminished if we give them rest.

In the Genesis narrative of the bible, when God created heaven and earth and all that belonged to it, he blessed three things.

He blessed the animals, he blessed humans, and he blessed rest.

“Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” The first thing God calls holy is not a place or a person, but a period of rest. It shows that rest is not just a pause in productivity—it is sacred and life-giving.

It was not just a blessing, it was a mandate to seek rest. Our bodies are literally wired to need it; we cannot survive without sleep. At the end of each day our bodies literally try to force rest upon us.

The God who blessed rest created us in bodies that crave it.

Yet, culturally, rest is often equated with laziness, especially in high-performance or “grind” environments. Hardly holy. This social pressure leads people to sacrifice rest for productivity, even though rest actually increases long-term productivity and creativity.

Jesus once offered an invitation to rest. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

You read that, I suppose, and maybe it doesn't sound like rest. Jesus is asking us to be yoked to him and his burden, even if light. Well maybe I don't want yoke and burden, I just want all that robs me of rest to disappear.

But the truth is, we are all yoking ourselves to something in search of escaping our burdens, of seeking rest from them.

We yoke to the substances.

We yoke to unhealthy relationships.

We yoke to compulsive shopping and buying.

We yoke to things that in the long run add to burden and not subtract from it.

So many times my turning down an invitation to be yoked to Jesus looks like me being yoked to something else. It's not that I'm turning down the invitation to be yoked, I'm just accepting it elsewhere.

(Wow, writing that, I'm not sure anything better summarizes my life of burden).

The beautiful thing about Jesus, though, he never rescinds that invitation. He will watch us go to every other party on the block, he will watch us go knowing that those parties are not in our best interest, and yet, answer the door when we decide to finally attend his.

In Hebrews, the bible tells us, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest…”

God’s invitation to rest is never revoked. It didn’t end in Genesis. It wasn’t only for the Israelites in the wilderness. And it’s not just about physical rest—it’s about soul-level rest that comes from trusting, not striving.

Trusting, not striving.

Sleeping, not plowing ahead.

What does accepting this invitation to be yoked to Jesus really look like, practically, things you and I can do each day?

Before grabbing your phone or your to-do list in the morning, utter these words: “Jesus, today I don’t have to carry what you’ve already promised to carry. Help me walk with you, not ahead of you.”

Let go of the idea that rest is a reward for doing enough. With Jesus rest is not a reward, its a reminder that you are already loved, no matter what your boss or Instagram followers say.

Rest in Jesus means resisting the pressure to please the masses at the expense of your own rest.

Sprinkle reminders to rest throughout your day - because life is always begging us to forget the importance of rest: a verse on your mirror, a post-it on your laptop that says, "I am not in this alone", listen to Elevation Worship music on the drive home (a personal favorite approach for me).

It's sometimes hard to imagine that Jesus can bring us the kind of rest we are so desperately seeking from our burdens. But then again, what isn't hard to imagine, at least not for me, is the self-destruction that often comes when I seek that rest elsewhere.

Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

What a beautiful invitation.

Rest.