More About Rest

 

I have been thinking about healing and wondering why it is so difficult for me to rest.

I confess that I have never been good at setting aside a Sabbath day. I try to be a person of faith, and remember the Bible story in Genesis about creation and how God rested on the seventh day.

God rested, but I think I can’t?

Also in the Old Testament, the Israelites were told to observe a Sabbath day once a week, a day when they were to rest and not do any work; everybody was supposed to rest—even the servants, animals, and foreigners who lived nearby.

Certainly there is a lesson there.

I hurt my knee a while ago—I  honestly don’t know how. What I do remember is that it hurt for a time, so I rested it. I was jogging fairly regularly, but took some time away. I still walked, though. I don’t think the pain ever affected my walking or that I even noticed it while out and about.

It got better, so I started jogging again. Which was fine for a time, until I tried to do a Nike Running Club speed run up by the old cemetery, where there are flat sections between the gravestones. I wanted to be as speedy as I could! So since the flat areas aren’t that long, I pivoted quickly at the end of each section and tried not to slow down. I must have turned too quickly, though, because soon after that, my knee started hurting again.

I took some time away again, and my knee felt better after a few weeks. I even remembered to track my runs in June. I had a goal (always a goal, no?) to log twelve runs in June, and I did it!

My son and I traveled to Fort Bragg for the Fourth of July, and I looked forward to doing a 5k run on the path that goes from MacKerricher State Park back to Glass Beach. It’s a lovely area with a view of the ocean, and is frequented by bicyclists, walkers, and runners. I did my 5K! Very slowly, but I did it! My knee hurt a little as I ran, but it wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t terrible, was it?

Except it hurt later that day, and has continued to hurt ever since. It’s been more than three months since I’ve been able to run. The thing that is troubling me most, though, is that my knee is aching even on my regular walks. It is aching a good part of the time now. I never realized before how important walking was to me, how it is a vital part of both my physical and mental health. I’d be sad if I could never run again, but it would be much worse—devastating, actually, if I could no longer do my daily walks comfortably.

I finally got an x-ray of my knee, and it was encouraging. Very mild arthritis, it said. The chiropractor that I work for (who is also my chiropractor) had a few recommendations: wear a brace, stretch, ice regularly, maybe a couple of Advil before bed for a few weeks because we heal during sleep, and (of course) rest.

Oh, right.

Rest.

For years, I have kept track of my daily step count and have had a goal of logging a certain number of steps each day. This week, I decided to ignore my daily tally, even trying to see each day if I could walk fewer steps than the day before. It is hard! It’s a completely different mindset. But again, yet again, it seems like rest is the key to my healing, and that it might even be helping my knee feel a little better already. The brace and compression sleeve also seem to help.

I had a client recently who had major surgery on her arm. She is a nurse and cannot return to work for six months. She had to have her arm in a sling for weeks. It’s only been two months since the surgery, but she said the fact that she cannot move her arm in certain ways has been very difficult for her. She’s usually active, she says. But in order for her to heal? She has to rest.

There is a disconnect in my head about the need to accomplish and do and get things done, and the fact that rest is an essential part of healing. It’s strange, how I fight it, especially when I remember that God made a point of resting and also told the people of Israel that they needed to rest every week, too. What would it mean for me to set aside time in my week for an intentional time of Sabbath rest?

So here’s to walking a little less, and icing more, and stretching. Here’s to making rest a regular part of my week, not just for my knee, but for the rest of me, too.

Here’s to rest that heals.