I’m t-i-i-i-i-red.

I need a break. Do you feel me? Spring break is right around the corner, and I’m counting the days. It’s just been a busy year. We’ve moved twice, once across the country. And to be honest, I’ve been tired since my first child was born six years ago. (Yes, I see that tiny violin that you’re playing for me.)

I often ask myself if I’m doing something wrong. What kind of tired am I actually feeling? Is it the physical tiredness of not enough sleep. Yes, I chase a three-year-old around every day, but I get enough sleep now that neither of my kids is an infant anymore. Is it emotional tiredness? The stress of being a mom and a wife, of working part-time and being the homemaker is certainly enough, but I really enjoy all my roles: homemaker, writer, and tutor. And yes, there is the fact that we threw our life up into the air, and now everything is just settling into place.

But what I think I’m feeling most is spiritual tiredness. I’m weary, and I’m ashamed. I’ve been carrying too much of my life, too much of my worry, too many of my sins and shortcomings around for too long. I offer them all up to my Father, but too quickly take them back on my shoulders. I believe that Jesus took these things to the cross with him, but I still think I need to give him a leg up there.

Why? I do the repenting part so effortlessly. I don’t have a problem saying that I mess up. I do. Every day. Oh boy, have I messed up. All of my sins line up and stare at me quite regularly, and I’m haunted by their gaze. So I’ve know I’ve got the contrition part of repentance down. And as I go through the C’s of repentance (confession, correction, change), I know I strive for those as well. Not perfectly, not wholly, but consistently.

It’s the fifth C of repentance that I struggle with, and it’s the step I’ve skipped regularly in my life. I feel the horror of my sin, I confess it to God, try to correct it and change it, and I know the law has worked on my heart. But the fifth part of repentance is not the Law, it’s the Gospel. The fifth C of repentance is CONFIDENCE.

Confidence that my sin has been removed as far as the east is from the west. Confidence that Jesus has a white robe for me, that his blood washes away my sin. Confidence that he remembers my sin no more. Confidence that Jesus shouldered all of my sin on Calvary. Confidence that I don’t have to do anything, that it’s foolish to think that I can add anything to his perfection. Confidence that I can REST in his grace.

Truly, fully, completely rest in grace. Rest. Rest. Rest.

There is no better words to my ears, even if an angel would show up on my doorstep, give me a gift certificate to the day spa, and while I’m gone clean my house top to bottom, do my taxes, organize my family photos, get Nate Berkus to redecorate my house, plant a fat sum of money in my bank account, and orchestrate an all-expenses-paid family vacation to the Canadian Rockies for me.

Nope. All of that stuff is trash compared to the rest I receive for my soul in Jesus. We get trapped into thinking that if all of this stuff in life were better, than maybe we’d have some rest. But even if we got that all handed to us in one Oprah-like swoop, our souls would still be weary. There is no replacement for the rest we find in Jesus.

I say this only because I can get wrapped up in chasing so many other kinds of “rest,” thinking that these answers will give me peace. But I forfeit so much peace in chasing after the wind. And I get really tired doing it, too.

With clearer, better vision I see that the rest I have in Jesus can be found when I tuck my children in for the night, and open the Psalms or reread the Gospels and then kneel down to pray to my Father. These sure-fire investments of time and energy reap rest and peace, joy and confidence. God’s Word reminds me of the fleetingness of this life’s trials and the vast eternal era of rest in heaven. And I get a taste of heaven’s rest right here on earth when I relax into the sure knowledge of my forgiveness and salvation.

Lord, help me to live in the confidence of your grace. You are the rest my soul so desperately needs. Amen.