Sometimes when I'm really tired and get a good night sleep I'm crankier than I was in my sleep-deprived state. The sleep un-masks how tired I really am.
That was me for most of last week. In my first full week of actual sabbatical (the previous week being Thanksgiving week), I was alternately moody, grumpy, taciturn, checked out and occasionally slightly unpleasant.
I find that when I feel down or out of sorts, the sin that is most recurring is the coveting of my time. I don't want to be generous with "my" time (C.S. Lewis graciously but viciously pulls back the curtain on the whole concept of time being "ours" in Screwtape Letters) when I don't feel like I'm in a settled place.
I think many of us Type-A, slightly over-achiever types have this problem. It probably has something to do with control-freak issues, but that's another post for another day.
It seems that the path to health necessarily goes through this phase. A disturbing number of my students tell me that they like to stay busy because they don't like what comes to the surface when they slow down. Similarly, I don't like to be moody. Left to my own devices, I'd stay busy so that I didn't have to deal with feeling lethargic and weighed down.
But here's the deal: to keep running on a broken leg only exacerbates the problem. I have to work through the grumps to get to the life on the other side.
And the Lord was good to turn things around towards the end of the week. Of course, since he knows me and loves me, the life-line that he tossed me came in the form of community: three tremendous men who contacted me about getting together. It is a humbling and wonderful thing to have real friends.
These conversations seemed unusually rich. Afterward each one a phrase or a word or a piece of the conversation continued to roll around in my head--things that the Lord was trying to show me or wanted me to think about.
And I'm half-way through Lord of the Rings. And I got a Starbucks card in the mail on Saturday from some dear old friends. What more could I possibly ask for?
It's going to be a good sabbatical.
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