My life as a lady of leisure; Or, It all depends on your perspective

Now that we've recovered from all the fun of June, and gotten past the Fourth, a new phase of my life has started.  The new requirements of every day include: rest, exercise, time with the Lord.  Everything else is icing on the cake or my day.  I have quit, cut back, and cut down, to give my body some much-needed healing time. 

The problem is that I am not a very good rester.  I am a doer.  And a thinker-up-of-excellent-ideas-that-involve-doing.  And I was raised as the eldest daughter in a large Catholic family, which automatically means I am overly-prone to guilt.  When my sweet husband encouraged me this week by asking how my "life as a lady of leisure" was coming along, I had to fight an attack of the guilts.  I have to somehow wrap my heart and mind around the idea that rest is an active thing that I am called to do for a period of time. And God never calls us to anything useless or meaningless.

If you look at the photo above carefully, you will notice a raven who was enjoying some soaring on the thermals above the Grand Canyon last week.  As I looked at him and snapped this shot, I thought it was amazing to see a bird soar like that and yet only be riding at my own eye-level.  But in reality, there are about 1500 feet below this fellow, and from his vantage point, he is soaring for real.  It all depends on your perspective.

So, if I am forced into the position of being a lady of leisure, how can I change my perspective to enjoy that position?  After all, I can imagine many worse scenarios than enforced quiet and relief of stress! Maybe a good way to fight the guilts is to embrace the calling, and enjoy extended time for prayer and reflection, for my audio books, sewing projects, quiet days,and stress relief.  Whatever your calling is, Gentle Reader, may you embrace it and trust in the Lord from whose hands it fell.  It is, after all, only a matter of perspective.