Reflections on Vacation: Why Taking a Break is Important

My sister, Dani, and I planned a very intricate, people-filled vacation this spring. It has not quite been a week since we got back. We took a train up to the Chicago area to visit an old high school friend on a Saturday. After visiting with him through Monday, we were picked up by our grandmother, who took us back to her home in Michigan after giving us the grand tour of Chicago.
We spent the next three days eating, talking, sleeping, and resting. Then we packed up, picked up, and took the train back home. All in all, a very lovely time.

While packing for this trip I had to sit down and seriously think about what I wanted to take. I don't mean clothes, shoes, or makeup - though figuring those out did take up a good portion of my time packing.
I had to figure out what I was going to do while I was away. A part of me thought, It's vacation. I will take my books, my computer... I wanted to write. I wanted to use my time off milking my creative juices for all it was worth. I spend on average 45 minutes to an hour a week writing. Sometimes I am able to burn through a couple of hours writing in a week.

That's really slow.

I don't like that pace. It's slow, hard, sometimes achingly boring. I want to sit for hours and hours and days on end and perfect my work. I want to lose myself so wholly in my work that it becomes what I've always wanted it to be - my essence.
And then I look at the clock and I have to go to bed because my shift starts at 6am in the morning. Or I have to do some studying for my counseling certification. Or my nephew asks me to come over. Or his mama asks me. Or my boyfriend needs to spend time with me. Or I have spent too much time sitting on the couch and need to go for a run.
Or there's a wedding, or a shower, or a birth to celebrate. And I haven't even factored in my work schedule.
I can come up with an endless list of things I need to devote my time to; all of them essential to living a joyful life.
Maybe I'm not called to devote all of my time to writing right now. Maybe there are other things God wants me to spend my time doing; good things, healthy things, things that honor Him and grow me. And maybe that is ok.

But then the golden opportunity sneaks up on me: I have an entire week with no work schedule, hundreds of miles away from anyone who would ordinarily ask for my time, and limited cell phone service.
Sounds just about perfect, right?

There's only one thing: I'm not going there alone, and I am not staying there alone. I did not take this week to go on a writing retreat. I took this week to visit my grandmother, my cousins, and to build some really great memories with my sister (they were pretty awesome memories too).
I took this week to take a break from the demands and struggles of my every-day life, to come away from the noise and business, and simply be.


I didn't take my computer. I didn't look at a word processor once during my entire stay. I took books for the train ride. I took a lot of books. I didn't read half of them, but I read. I read, and I talked, and I slept, and I ate (a lot), and I simply was.
And it was perfect.

Now I have come back with a head-full of ambitions, thoughts, and desires. I have come back to real, every-day life, and I realize what a treasure my crazy, overbooked schedule is. I realize that I wouldn't change a single minute of the life I'm living now, even if it means I don't get to spend all of my time playing with words and ideas. I realize that God wants me here, in this moment, for right now.
My heart's desire, and one of the greatest pleasures I have, is writing. But I have a greater desire, and that is to love God and love others. Right now that means I only spend a couple of hours a week writing. And that's ok.

Sometimes you just need to take a break from your life to realize how wonderfully abundant your life is.

I'm back, and my head is full of so many ideas. I want to write, write, write. But I reign my heart in and I take one day at a time, one hour at a time, one window of opportunity at a time. A gift is wasted, not when it isn't exploited, but only when it is not used.