Last week, I took a “sabbatical” in a popular tourist town a few hours from where I live.
The point was to spend a few days alone and away from “life” to rest, relax and pray into this next, completely new and foreign, season of life I am entering. It was to spend some quality time with the Lord with no agenda, no obligations and no expectations other than to enjoy His presence and commune with Him.
I admit, I had no idea how to actually do those things. I mean, I’m a doer more than a be-er. Side note: the Type A part of me wants to write that as “beer” to match doer, but I don’t want my readers to read it as an alcoholic beverage so…I’m stuck…..Anyway, moving on. My point is that I do more than I don’t and I have agendas and purposes and things-to-do more than I sit, pray and commune.
So, in typical Type A fashion, I went in search of a book to read while on this sabbatical. At least it would be something I could do while resting, relaxing and just “being.”
I went to Mardel’s a couple of times in the weeks leading up to the sabbatical to see what might jump out at me to read. Nothing really did. Sure, there were really great sounding books and interesting reads but nothing that felt like it might be a good fit to read for this trip. So, I eventually thought to myself, “maybe I don’t need to read anything. Maybe I really do just need to go and … be.”
So I stopped looking.
And then, on the morning I was supposed to leave, I remembered a book on the subject of Mary and Martha, the quintessential be-er and doer of Christianity, that a friend had shared on social media one time. And I thought, “hey! that could be a good fit!” so I contacted my friend…”what was that book you posted about that one time?…”
Made Like Martha, was her response. Immediately, I searched out the ebook version of the title and sent a sample to my eReader device, fully prepared to read a sample and then see if I could borrow the ebook through my library.
And then, something else caught my eye.
Underneath the information about Made Like Martha, in the similar suggestions section, was another book.
Crystal Stine, the author, talks about discovering the “holy hustle” of life, that sweet spot balance of working hard and resting well. “Oh boy,” I thought, “now this sounds perfect for this trip!” I read (well, listened to, my library only had the audiobook version available to borrow) the book off-and-on throughout the few day sabbatical.
October feels like the first real month of my new life. August 31st was really my last day of obligation to the university but September was full of travel so I wasn’t really able to start figuring out what this new life looks like during that month.
October feels like the first opportunity to start.
It also happens to be the month that the Write 31 Days challenge occurs each year. This is a challenge I’ve participated in before and was considering doing again this year, but I didn’t know what topic to write on.
Enter divine intervention.
Ok, maybe that’s a little dramatic (or maybe not, who knows?) but it does feel like a good “fit” to write about discovering my “holy hustle” sweet spot over the next 31 days. Why? Well, for one, it’ll (hopefully) help me stay on track with doing the work to figure what “working hard” in this new, non-8-to-5-life, looks like and how to balance that with resting well. To be honest, I still don’t fully know what “work” I’m going to be doing, though, there are at least two things I’m interested in pursuing now: my photography business and this blog. And, if I’m being honest, this blog is one of the things I believe might be my new work so it’ll get me (again, hopefully!) into a regular writing habit.
My intent is to write about how I balance pursuing the Lord more, growing the photog business and this blog, and discovering (and pursuing when appropriate) what really brings me rest in life (spoiler: I’ve already learned that it’s not spending hours upon hours watching television!). My hope is that through the writing two things will happen: God will get the glory and I will begin to understand how to keep my hustle holy in this new life of self-employment.
Care to join me?
If so, I’ll link to each day’s post below so you can come back and find each one of them.