stop struggling

Do you ever have a hard time going to bed?  You feel like there's more you should have done during the day, more you could do even now, so you push back sleep just so you can get that one last thing accomplished?  I've been like that off and on in my life.  I'm not sure what I think I should have done or discovered by the time the day ends, but I often have a nagging feeling there's something I've missed.  

But tonight as I told myself to bypass books and magazines and journals and my computer, just this once to just go to bed without feeling like I was leaving some answer unsought or life-changing thing unaccomplished, I remembered something I heard at camp (CMMBC) that has stuck with me since.  It was so good to hear it tonight.

Stop struggling.

Just stop struggling.  It sounds easier than it is.  Our youth pastor had found out some interesting information about quicksand and how you escape from it once you've started sinking.  She was using quicksand as a metaphor for sin-- something that traps you and keeps absorbing you deeper and deeper.  As someone who gets that "sinking" feeling all too easily, I loved this metaphor.  

So apparently when you find yourself in quicksand (she looked this up online, and I just did too), there are three things that will help you get out: 

Shed extra weight, stop struggling, and surrender yourself-- lay out your arms and legs.

People will float in quicksand; we're less dense than the sand, clay and water.  If we don't struggle, we can gradually be lifted out-- the sand will shift underneath us, and the way upward will naturally become clear.

Be still.  Let things go.  Reach out; surrender yourself.  

And I'd add, 

Be patient.

Rest sometimes seems like the last thing I need-- I need to find answers and I need them now.  But there's something after rest, or during it, that floats up and lays itself like a blanket over the unreliable quicksand.  It's light, easy, and strong.  I don't entirely know how to describe it...but it's there.

"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Stop struggling.