I remember sitting in a small wooden chair in front of a sticky fast food restaurant table full of food. The sun was gleaming through the window and the colorful Wendy’s carpet matched the busyness of my mind. My mom smiled from across the table and slowly began to say… “Brittney, I wanted to have lunch with you today, because I wanted to talk to you about something…. I think you might be involved in too many things.” I shifted my eyes to the table and felt the tension in my shoulders. She was right. I had 3 jobs, and I was involved in 10 other groups. From school commitments to church volunteer groups, I had very hour booked. My life was bursting at the seams and so were my emotions. I didn’t sleep much. I was easily annoyed. Everything was stressful. She continued, “I think you should pray about laying something down…”

Saying no is hard for me. As I am relationally driven, I will do what I can to help the people I love as if that request is my very purpose in life. So the words “lay something down,” cut into my heart like a surgical knife… and yet, at the same time they brought relief to all of the built up tension that I had just discovered inside of me.

“I know…” I almost whispered. “But I can’t…” I told her how much I was needed. The difference I made in people’s lives. The role I played in my jobs…I… I… I…

Somehow in my fulfilling my Christian call to serve, I had ended up serving myself. I had taken a privilege and turned it into an identity. How could I separate from something that felt like it was so much a part of me? It was easier to complete the tasks that were offered to me, rather than seek God about what task He was requiring of me, and I didn’t realize that sometimes that task is REST.

I will never forget something a pastor said to me during that season in my life. “Sometimes we can be involved in so many good things that we forget about the God part of the good things.” God has this way of directing our steps in peace. It isn’t about striving and while “faith without deeds is dead,” “without love, I am nothing about a clanging symbol. I had become one of the loudest, least appealing, clashing and clanging symbols, and now it was time to refocus.

I ended up giving my two weeks notice to one of those jobs and laying a few other things down. It was a strange season for someone so used to busyness. But it was much needed and looking back, I am so appreciative of the people who spoke into my life and loved me enough to remind me to enjoy my life with God. If you are in that season in your life, where our Heavenly Father has called you to rest in Him, I encourage you to take it as an incredible blessing and in that way, allow your serving to be selfless.