Karen Alford
CBF Field Personnel, Togo, West Africa
“If you work with your hands, sabbath with your mind. If you work with your mind, sabbath with your hands.”
—Rabbi Abraham Heschel
What is saving my life right now is doing yard work and a surprising source of inspiration from an app. My yard is huge with fruit trees, flowers, garden plots and tons of bougainvillea. Without copious amounts of raking, pruning, weeding, (did I mention raking?), it rapidly turns into jungle. Working with my hands, being able to see the tangible results of my work is satisfying. But more satisfying and astonishing is the peace in being reminded that God is in control and that things are growing and blooming and maturing beautifully despite anything else going on in my life that feels discouraging or disappointing.
Nature doesn’t need me to make it happen. It’s a gentle reminder that most other things in my life are happening and evolving at their own pace too, and I need not feel they are my sole responsibility and can only happen or succeed if I “make” them so. It’s a huge relief to consider that just maybe, just maybe, God is in control of those things too.
Related to that theme is a lesson I’m learning from a paint-by-numbers app I use sometimes to help me relax. The app offers a huge, ever-growing selection of mandalas, nature scenes, places, flowers, mosaics, etc. A numbered palate of colors appears at the bottom and when you tap a color, the parts of the picture that correspond with that color turn gray. You tap the gray areas, and the picture starts coming to life.
At first, I resented being forced to use colors I didn’t choose, especially since the ones who generate these pictures sometimes use lots of shades of orange, reds, pinks and yellows while I prefer dark blues, purples and greens. But as the picture comes to completion, I am astonished at the beauty that has been created. Especially using shades of color I don’t like, didn’t know existed and would never have chosen to go side-by-side.
I’ve developed a lot of gratitude for those creators I used to resent—for their vision and ability to see potential where I see none. And I love that colors I would never use, never even imagine, can come together to create such startling beauty. Mind you, the picture doesn’t always come together all at once. Sometimes I’m genuinely confused about how it can possibly be redeemed with so much of that shade of green! Sometimes I stay skeptical until it is finished. Then I see the magic.
Maybe what is happening in my life at any given moment is also just shades of color I don’t always prefer or would certainly never choose. Maybe if I stop judging the colors according to my personal preference and trust in the genius of the designer creating the picture, I will see the perfection and beauty in the end. Maybe all that feels weird, doubtful and uncomfortable is just a necessary part of the genius and perfection that is unfolding. And I find that thought saving for me indeed.
Pray, Practice, Ponder
In the quote on the previous page, Rabbi Abraham Heschel invites us to consider how we rest and how we work. For those whose work is primarily physical, requiring the use of their hands and bodies, “sabbath,” Heschel suggests, is an invitation to rest the body and activate the mind. For those whose work is primarily mental, the opposite may be true. Today, ponder how you spend your working hours, and how this impacts what “sabbath” rest looks like for you.