It turns out rest is pretty difficult. I had no idea how bad I was at it.
On March 9th of 2020, my husband and I landed in Nashville at midnight, grinning and still full of adrenaline from spending the weekend in North Dakota doing the music ministry we so desperately love. We heard the conversations and knew the concerns for this new virus that was spreading around the world, but surely it would be under control before it really affected us.
Four days later, everything around us shut down. A week later, we were canceling dozens of tour dates. A month later, we were told it could be at least a year before we could even consider playing concerts again. Just like that, the life we loved, the ministry we’d built, the coming year that we, with our parents and two young kids on a special evening in January, had consecrated to the Lord, dribbled through our fingers like water.
I was bitter for longer than I like to admit. I’d spoken the words “God doesn’t waste anything” from stage countless times, and yet it was difficult to trust that promise myself. The very promise I wanted others to cling to, I was ignoring. I couldn’t understand what good could come from being separated from the people I felt called to minister to. Not to mention that our livelihood depended on large gatherings of people. I couldn’t fathom how this year would be anything but wasted time.
Then Psalm 46:10 started popping up everywhere: “Be still and know that I am God.” I’d hear it in a sermon, read it in a Bible plan, see it in an Instagram post—it seemed to be everywhere I looked. Even Steven Curtis Chapman’s classic “Be Still” seemed to play on a recurring loop in my head. It was a message from and for everyone, and yet also just for me. Once I humbled myself and closed down the pity party I was throwing for myself, I knew I would see the beauty that God was trying to cultivate in my life if I would just let Him.
I decided to dive into that verse and really understand what it means to rest. I had convinced myself I was pretty good at rest; life was on hold, all it seemed I could do was rest. But I soon realized that the forced rest I was experiencing was merely a lack of activities, not true soul rest. Even when I literally couldn’t go anywhere, my mind was still on overdrive—running scenarios and trying to solve a problem that was completely out of my control. As “still” as I was, I was more exhausted than ever.
So I gave up.
I gave up trying to control everything. I decided to try using my time of forced rest to dwell in His presence in that stillness. I needed to feel what it means to abide in Him. I wanted to experience true soul rest as I gave over my hurts and disappointments to the God who could handle them and even bring beauty out of them.
That didn’t mean my 2020 woes changed . . . at all, but my perspective sure did. It was daily surrender that brought the fruit of peace and joy to my life in ways that my logical brain didn’t think was possible in the midst of my circumstances.
I wish I could say that I’ve mastered that act of surrender, but there are still days when I’m lured into believing that I need to take control. Praise God that even when I’m falling into that trap, I can rest in the overwhelming grace of my heavenly Father and His renewed mercies that come every morning.
Now, as I’m slowly beginning a new season of making my way back up the mountain, I’m thankful that I can look back clearly through the fog of the valley and see what He was doing all along. He never left me, He didn’t waste that season, and the God who created the entire universe wants to be with me, flaws and all. That is a kind of soul rest I want to cling to no matter what valley may come next.
—Written by Stephanie Teague. Used by permission from the author. Click here to connect with Stephanie.
Stephanie and her husband joined Elisa & Eryn on the God Hears Her podcast. You can listen to Out of the Dust by clicking here.
