Yesterday was a first for me since I started Purposed worKING in October of 2008. Yesterday I missed a day because I was sick. I went to get up at my usual early waking hour and I couldn’t get out of bed as the flu or something that had been brewing for the last few days, hit me full-on like a Mack Truck. I spent the day trying to get up to write and I would end up back in bed within a few minutes. After the fourth try I figured I wasn’t supposed to be getting up and writing but rather in bed resting. So, I had to take, what all of us have to take sometimes; a sick day. I am not a big fan of sick days because as I continue to learn, they just throw you back in your schedule and with the changes in meetings, etc. one day can throw off a whole week. Not to mention the emails that just stack up and the people on the other end of the messages wanting to know why you haven’t replied. It’s just not a good thing, but it is part of working. Of course, there are the stories of the people who work their entire career and never miss a day of work. They are amazing stories and amazing people; the few who can claim that type of streak. It has to be a bad sickness to knock me down, but it happens. Sometimes God may want to have us slow down a bit to remember and recognize some other things in our lives. How many times do we run ourselves into the ground and find that we have opened ourselves up to becoming susceptible to the thing that is going around, just because we haven’t rested enough, eaten right or taken care of ourselves? And then when we find ourselves flat on our backs, we really have no one to blame but ourselves. This lesson is a good one in that the same can be said about our spiritual lives. As I was spending the afternoon in the state between awake and asleep, I was reminded that God wants to take our burdens and our weariness and take the burden from us. But, if we don’t take care or ourselves spiritually either, like staying in the Word, praying, worshipping and turning our burdens over to God, then we are just as susceptible to losing our spiritual healthiness as we are when we lose our physical health. So, do right by yourself and stay in God’s Word and stay strong and healthy spirtually and as it comes to having to take a sick day now and then, I pray that no other will have a sick day like I had yesterday.

Reference: Matthew 11:28-30 (New Living Testament)