“Abiding produces fruit, striving produces burnout”
A quote I stumbled upon just before we received a message from Darah at Peace Love Glamp inviting us to a one night away from the noise and rest. Intrigued, I opened up our calendar flooded with color coded events & activities, I said to myself, there’s no way. How can we pull away from our content due dates, church commitments, or kids activities for one day? The Lord clearly had something to do with this divine orchestrated event, because both Matthew and I felt immediately convicted we couldn’t set apart one day to rest. Is this not what the Lord gifts to us in the form of the Sabbath? If I were to ask my kids what Sabbath is, they would probably embarrass us with some answer about a “sad bathtub” We struggle to rest ourselves, so what is that showing our children? My answer is burnout. So we picked the middle of the week, arranged some babysitters, built up the courage to disappoint some people instead of our souls.
Can you take a break from all the busyness of life, to spend one day of rest with the Lord? I’m not talking about spending your Sundays resting on the couch binging the newest Netflix series. I’m talking, full on sitting at the feet of Jesus on some Mary vibes. Sadly we had to force ourselves to rest and truly trust the Lord that business will continue when we come back, chores are ok to cease, and the kids will be fine if the don’t have every waking minute planned out for them.
As soon as we traveled down the dirt road towards our glamping experience, we could already feel the slowness of life here. The cows watched us slowly drive by and chickens crossed the path at their own pace. Walking into the tent, which I later learned is called a yurt, we felt a heavy presence of the Lord. The amount of care that went into setting the space up, you could tell everything was heavily prayed over. Between the cozy yurt nestled up in the woods, nothing in vision but trees, you have no choice but to relax.
Now, I’ve been camping quite a bit in my day, and I know it’s not as relaxing at it may seem. The packing, the scoping the spot, the building of the tent, the food prep, and then to take it all down after is no restful experience. So I’m especially appreciative we get to embrace the beauty and restfulness of camping without the stressful part. Peace Love Glamp really knows how to set up a space to capitalize your awareness of God with ordinary moments. From the Bibles and books tucked in every corner, to a welcome basket of all your necessities plus some extra goodies, we felt a huge exhale in our soul.
We spent the evening reading, talking, praying together, making our own fire and enjoying the awe of God in every corner of this getaway.
“Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest… learn from Me… you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:28-29).
This is not an invite, but a command. Here we are inviting Him in to let Him carry, what we’ve been carrying.
We slept the best in months.. maybe years even. A full 9 hours and 37 minutes is unheard of. My Oura ring probably thought I wasn’t wearing it. We woke up with such peace, giving thanks again to the Lord for gifting us this slow morning. It’s not that our serving is bad, it’s that sitting with Him is better.
When Mary “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to His teaching.” Jesus says: “Mary has chosen the good portion.” (Luke 10:39-42). We chose the good portion.
We had planned a private farm tour, but the rain hindered that plan. And we remembered Philippians 4:6–7
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
We can’t go back to where anxiety takes the drivers seat. We can’t let it steer our soul. Instead, His plan was to sneak in a short but sweet meet and greet with the farm animals to help us further calm our nervous system and increase dopamine to carry with us the rest of the week. We ended in prayer with Darah, who just has a heart empowered to help God’s people slow down and increase our time with Him. We are so grateful to know her and even more so for her family’s sacrifice to pour into the community in so many ways.
To see everything we did, check our YouTube Video and IG reel.
For more about Peace Love Glamp, check out their incredible page here. They also throw so many events and activities for the community which you can learn about more here!
