Rotate & Rest

Hello Hatters,

My brother has a special automobile mechanic who checked out my truck. He said the tires needed to be rotated. While I don’t understand why the tires wear out at different rates, I trusted my brother, who trusted his mechanic. The tires were rotated.

My Country Hubby grew up in a farming community and he told me about the process of rotating crops so you don’t deplete the soil of specific nutrients. This city chick has no experience with farming, so I trusted my man’s stories of his family, and my man trusted his father, who trusted his father, and they rotated crops.

I was driving in an agricultural area last week and noticed that there were no crops in the fields. The dirt was raw and exposed. It’s winter and the soil is resting. As seasons come and go, I like to think about the who, what, when, where, why and how. I’m just naturally curious and I look for signals and signs to apply to my own journey. I know my Heavenly Father has my path. I trust Him to show me in His time.

As a matter of fact, I felt the need to step out of the responsibility of facilitating my ladies’ Bible Studies a few years back. At that time I couldn’t manage. That was a clear message to rotate. Just like the soil, the farmers’ most prized asset, rest was needed.

Rotate and rest. I’ve thought a lot about this blog. It is in the pondering, that I’ve enjoyed a journey of other R words. If I rotate and rest, will I be refreshed? What rewards await my soul while I rejuvenate? I like to think that I can gain perspective or a refocus or reframing of something that might be troubling me.

As I writer who wears many hats just like you, reflection takes intentionality. It takes time. Literally, I schedule time in my calendar to just think. My mind goes all over the place. I can review and reason until I might end up in place of rumination. I read an article on LinkedIn by the Center for Creative Leadership about pressure turning into stress when there’s a factor of rumination.

The word was new to me and I was thankful that the writer defined it. Rumination is the tendency to continue to churn over emotional upsets, and it’s a key determinant of whether you become stressed or not. A google search of the word is Rumination is thinking over and over about events from the past, or future and attaching negative emotion to them.

So, note to self, rotate and rest, but don’t ruminate. It is pointless and it is energy I don’t want to expend. Besides, I want to be as positive as possible. Another source of encouragement came from a book called the Well Watered Woman and the author states that we can weather our problems or we can wither in them. It’s a choice of becoming better, not bitter.

I hope you and I can find the right time to rotate and rest. We must pick and choose other R words like resilience, a personal favorite of mine. Ok, the writer in me can’t stand limited letters. We should use the whole alphabet of words and actions to live well in our moments. I’m glad to have meditated on tires and soil and rotations and rest. The applications are everywhere. I’m sure you can think of some things from your own perspective of R & R.

Until next time, friends, don’t wear out.

Rotate. Rest.

MT Penny