Happy New Year, friends.

I like the idea of seeing things with 20/20 vision in 2020. If God hadn’t announced my word for this year so clearly in November, I would have probably run with the idea of perfect vision or clarity or something like that.

But God said, “You need to rest, daughter.”

And sometimes I do what He tells me.

But those of you who know me know the idea of taking a break, time off, extended down time and all that is synonymous with rest is NOT part of my mindset.

Well, it hasn’t been. And that might be the reason why this year, God has called me to rest.

What This Means

No, this doesn’t mean I’ll be sleeping in every day or working only two days per week (although that sounds fabulous). It doesn’t mean I’m taking a vacation from all things work-related for 366 days.

It does mean that I’ll be away from my keyboard, office and social media accounts at least 48 hours every week until further notice.

I need to unplug. I need to stop thinking about what’s happening with my author page, my fan group or my book rankings.

In November and December, I completed a 40-Day challenge. Since then, I’ve been more focused on my spiritual health. And I’ve realized that one of the reasons I’m suffering from burnout is because I didn’t tune into the voice inside me that cried for more time in prayer, meditation and scripture reading.

Instead, I fed into the part of me that wanted success. The part of me that thought indie publishing a series of biblical fictionalizations was a grand idea. You can read how that turned out here and here. And since the second and third books are coming soon, you might learn more about it in future posts.

I’m going to be listening more to my body. When it says I need to “Move away from the computer” and “Stop working on that today,” I plan to do those things.

I hope it means I’ll be enjoying more reading and crocheting. I hope I’ll finally finish that big scrapbooking projects of my family’s vacations I started a few years ago. BUT…if those things start creating stress for me, I’ll dump them too.

What This Doesn’t Mean

I’ll be at my desk. I’ll be writing. Having a year of Rest doesn’t mean I won’t get any work done. In fact, I hope it means I’ll get more work done. Meaningful work. Creative work.

And even though I’ll still be up at 5:30 on weekday mornings doing my workouts, I’ll have a different motivation. I won’t be doing it to lose weight or get slim or be better. I’ll be doing it because it makes me feel great. Those lovely endorphins that get released during exercise are better than any prescription happy pill I’ve taken.

This month, I’ll be revising the next book in the First Street Church open world. It needs quite a bit of love, but I plan to have it to beta readers by mid-month. I’ll also be submitting a proposal to Sweet Promise Press for a solo series. You’ll be the first to know if it gets contracted.

I’ll be writing. I have one book that is slated to release on September 18. Once I finish writing it, I don’t know what’s next. That’s part of my “rest.” I’m trusting God to show me what to write when the time is right.

Until then, I’ll finish the projects I’ve started.

I know I talked about taking a break from writing in earlier posts. I hope that’s not the case. But I won’t be forcing words onto the page.

That means things around this blog will be scarce. Or they won’t. If I’m inspired to write, I’ll do it.

What does “rest” mean to you? Do you have a word of the year?