Sand Between Your Toes
Ready to feel the sand between your toes?
Warm gentle breezes. The rhythmic sounds of a breaking surf. Washes of orange and blue painted across a sunset sky. The spray of salty water at your feet…
Everyone loves getting away on a beach holiday, but what if you could bottle up that feeling of rest, and live in it every day? Well as it happens, I believe that you can!
The journey I’ve taken
When I first began writing my new book on this subject, ‘Sand Between Your Toes’: Inspirations for a Slower, Simpler & More Soulful Life’, I was caught in a season of real over-busyness. I was working full time in a busy marketing role, parenting a toddler, and juggling lots of other church and social commitments too.
As a result, I often found myself feeling stressed out, over-extended, and longing to slow down - yet struggled to create any margin for rest in my life, and felt unsure how to even begin making the changes that I so desperately needed.
But what I discovered is that I didn’t have to completely rip up the script, and overhaul my whole life in order to experience a slower, simpler, and more soulful way of life. I could do it exactly where I was, and so can you.
We can all discover a more restful way of living, right where we are - just by developing some simple rhythms of rest - and small, sustainable changes are often the best!
The secret to a restful life
When people hear that I’ve written a book all about rest, the first thing they ask me is this: What’s the secret to resting well?
It seems like everyone is always looking for that easy ‘life-hack’ or ‘quick fix’ solution for every problem these days, doesn’t it? But isn’t that really just another symptom of the hurry in our lives?
Often we don’t even really want to invest the time it takes to properly engage with the issues in order to make any meaningful changes in our lives. We just want someone else to tell us what we need to do!
So, can I let you into a little secret? There really is no ‘secret’ to rest - or at least not a ‘one size fits all’ solution anyway.
Instead, what I have come to discover is that learning to live in rest is an ‘inside’ job - it starts with a change of heart, and not just a change of pace or routine. And it’s impossible to properly deal with the external symptoms of our hurry, unless we first deal with the hurry in our hearts.
More often than not, it all begins with asking questions like: ‘Why am I so busy? What am I working so hard for? And what am I believing about myself, about God, and about the world around me, as I rush through my life?’
What am I believing about his faithfulness, and his care for me as I work myself into the ground? Do I really trust him to provide for me and to cover my lack? Or am I believing that it all rests on how many hours I can work and how much money I can earn?
And what am I believing about myself as I stress, strive and over-stretch my capacity, trying to do everything in my own strength? Have I lost sight of the fact I am loved simply for who I am, and not what I do?
Your answers to those questions might be a bit different to mine, and that means that the solutions you need might look a bit different too.
That’s why ‘Sand Between Your Toes’ isn’t just a ‘how to guide’ or five-step plan for instantly cutting all busyness from your life. Instead, it’s a series of bible-based reflections, hope-filled prayers, and practical tips to help encourage, inspire and equip you to begin doing the heart work of exploring what resting in God looks like in your own life.
Interested in learning more? If you’d like to read a bit more about ‘Sand Between Your Toes’ or download some sample pages to try for free, simply click on the link below.
