My son turns 2 in a few days. He's not in school yet so as far as 'back-to-school' advice I got nuthin'. I do know something about 'back to busy' though.

I'm a do-er. I love 'to do' lists. I even wrote about it here. To-do lists and being uber-efficient can be great. However, as Kerri Weems gently asserts in her book, Rhythms of Grace: Discovering God's Tempo For Your Life, "any overused strength turns into a weakness."

My love of lists and ability to uber-efficiently multi-task is indeed a strength, but sometimes it drains the life out of me. I end some days so mentally and physically taxed that I collapse into bed with a mind racing about all the things I didn't get done. It leaves me feeling empty, overwhelmed, and run down. And if I'm honest this happens more than 'sometimes'- it happens most times.

Check out my other two favorite excerpts from Rhythms of Grace...

"A sustainable work/rest rhythm that leads to wholeness is one that leaves us with something left at the end of each day. The key to establishing such a rhythm is learning how to be content and satisfied with one day’s work, but the challenging thing is that determining what constitutes “one day’s work” is becoming increasingly difficult."

Tell me about it.

Preach sista's! Preach! Yes- I want a big cup of wholeness!!!!

"We don’t treat any other resources as if the goal is to spend or use them until they run out, but we do this with our own time and energy..."

Gulp:

That last one was like a bullet right through me. Why on Earth do we do that? Why do we spend every last drop of ourselves? Weems makes the comparison to gas and money- you don't run your car completely out of gas or your bank account out of money and call it a victory... so why on Earth do we run ourselves ragged?

I don't know the answer. I do know that I don't want to be on empty. Most importantly, I don't want to teach my son to run himself down. So as our little family gets going on a very busy fall my focus is on 'enough'. Letting enough BE enough. Checking in daily with my energy, my spirit, and my heart to make sure it's not on empty and allowing myself to lay all the stuff down and just let enough be enough.

Joanna Gaines from HGTV's, Fixer Upper, has the most wonderful saying that she actually sells as a sign online that says, 'Let whatever you do today be enough.' This hangs in my kitchen. I'm not great at letting whatever I do be enough. Some days I totally suck at it. But each day is a new day... and a new opportunity to give myself grace.

What about you? How do you keep your rhythm?