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I’ve had days where I’m worn out, and all I want is a hot bath and a TV show. Or I want to just recline on the couch, probably eating chocolate. You know, self-care.

Some days maybe it’s a long walk or a good book. Some retail therapy or a day at the beach. All good, all good.

Except if you’re like me sometimes you come back from those experiences and you feel just the same as you did before-stressed, worn out, distracted, as Bilbo Baggins famously said, “like butter spread across too much bread.”

Why?

When “self-care” doesn’t cut it

I’ve realized lately that much of what we call self-care doesn’t get to the heart of the issue. It’s an escape, a distraction, a temporary balm. I get away physically but I carry the weight with me. It doesn’t address the deep lies and idols that have probably been the culprit in my detour from a place of health.

So what it is that we need to do instead?

I know I need to begin with being more mindful. When I am, I’m less likely to get to the place where I need to get away from it all, where I am just spent.

We need to be mindful of how we got here in the first place. What’s been missing in my life that has worn me down so much? Chances are it’s not a lack of baths or chocolate (for sure not a lack of chocolate on my part).

How did we get here?

Is it that we haven’t been spending enough time in the spaces and relationships that are life-giving? Have we wandered away from foundational truths that nourish our souls?

Or is it something more practical-have we simply let other people or our own egos plan our schedules to excess? Have we kept an unsustainable pace?

We need to be mindful of the accusations of the enemy that assault us. Mindful of our negative self-talk. Or simply mindful of the noise that shuts out the chance for us to hear God’s voice speaking life.

We need to be honest about where sin or foolishness had led us to live in a way that is unwise, that drains us. Where we have chosen the path of least resistance rather than the healthiest one.

Maybe the way we can care for ourselves the most today is the thing that takes the most courage.

True Self-Care

It might be drawing a stronger boundary with the person who takes too much from us. As hard as it that might be, it is good for both parties.

Maybe it’s sitting in the reality of how something is impacting us, and speaking necessary truth to it. That’s hard work, and it takes time, but that’s how we win the battle for our souls.

It could be a time of confession of where we have lived beyond our limits. That’s humbling to admit, as is scaling back, but it gives our souls space to breathe again.

Self-care might look like ditching the chocolate for something healthier (I mean we can keep this as a last resort, of course).

When we’re tempted to hole up by ourselves, we might actually need to initiate connection with someone who feeds our souls.

Maybe sitting in agonizing silence is the best thing for us. Then we can hear what our souls need to say.

While we’re on that long walk, self-care means dwelling on the truth rather than stewing over our worries.

Self-care isn’t always what comes easiest or most naturally. We have an enemy who wants to keep us worn down, and if he can’t keep us from that, he’ll make sure our time away from activity doesn’t really refresh us.

So we have to be intentional. Wherever we encounter resistance in our souls we need to ask why. What might our souls ask for that requires more of us than a temporary getaway? Let’s choose self-care that truly restores.

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Hearts That Carry Too Much

Packing Our Fragile Lives

Keeping a Sabbath Heart

Prompted by a newsletter request, I prayed one morning for missionary kids around the world experiencing COVID with their families. Knowing just a few situations in other countries, and how varied they are, I paused in my prayer as I realized that if I knew all those situations, I would be overwhelmed.

This current reality is overwhelming enough as it is. It’s more than our hearts are used to carrying. More than our hearts should carry. And yet we are.

There are more issues crying for our attention than we normally have in a much longer span of time. The intensity of the issues we’re facing is daunting. They’re literally life and death. I don’t have to look far to read strong arguments telling me what I should believe about all of them, and that I should act on all of them.

I look for a balance between knowing what is happening but not knowing so much that it disrupts me in unhealthy ways. While I want to care well for the people around me and be engaged in important issues,  some days it feels like too much for my heart to carry.

So what do we do?

Remember who loves us (and them)

What I remembered that morning as I prayed for missionary kids is that God knows every situation. He is not overwhelmed. He is love itself, poured out for all of us. There is no limit to His compassion or mercy. That compassion covers us as we navigate this difficult season, and it covers all that we cannot reach. We are not alone in caring for the world; He cares far more than we ever could.

A verse that has been my encouragement during this time is 1 Peter 5:7 from The Message, “Live carefree; He is most careful with you.” He is careful with us, and with all the hurting people in the world. We can trust Him with all of it.

Ask what is ours to carry

John Eldredge says our souls were made to carry villages; right now it feels like we are being asked to carry the world. While God desires for us to love our neighbors well, He knows we are finite in our capacity to care for everyone practically. Scripture commands us to carry one another’s burdens, not be buried by them. Instead, we carry them to the cross.

So what is ours? That’s between us and God. We need to ask Him to show us what our hearts should carry. He puts different passions on different peoples’ hearts. Sometimes in our zeal, we communicate about our own passion in a way that implies others must care about it to the same degree; again, we need to ask God. What is ours? That which is, we carry wholeheartedly.

Benevolently detach from the rest

John Eldredge also talks about “benevolent detachment”- the practice of letting go and giving things to Jesus. Caring, but not carrying. As we do, the weight falls away and we are able to live and love as we were created to.

For me, part of benevolent detachment has meant stepping away from social media and the news for a time to let my heart settle. It was causing too much anxiety and triggering me to want to control things I simply cannot control. The weight was too much.

Instead, I have tried to focus on engaging more in what I know God has given me, leaving the rest to Him. Over time I have slowly re-engaged, but with a careful watch on my soul and how I’m responding. My hope is to let anything that feels too heavy push me to prayer where I allow God to decide what my action should be.

Most of all, my prayer lately is, “Help me to care deeply, but hold loosely.” I want to love wholeheartedly, but I know that the world is too much for my heart to carry. I will love with everything in me and trust the carrying to God.

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What to Do When It’s Hard

What We Don’t Have to Carry

The other day I finally tackled our pile of clothes that needed ironing. Included in it was one of our daughter’s school uniform shirts. As I ironed it, I thought, “Why am I doing this? She might not even wear it again.” And I cried. Again.

Watching all our plans for the spring slip away has meant grief after grief. But the other night as we walked together, we found ourselves grateful. We realized that had this happened a month earlier, she would have missed the incredible end to her high school soccer career during which she led her team to the state tournament.

Can I be honest? It felt weird to be grateful. And that, in a nutshell, is my emotional state in this pandemic.

Holding Grief and Gratitude

One minute I’m sad because our daughter might not finish her senior year, and in the next breath I’m deeply grateful for what she did have.

Her 18th birthday is in two weeks, and I don’t know how to make it special for her under these circumstances. When I shared it with friends last night I was deeply blessed with a chorus of commitment to help make it the best it can be.

I love having our kids home with us, but it’s heartbreaking to tell them they can’t go see their friends.

I’m disappointed that the conference I’ve worked on for six months that should happen this week is postponed indefinitely, but I’m glad for the extra time.

While I’m thankful we have a safe place to shelter, I’m saddened as I read about the suffering of many.

Sometimes it feels like too much, this mix of joy and sorrow. It feels like emotional whiplash. I see other people responding to the mix in their own ways. Some are fixated on the losses and the suffering. Others insist on looking at the positive, celebrating the wins.

There’s a place for both.

In fact, I think that to weather this well, we have to learn how to hold grief and gratitude in the same breath.

Holding them simultaneously is hard. They feel contradictory. They’re not. Grief and gratitude go hand in hand. Holding them both is an attitude of faith. And the reality is this crisis carries both.

What We Grieve

There is much to grieve. We have missed birthday gatherings, graduation parties, sporting events, and church, some even canceled weddings and unattended funerals. There’s a loss of human contact, the simple pleasure of coffee with a friend, of impromptu gatherings with others. We miss play dates and community meetings and dining out.

Worse still, people are sick and dying. Many are struggling to make ends meet, are separated from their sick loved ones, or wondering how to care for their kids while keeping their jobs. Normal life is gone. It’s scary and exhausting and overwhelming at times. And sad. We’re so sad.

Why We’re Grateful

But there is also so much good to celebrate. Each night our family eats together on our lanai and then we walk around the neighborhood with the dog. It delights my soul. We bought a dinosaur costume and have paraded around the neighborhood in it. (We guess Amazon felt it was an essential purchase because it came quickly).

This has forced many of us to slow down and has given us unexpected time with loved ones. I’m amazed at the creativity and innovation of people who seek to comfort, help, or simply provide much-needed entertainment. Thank God for Zoom and FaceTime. Praise Him for art and music and how all this reminds us of what we have in common. We’re making connection happen in the worst of circumstances. Best of all, people are recovering. We’re figuring this virus out, and moving toward solutions.

It’s so tempting to just hold onto the latter and forget the former. As though enough good can erase the bad. And it’s easy to get lost in the grief and forget to see the gifts we’re given in the midst of the mess.

But grief and gratitude are meant to coexist, and the beauty of this horrible season is that we’re invited to enter both.

We don’t look for the positive to negate the negative. We hold onto the good alongside the hard because they go hand in hand. Every moment of grief reminds me of something we have loved and lost. Having it at all was a gift, and we are grateful. Losing it is heartbreaking, so we grieve. The more we do that, the more we are able to receive the unexpected gifts that are all around us.

Related posts:

When Grief Surprises You

Panning for Gold: What to Do When Gratitude Is Hard

Finding God in the Wilderness

What to Do When It’s Hard

Do you ever have one of those moments when you think, “No one understands what I’m going through”?

That sentiment isn’t reserved for antsy teenagers or Enneagrams 4s. At some point, each of us walks through something that feels isolating and foreign to others.

Maybe it’s a particular illness (hello, dizziness that fits in no defined categories). Maybe no one understands your take on the world. Or you’re walking through divorce surrounded by couples. Maybe depression threatens to suck you under. It could be a parenting struggle no one else you know has.

The enemy loves it when we believe that no one understands. It keeps our eyes downward. It keeps us isolated.

But this season reminds us that it’s simply not true. We are never alone.

“Jesus has journeyed to the far reaches of loneliness. In his broken body he has carried your sins and mine, every separation and loss, every heart broken, every wound of the spirit that refuses to close, all the riven experiences of men, women and children across the bands of time.” Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

Emmanuel, God with Us

Jesus is our Emmanuel-God with us. God with us in every sense of the word-not just physically, but in our experiences, our emotions, our humanity. There is nothing we go through where He is not fully engaged, feeling it with us. His willingness to identify with us in His lifetime means there is nothing in our life that He cannot and will not touch.

I know. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough. Just this week, as I contemplated the challenges of launching my book, I thought, “I know God is with me, but I still want ‘Jesus with skin on’ as they say.” Graciously, He gives that to us sometimes as well.

But in the places where we don’t feel it, let’s find comfort in this: He knows. What we’re going through is intimately known by God. We are not alone.

One of my first years out of college, when I was new in full-time ministry and hadn’t a clue what I was doing, it was hard. Jesus met me, alone in my dark little basement room, reminding me of this truth that He knows.

I wrote a lot of poetry back then, some of which I have shared here. This is the poem I wrote during that time:

HARD

My soul longs for one
one who knows my “hard.”
a longing not out of self-pity or doubt
but from an emptiness aching to be filled
with understanding.

Jesus, Lover of my soul
let me to your bosom fly
There to hear your heart
beat in sympathy with mine,
and, “I know, I know your hard”
quenching my inmost being.

As we experience Advent, let this truth reverberate in our hearts: He knows, He knows, He knows. However hard it is, He is closer than a heartbeat. Let that breath life into you this season.

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I wish I had a dollar for every time someone has said to me, “Oh I could never . . .” fill in the blank, usually with “live overseas” or “be in full-time ministry” or “homeschool my kids” or some other lifestyle choice we’ve made along the way.

It’s hard to know how to respond to statements like that. I used to think, “Sure you could!” But now I think, “You know what? You could, but you’re not supposed to do this. And that’s okay.”

See, I can do what I do only because this is what I’m called to do. You might be called to do something else.  (Probably you are because if God called us all to the same thing, well, that would be highly inefficient).

We each have our own calling. And God gives us what we need for what we are called to do.

The Uniqueness of Our Calling

I didn’t decide to move overseas or be in full-time ministry or homeschool my kids because I thought I’d be awesome at these things and they seemed manageable and fun. (and honestly, those are usually grids I would use!) No, I had great reservations about all of them. But it was obvious to me when I chose to enter each of those situations that it was what God wanted for me. It was what He was leading me to do. 

As Christians, we often espouse the view that to truly follow God, we must all live a certain way. It’s easy to feel pressure to conform to the choices we see others around us making. We judge others when they don’t make the same choices we do. We question others, we doubt ourselves.

All of that negates calling. Recently, a friend of mine was sharing about her decision to have a larger family. It wasn’t one she took lightly. It was what she felt God asked of her.

She receives more than her share of, “Oh I could never . . .” statements with regard to the number of children she has. But the truth she keeps returning to is that she knows it is how she and her husband were led. It is what God had for them.

The Broadness of God’s Calling

Calling can be a nebulous word. What do we mean by that? I used to believe that God’s calling on my life was some target I had to hit; miss it and you’re outside His will. All bets for a good life are off then.

But I believe now that God’s will is broader than that. I fully believe God designs us with specific gifts and passions meant to be used for His glory (Ephesian 2:10). That call is unique to us.

Therefore calling combats comparison. When we are sure that the choices we make are what God has for us personally, it silences the voices that say, “But other people are doing this” or “I should live like that person.”

Bring What You Have

Calling invites stewardship. Those gifts and passions He gave you? Other people don’t have them. So if you don’t show up with them, we all miss out. We all need to offer who we are and what we can do.

In Psalm 16:5-6 it reads, “Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup. You have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance.” God assigns us our calling. Confidence in our calling brings security. It provides boundaries that say, “This is for you, and that is not. And that is good.”

What is your calling today? Who is He calling you to be? What is He calling you to do? Ask Him to show you what He has for you, listen for His leading and walk confidently in it.

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Why I Don’t Teach Sunday School

I still remember the door shutting behind our two kids as they walked out the door for the first day of their senior and sophomore years of high school. With the new-found freedom of being able to drive themselves, it was the first time I didn’t have to accompany them.

The sudden silence overwhelmed me.

Rather than feeling my own freedom, I felt empty. Tempted to fill the space with activity, instead, I felt compelled to sit and acknowledge it for a moment. I turned it over, questioning where it came from and why. What did it say about my soul?

It wasn’t a comfortable moment.

It was another tug at my soul from God, a whisper from a place of quietness I have always been loath to enter. Productivity, input, engagement-this is where I feel at home.

God Calling Me to Silence

Since then, through various means, including books like You Are What You Love and Liturgy of the Ordinary, God keeps calling me to order my life so that the lonely places are not something to avoid, but something to practice. God keeps calling me to order my life so that the lonely places are not something to avoid, but something to practice. Share on X

I have the best intentions. I believe what people say about the importance of silence, making space for my soul to speak, and space for the Spirit to respond.

So I began carving out that space: ten minutes of silence to start my time with God in the morning. Then fifteen. Even sometimes twenty. Turning off the radio during a drive. Choosing not to pull up a podcast on a long walk with my dog.

I love what I find there, I do.

Creating space for silence lets my soul breathe. All the anxiety that hides in corners of my soul, weighing it down, comes crawling out into the open. There’s relief in offering it to Someone far more capable than I. Thoughts crystallize. I become conscious of what holds my heart. My soul gets quiet enough to listen to God.

My Struggle with Silence

But just as quickly, I let the noise creep back in. It’s easier. I fill a boring moment with a new TV show episode, and suddenly I’m hooked. Someone mentions a new podcast and I pick it up. It’s more fun to cook with something occupying my mind. Soon enough, distractions take over once again.

It’s tempting to be discouraged, to give up.

Perhaps I am simply too hard-wired for activity, I think.

It helps to remember that there is a war for my soul, and the enemy loves using noise and distraction in the fight. This isn’t merely a matter of discipline, but of the kingdom, for which I am ill-equipped to fight on my own. I need God’s help.

So I keep listening for His whispers, calling me back. I know He holds no contempt for me when I finally turn down the sounds of my life and get quiet again. He is patient. He is waiting.

Making Peace with Silence

Places of solitude and silence can overwhelm. But maybe they’re supposed to. In those places, we touch our humanity. We feel how small and helpless we really are to control our space. But we also touch His divinity. We’re invited into His presence.

Sometimes, the silence feels like nothing. My thoughts are scrambled, and it hardly feels worth it. But I believe it is. I trust that something is settling in me-a deeper capacity to be conscious of His presence in a way that seeps into every moment of my life. Hopefully, it’s creating a solid place in me where my false self gets stripped away and I am just His. I have faith that it is.

So I will keep struggling to make peace with silence. As uncomfortable as it may be, as much as I don’t enjoy the flood of thoughts that come knocking when I get quiet, I know there is life there.

And I know that God is on our side in this. He longs to meet us in what feels like empty space, so He can fill us with Himself.

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To Truly Be Still

Learning to Walk (at an Unhurried Pace)

I’m no stranger to packing up and moving homes, so you’d think I would be pretty good at it by now.

Unfortunately, I have a strong streak of impatience and a high commitment to efficiency, so I tend to pack carelessly. This is particularly true in the kitchen because so much is fragile and requires extra work.

I remember packing a box of glasses once to give away. I debated the merits of squeezing them all into one box over padding them well enough that they wouldn’t break in transit (especially because I couldn’t find another box and was too lazy to keep looking. Also, I value efficiency over accuracy).

This is how we can fill our schedules.

When I look at my calendar and see wide open spaces, my instinct is to fill them.

It’s like Pac-Man, trying to level up by gobbling empty slots.

The problem is when I add something new, I don’t always think about the padding it needs to not bump up against other activities.

Here’s an example: Someone asked me once to take on a role that on paper is a 3-hour activity once a month. I thought, “That’s totally doable!” (this is generally my reaction to any prospect).

When I talked it over with a wise friend, though, he pointed out that it wasn’t just 3 hours. Taking on that time meant 6-8 new relationships with people I want to invest in knowing well.

It meant praying for them, probably meeting individually, social activities together, being available to them. When I thought about the amount of space it would really take in my box, I knew it wasn’t going to fit.

It’s not just about the activities we do, but all the bubble wrap time that will go into making that activity succeed. It includes all the prayer, preparation, thinking, and meeting that might surround it.

Most importantly, we have to consider the relational and emotional energy expended on top of the actual time invested. I don’t know about you, but I don’t often have an excess of that kind of energy laying around.

I’ve experienced the side effects of over packing. Things break.

I break.

Bubble Wrapping Our Lives

So I’m trying these days to bubble wrap my activities. Leave space around them to actually think about them.

Space to be fully present in what I choose, to let them bleed a bit outside the lines of the time I allotted for them.

It’s not easy. My ego gets in the way, wanting to prove myself through the busyness of my calendar.

My heart gets in the way too-I want to help. I love saying yes. But if it’s going to cause me to overwork, it’s not my best yes. It’s not the best yes for anyone.

So we need helping packing. Sometimes we need to run it by a friend, as I mentioned earlier, someone with no skin in the game, who can call us out when our hearts and egos run faster than our souls.

And of course, we need God. He knows how fragile we are; He knows He made us from dust. His wisdom will guide us if we’re willing to listen as we pack.

Related posts:

Learning to Respect My Limits

Choosing Slow

Finding Balance in the Seasons

I’m going to come straight to the point: we don’t talk about sin anymore.

We talk about brokenness and being messy, which is good. We talk about crushed Cheerios in our minivans or how we just can’t get to the gym. Maybe even about the truth of our hard days, and where we feel we don’t measure up. All good.

And in light of all that, we talk a lot about God’s love for us, a most necessary shift from the past. There is nothing we can do to make Him love us less; we know that now, right? It’s important to know that God sees into our brokenness and mess and does not turn away. Again, all good.

Authenticity is great. Being grounded in God’s love is necessary. But what happens when we divorce it from sin? When we don’t look past our crushed Cheerios and failed gym membership to see the ways we rebel against God Himself?

What Happens When We Don’t Talk About Sin

Well, if that happens, then we can go to church and just feel good about ourselves.

We go sing about how much God loves us and it fills us up to live another week. We sing what I call “Law 1” songs.

If you aren’t familiar, the gospel tract we often use in Cru ministry called “Knowing God Personally” used to be called “The Four Spiritual Laws.” Law 1 is, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”

Good news, but not if we forget law 2, “Man is sinful and separated from God.”

I know. Who wants to talk about that?

I do. Because what does it mean to us that God loves us if we aren’t conscious of the fact that we don’t deserve that love? If we don’t face the hard truth that apart from the death of Christ, I cannot stand in the presence of God?

Why We Need to Talk About Sin

When our “brokenness” and “mess” fails to encompass the reality of sin, we miss something of God.

When it’s only about bringing our wounds and not our moral failure to the surface, we don’t experience the full extent of what God has done for us.

Jesus didn’t die for our crushed Cheerios or our failure to work out. He died for the ways we choose to walk away from God, over and over, day after day.

Growing up, I was not acutely aware of my sin. I was a good kid. The kind other parents probably wished they had.

So when I was presented with the idea that I was a sinner in need of grace, I accepted it at a head level. I couldn’t really see much God was saving me from.

But as I grew, I began to be confronted by the depths of how I do try to live independently of God. I saw the deep desire in my heart to be my own savior, ruler of my own kingdom.

It was terrifying to me. I thought surely God would realize He’d made a mistake choosing me as a child.

But every time I’ve seen a new depth of my sin, it calls me to see deeper grace. And that’s why we need to talk about sin.

A dear friend of mine once said, “I am sobered by the depth of my depravity, and I’m thrilled by the depth of my redemption.” The magnificence of grace always matches the magnitude of our sin.

This is why we need to talk about sin: so that while we are sobered by how far we stray from God, we can simultaneously be overwhelmed by all that God has done to bring us back.

related posts:

Why Do We Keep Ourselves From Grace?

Permission to Make Mistakes