Nourishing hearts as faithfully as we nourish our tables.
Welcome to Season & Savor Sunday — because feeding our bodies is not enough.
A few years back, in the thick of the pandemic, we made a decision as a family to stop watching the news. Not because we didn’t care what was happening in the world, but because the anxiety it stirred up in all of us was too much. It was affecting how we slept, how we talked to each other, honestly how we showed up in our own home.
So we pulled back. And I’ll be honest, it’s been one of the more freeing decisions we’ve made. I still know what’s going on in the world. I’m not an ostrich with my head buried in the sand. But I’ve stopped needing to know every up to the second detail, every headline, every breaking news bit.
If you’ve ever done this, maybe you know the strange guilt that comes with it. Not because anyone’s made me feel this way, my friends and family have never once made me feel less than for stepping back, even when we’re on the same side of things. But I’d be lying if I said those conversations don’t still get to me. There are moments I feel less than, moments I want to graciously excuse myself and slip away, not because I don’t care or don’t want to be part of it, but because something about the intensity of it stirs up real angst in me. It’s something I’d like to change about myself. I just haven’t figured out how yet.
But here’s what I’ve come to realize. We are not all built the same way. Some people can wade through the daily churn of bad news and come out steady. Others of us cannot, and pretending otherwise costs us more than we realize: our sleep, our peace, our ability to be present with the people right in front of us. I’ll be honest, there’s more to this story, a season our family walked through that taught me just how much that daily noise can cost a person. That’s a story for another day, but it’s part of why we hold onto quiet so tightly now.
Do I think being informed matters? Yes. Do I show up for what I believe in? Yes. But do I trust ultimately in any political leader, any institution, to be the thing that holds my life together? Not for one single second. As the psalmist put it, “Some nations boast of their chariots and horses, but we boast in the name of the Lord our God” (Psalm 20:7, NLT). Some trust in polls and platforms and the next election cycle. I trust in the Lord my God.
Some days I miss the simplicity of my parents’ era: a morning paper, an evening paper, maybe one trusted voice on the news at six o’clock, and that was enough to know what you needed to know. Now the noise never stops, and I think God actually built us for a slower rhythm than the one we’re being handed.
Which is why I keep coming back to Jeremiah 17:7-8 (NLT):
“But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.”
That’s the picture I want for my life. Not a person tracking every threat, bracing for the next headline. A tree with roots down deep enough that the heat doesn’t scare it. Green leaves even in a drought year.
And when I need to remind myself how to actually live that out, I come back to the verses I’ve leaned on for years, Proverbs 3:5-7 (NLT):
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.”
That’s the whole thing, isn’t it. Not leaning on my own understanding, not on the noise, not on whoever’s in charge this week. Just trusting the One who’s never once let me down.
~ With grace at the table, and beyond
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