Season & Savor: When Life Piles Up

Welcome to Season & Savor Sunday — because feeding our bodies is not enough.

I haven’t written one of these in a few weeks, and if you’ve been wondering where I went, here’s the honest answer: life got full.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been helping people I love through some hard moves. Although there is joy in it, it’s still hard. But at the same time, emotions are high, and everybody’s exhausted before you even pick up the first box. One was a friend I’ve known since our boys were babies; those “babies” are pushing 23 now, so you do the math on how long that friendship goes back. They moved about 20 minutes away, so we’ll still see one another, but gone are the early-morning, spontaneous, let’s-go-for-a-walk-and-catch-up moments. The other was a family member navigating a move that got even more complicated by an accident nobody saw coming.

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I won’t go into details. That’s not really my story to tell. But I will tell you this: they say the four biggest stressors in life are a new job, a new baby, a marriage, and a move. I believe it. Because these past couple of weeks knocked me sideways more than I expected (and I’m not even the one moving), and I’ve been trying to figure out why.

Is it the heat? We’ve had string after string of days in the high 90s this summer with no break, and that alone will wear a person down, at least this girl. Is it the lack of sleep? Probably some of that too. But if I’m honest, I think it’s mostly the emotional weight. Showing up for people you love while they’re trying to hold it together, and trying to hold yourself together too, that’s exhausting in a way that doesn’t always show up until later.

Here’s what I keep coming back to. We’re so quick to tell ourselves to put on our big girl panties and push through. And sometimes that’s exactly what’s needed. But other times, pushing through without ever stopping to process just takes the breath right out of you. I think that’s part of why the Bible talks so much about giving our worries over to God instead of carrying them ourselves. Not because feeling stressed is a failure of faith, but because we were never meant to carry it alone.

Philippians 4:6-7 puts it this way, and yes, I know you probably have read this a thousand times, but sit with it for a minute: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.“

That word “guard” got me this time. Not just peace that shows up once and leaves, peace that stands watch, but it requires us to do something, to pray. About it all!

So if you haven’t heard from me in a few weeks, that’s why. Helping the people I love, feeling the heat both literally and figuratively, and slowly learning, again, and again, that I don’t have to carry all of it myself.

If you’re in a season like this too, whatever kind of “move” it is for you, I hope you’ll give yourself permission to actually feel it instead of just pushing through. Sneak in a 20-minute catnap in the middle of the day, sip something cool in the shade, or have a good cry. 

Psalm 55:22 says it plainer than I ever could: “Cast your cares on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.” (NIV)

Cast it. And here’s the thing I have to remind myself: it’s rarely a one-and-done. Just like fishing, you cast, reel it in, cast again. Some days it’s handing it over first thing in the morning, then again by lunch, and then 5 minutes later, then again at 2 am when my brain won’t shut off. Moment by moment, sometimes minute by minute. I don’t think that’s failing at faith. That’s just what it looks like to actually live it, to be human.

He’s got it. He’s got me. He’s got my friends and my family, and He’s got you too. Even when you have to hand it over again five minutes from now.

~ With grace at the table, and beyond

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