you're bone-tired ... and that's a gift

the monthly letter

In late May, after we graduated two seniors, hosted their favorite people past nightfall to celebrate, and delivered the last of the folding chairs, chafing dishes, and lawn games back to generous friends … my body slowed to a near halt.

My feet felt like lead, and my head was fuzzy through many of these post-graduation days; it wasn’t just the end of a party; it was the end of an era. And though my mouth couldn’t form words to describe where we’d been, my body wouldn’t be silent.

Days after graduation, while on a walk with Nate, I bemoaned my tiredness, trying to attribute it to some change in my diet, sleep, or exercise.

He essentially said, “girl, look where you’ve been. Of course you’re tired.”

Barring reading to you the pages of my journal, I will leave “look where you’ve been” to your imagination, but only for a second before I suggest the same to those of you reading this because the title caught your eye:

Of course you’re tired.

This email is the “friend, look where you’ve been — of course you’re tired” for you.

Rather than suggest new lifehacks to circumvent tiredness or supplements or diet changes that might boost your energy, this little note slid into your inbox on a Tuesday afternoon is here to suggest:

Might your tired be a gift?

In our 21st century August, we may not have clothes hanging on the line or bread rising overnight (though perhaps some of you do), but we stay awake past the sunset, and the “news” threatens to crowd into our 10 pm and our 6 am. We have more resources to consider for our child who has an overbite, who under-eats, or who can’t sleep than our parents ever did. We have a tap on our friends from two decades past (my college housemate’s daughter returned from camp last week. I only know because I saw it on Instagram. We haven’t caught up in years). We get alerts for pending thunderstorms, children abducted on the highway, and when our Instacart shopper can’t find organic cucumbers.

Yet we hold ourselves, our children, our friends, and our spouses to an A+ standard, at this pace and under this barrage of information coming at us every day, often unconsciously.

Somewhere in there, we wring out a quiet moment with God from the sponge of our days and hope that next week’s vacation will revive us (that is, after we’ve packed all the towels and all-natural sunscreen and toiletries and held the mail and found someone to watch the dog).

Your bone-tired body and soul are telling you a story that (if you’re like me) you’ve been refusing to hear. Your tired is a gift, friend.

Two thousand years ago, the maker of your soul … wearied.

“Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well” (John 4:6).

Our leader (our reason for living) wore skin that split and blistered and bled. He fell asleep in the middle of the day. And He got thirsty.

He invested in three people with all of himself but sometimes included twelve. He occasionally gave his voice to the masses, but we also saw him skirt away from the crowd.

Jesus lived, poured Himself out … and He slept and He rested and He feasted.

Yet something in me ignores the headaches, the swollen glands, and the persistent cough and just presses through for another action-packed day and more pursuit of vision.

Until God gives me the gift of exhaustion.

I want to start a revolution of slow movers, not because I think slow needs to be the new fad or that slow will gather a crowd, but because my soul can’t meet with God or find rest in His Word at the existing pace of my life.

And friends, I have erected firewalls all over the place throughout my schedule. My close friends will tell you that I say “no” as a practice. I have hours-long stretches without my phone. I lean fully into an analog life, almost at the risk of becoming a Luddite, not to let my soul get whisked away in the current of our culture’s pace. (The “look where you’ve been” I referenced earlier in this email has gently forced me to live and move at a slower pace than I once could.)

And yet, I’m still bone tired.

Yes, from some unrelenting life circumstances … but also because of the phone in my hand and the unrealistic expectations I field of how I should (or could) eat, exercise, read, invest in my children, reach out to my neighbors, create a beautiful home, make my life hospitable, serve the poor, grow my mind, and kill it as a writer … they burden me with what I wasn’t meant to carry.

I wasn’t made to be three people in one, wearing all these hats in one day or one hour. And I might suggest that when you lean into what you’re not and embrace the tired He has given to tell you a story, you might find the place of ultimate rest.

Our culture (even — especially — our Christian culture) rages against the pace of Christ. Our world teaches us to push our limits far beyond what we were made to manage such that we sow into becoming strong, not weak, to reveal His strength … until the skin in which God encased us tells us otherwise.

This is Part One of what I suspect will be many this year, as hot on my mind is the topic of sowing against a kill-it-with-hustle culture, such that the hardened parts of us that drive us can be nurtured by God.

Because many in my world who are killing it … are also killing their souls.

The short appetizer is this: friends, your tired may be telling you a story that your mind has refused to hear. It may be the gift of skin that God gave His son so that He could “sympathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15), which He also gives to us.

What would it look like for you to make a shift? To let your tired be the gift it may be intended to be? To slow your roll in an attempt to end your efforts to be God, but instead be you, with God inside of you?

{You can read more on this topic here or stick around here for more as it’s a topic I’m living and leaning into.}

Until next time,

Sara