The weariness of this week hit me hard, and when I sat down to write these words, I had no idea what the Lord would put on my heart to bring to you today. Amidst the craziness and challenges of work, my husband traveling for business, and introducing a new furbaby to our family, I have found myself completely drained this week. Do you ever have weeks like that? Where you find yourself waking up in the morning and living for Friday night?! When you can finally sit down, enjoy a glass of wine and put off the laundry and dirty dishes until Saturday afternoon? It has been one of those weeks for this exhausted Warrior. 

I sat down Wednesday morning, a hot cup of coffee in hand with a furbaby on either side of me, and stared, glassy-eyed from sleep, down at my Bible and my journal – not having one single ounce of desire to open up either one of them. I was weary. I strongly dislike that word because I struggle with associating weariness with weakness, and I don’t like to show my weaknesses. But I felt the Lord tugging at my heart that morning, encouraging me to close my eyes and seek His presence in my weariness. After a little resistance from my stubborn self, I closed my eyes and trusted that He would show up despite the fact that my mind was so far from focused on Him. And when I did I got a picture in my mind of a woman. She was running around, hands full of so many different things and emotions, that they were spilling onto the ground as she rushed in a panic to try and pick them all up. No matter how hard she tried, one thing after another tumbled to the ground, and despite her frenzied effort, she eventually fell with the things that she was trying so desperately to hold onto. Her hair was a mess, her hands were shaking, and when she looked up, I saw that this woman was me. 

I know there have to be some Warrior sisters out there that have had a weary week like me, or maybe you’re right in the middle of a weary season. Life seems so draining, and as soon as you get back up on your feet, something else jumps out at you, knocking you off balance once again. I’ve been there many times, you’re not alone. And it is here – in weeks and seasons of weariness – that I am most susceptible to forgetting Jesus’s faithfulness. I’m an Enneagram 8 – so my knee jerk reaction is to just get, well, to put it bluntly, pissed off. Why do I always have to be this tired?! Why can’t my life just go the way I want it to for one day?! Really Lord?! I know, so dramatic… I’m rolling my eyes at myself as I type these words. But when I stop long enough to hear His still, small voice in the middle of my temper tantrum, I hear Him tell me something that stops me dead in my tracks every single time…

You’re not trusting me with your weariness. 

Whoa, excuse me? What does that even mean?! Well, friends… it means that I have a really hard time leaning on the only constant One amidst the chaos of my life. It starts with mistrust. I don’t believe that He is enough for me in this day or week or season of weariness. I believe that holding onto the things in my life that are causing my weariness, and carrying all of them with my own arms, somehow gives me this sense of control. So I begin to collect from the floor things that I was never meant to pick up in the first place. My collection of false control becomes so catastrophic, that just like the picture of the woman in my mind, it all comes crashing to the floor… and not in a very graceful manner. I didn’t trust Him, I trusted myself and my own sense of control to be the source of revival for the weariness in my life. I trusted that I could hold it, I could carry it and I could handle it all on my own. I rush around trying to hold everything together, that I fly past and completely miss the One person who is actually qualified to carry my heavy stuff. 

Mistrust is a major root of fear and anxiety; when I am in a place of not trusting the Lord, I am in my most anxious state of mind. Friends, take it from one who knows from experience – we have to learn to lean on Jesus in order to receive the peace He has for us amidst our weariness. Have you ever tried to lean into someone while your hands were full? It gets awkward pretty quickly! It’s the same concept with Jesus; we can’t simultaneously hold onto control while trying to lean on Him. It’s awkward! Trusting that He’ll catch you when you lean in, is the sweetest form of surrender, as we lay down our “what ifs” and “I can’ts” in exchange for His “I Am”. “I Am your strength”. “I Am enough for you”. “I Am with you”. “I Am your peace in the middle of this battle”. “I Am worthy of being trusted with your weariness”.

My deepest prayer for you right now is that this truth gives you a huge sense of relief: You don’t have to carry your heavy heart alone, because you have a God that loves you so much that He begs to carry it for you. He knows you’re trying your best. He already expects you not to get it right half the dang time anyway, so quit putting all of the pressure on yourself and throw it onto Him! Lighten your load because “perfection” never looked exciting on anyone. On the other side of the fear of letting go of that control, lays freedom you forgot existed. The freedom to openly trust the Creator of your entire being… who fiercely loves you more than you could ever comprehend, despite your mistakes and imperfections. He is trustworthy, not because of anything you have done, but because of who He is. He literally can’t help Himself! He’s obsessed with you, even if you’re not obsessed with Him. He absolutely adores you, and every time He sees you struggling, His heart physically hurts as His arms ache to hold the things weighing you down. 

Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6 say,

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

and He will make your paths straight.”

I bet some of you have read over that verse a million times without really stopping to consider what’s being said here. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the command is “lean not on our own understanding.” Jesus knew we would need a clear picture of what it looks like to completely trust Him, and it begins with leaning into Him as we lay our weariness at His feet. Leaning into Him means we are trusting Him and coming underneath Him in submission with our lives – the good, the bad and the hideous. Do you know what happens when we submit to Jesus? Our weariness, our fear, our anxiety, our regrets… they bow down in submission to the name of Jesus. They hold no power! Doesn’t that give you chills? It should because as we lean in, our fears and anxieties flee because they can’t stand against the gentle yet mighty hand of God. You are leaning into a God that has the power to demolish strongholds in your life, while at the same time giving you a peace that surpasses all understanding, and rest that reaches down to the very bottom of your tired soul. I think it’s time to put down the weight of the world and remember that you are a beautifully broken daughter of the One True King Jesus; a King you can trust with your weariness.