CHAPTER 6

Take a Break… and Believe

Being a mom can be one of the most exhausting jobs on earth. Like most mothers, I figured that out as soon as my first baby was born. And with the arrival of each additional child, my revelation of this fact increased.

I can still vividly remember the time my daughter had colic as an infant and cried every night for weeks. I got so desperate for sleep that I called the doctor and gave him an ultimatum. “Either give me something to knock this child out or put me in a loony bin because I can’t take this anymore!”

No doubt, you can relate.

Even if you haven’t had a crib or a baby bottle in your house for years, as a mother you still face days when you’re worn-out from everything you have to do. Days when you’ve given so much of yourself that you feel like you don’t have anything left to give. Days when the demands of motherhood so drain your physical and emotional resources that you dream of going on vacation. Someplace far away. All by yourself. I have felt like running away from home a few times in my life, and you probably have felt the same way.

We all have these kinds of days—no mother is exempt from them. Whether we stay at home full-time or work a job, whether we’re married or single, whether our bank accounts are fat or scrawny, we all get weary.

By definition, to be weary means to be “exhausted in strength or endurance, to have no vigor or freshness left, to have your inner resources depleted.” It means you no longer have pleasure in what you do.

It also means you’re in dangerous territory.

I’ve discovered—and you probably have too—that if I get too worn-out, I lose control of my emotions and get grouchy. I make bad decisions. I am tempted to overeat and overspend. I feel sorry for myself and tend not to resist temptation. It’s no wonder the Bible says the devil seeks to “wear out” the saints (Daniel 7:25)! When we’re worn-out, bummed-out, wrung-out, and barely able to drag ourselves around, we’re easy prey for him. So if we’re going to be the kind of moms we aspire to be, we can’t afford to let ourselves get weary. We must make sure we’re rested and refreshed each day.

Living on Vacation

I can almost hear you laughing right now. “Yeah, right, Joyce. I’ll do that. Every time I get a little tired I’ll just withdraw some of the money I won in the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes, leave the kids with Mary Poppins, and spend a few days in the Caribbean, swinging in a hammock, sipping coconut juice!”

If that’s what you’re thinking, I assure you, it’s not what I’m suggesting. I realize you can’t literally take a physical vacation every time you get weary. There’s a good chance you can’t even find time for a nap. But there is something you can do. You can take Jesus up on the offer He made in Matthew 11:28-29:

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.] Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls.

Think for a moment about the words Jesus used in that scripture. When you read them in this Amplified translation, they perfectly describe what every weary mom longs for: rest, ease, refreshment, recreation, and blessed quiet.

I don’t know what comes to your mind when you hear those words, but they sound to me like a perfect vacation. And that’s exactly what Jesus is talking about there. He’s promising us a vacation—not for our bodies, but for our souls!

Imagine living every day with your soul on vacation.

Imagine living every day with your soul on vacation. Imagine raising your kids, managing your household, taking care of business at the office, and doing everything else in your life, all in a place of supernatural rest. That’s the way Jesus said we could live.

I’m not implying He promised us a trouble-free life. He didn’t. What He said was we don’t have to let the troubles of life exhaust us. We can connect with Him and let Him pull the load. Think of two oxen yoked together, one weak and the other infinitely strong. The weak one doesn’t have to wear himself out. He doesn’t have to worry that the work is too hard or the burden too heavy. All he has to do is stay in step and let the infinite strength of his yokefellow do for him everything that he can’t do.

Hebrews 4 refers to this kind of living as entering “the rest” of God and says this is His will for us all. But sadly, few Christians consistently experience this rest. Although they take Jesus’ yoke upon them at the moment of salvation, after they’re saved they take it off again and wear themselves out trying to pull life’s load on their own.

As mothers, we fall prey to this quite often. You know what I mean: We might be concerned that our child isn’t popular enough, so we work ourselves to exhaustion putting together parties and inviting every kid in town. We might worry that our teenager will feel inferior if her clothes don’t have designer labels, so we overcharge the credit cards, keeping her dressed to the hilt. We might be afraid that because we have to work outside the home our kids will feel deprived, so we give in to their every demand and refuse to tell them no. All the while, as we run ourselves to exhaustion, the Lord is saying:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint or grow weary; there is no searching of His understanding. He gives power to the faint and weary, and to him who has no might He increases strength [causing it to multiply and making it to abound]. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and [selected] young men shall feebly stumble and fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired.

Isaiah 40:28-31

It Is What It Is!

If you want some practical secrets about how to live with your soul on vacation, you might want to make a study of those verses. They don’t just tell us we shouldn’t get weary. They tell us specifically what we can do to stay supernaturally rested and refreshed.

Verse 28, for example, reminds us that there is no searching of God’s understanding. He knows infinitely more than we do and He always will. We can leave it to Him to solve all the problems we can’t figure out and take care of all the bad circumstances we’re unable to change.

I don’t mind admitting that was hard for me to learn to do. I spent years asking, “Why, God, why?” or “When, God, when?” I wasted enormous amounts of mental and emotional energy struggling to fix people and situations that were totally beyond my control. It was exhausting! But I eventually realized it wasn’t really the people and circumstances that were draining me, it was the negative attitude with which I approached them. I often like to ask, “Are your circumstances your problem, or is your attitude your problem?” My problem for many years was definitely my attitude.

That was the bad news. But then I discovered the good news: I can take a vacation from those negative attitudes anytime I choose. All I have to do is stop struggling and resenting the difficulties of life and decide to trust the Lord in the midst of them. All I have to do is take the attitude: It is what it is… and with God’s help I can do what I need to do.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not saying we should passively accept the works of the devil. I believe that God wants us to have a good life filled with peace and joy. He wants us to be blessed and have our needs met. The devil comes only to steal, kill, and destroy and we should resist him. God has not, however, redeemed us from every challenging situation and all difficult people. On the contrary, He often permits them in our lives, and He does so for only one purpose: to use them for our good (see Romans 8:28).

Once we understand this, we can live much more refreshing lives. Our souls can rest happily in a hammock of trust no matter what is happening around us—as long as we remain certain that Romans 8:28 is true: All things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose.

“But I just can’t figure out how God could ever bring good out of the problems I’m facing!” you might say. “I just wish He would tell me what He is doing.”

I understand. I feel the same way sometimes. But I’ve found that God rarely shares with me exactly how He’s going to work things out. He wants me to simply trust Him. He wants me to say—even when I don’t understand or life seems unfair or I’m hurting so badly I can hardly stand it—“Lord, You know all things. You had this problem solved even before I had it. Although I don’t know what You’re going to do about it, I believe You love me, and I know You’re going to do something good. So I’m not going to worry or be anxious. I’m going to rest in You.”

Two Mighty Smart Boys

If you ever feel like you just can’t relax and trust God, think about Sonya Carson. She’s a mother who started out in life with more strikes against her than most of us can imagine. Born into a family of 24 children, she grew up in an atmosphere of poverty and abuse. She got married at 13 years old to a much older man, hoping for a better life. But instead, after having two sons, she found out her husband had another wife and family. Left with no other good option, Sonya divorced him and began raising her two boys alone.

A black woman in the 1960s, with only a third grade education, Sonya was totally unprepared for the hand life had dealt her. So the first few years after her divorce, she battled confusion and dangerous depression. Whenever it became too much for her, she sent 10-year-old Curtis and eight-year-old Ben to stay with friends or neighbors for a few weeks. She arranged for the boys to have so much fun while she was gone that they never guessed their mother secretly spent those weeks in a mental institution, trying to pull herself together and find a way to do what she had to do.

Thankfully, Sonya Carson was brave enough and smart enough to ask for help when she needed it—first from other people and ultimately from God. So it wasn’t too long before she no longer needed to take those secret trips. In fact, she became so strong and so full of hope that nothing could shake her. Not the dwindling groceries in the pantry. Not the racial prejudice her boys faced at school. Not the fact that she sometimes worked three jobs at a time, spending long days caring for wealthy people’s homes and families for minimum wages while her own children stayed home alone. Not even the failing grades young Ben brought home on his report card or his reputation as the worst student in his fifth grade class at Higgins Elementary School could shake her.

Sonya refused to allow any of those things to steal her confidence in God. “Everything is going to be all right,” she told Curtis and Ben. They believed it because she believed it so strongly herself. And when they talked to her about their own struggles, she always pointed them to the Source of her faith. “You just ask the Lord,” she said, “and He will help you.”

After Ben was grown, he wrote about one time in particular when his mother’s trust in God helped chart the course for his life. He’d gone with her to one of the many church services they attended. The sermon had focused on medical missionaries who worked abroad and helped people live happier, healthier lives.

“That’s what I want to do,” I said to my mother as we walked home. “I want to be a doctor. Can I be a doctor, Mother?”

“Bennie,” she said, “listen to me.” We stopped walking and Mother stared into my eyes. Then laying her hands on my thin shoulders, she said, “If you ask the Lord for something and believe He will do it, then it’ll happen.”

“I believe I can be a doctor.”

“Then, Bennie, you will be a doctor,” she said matter-of-factly, and we started to walk on again.¹

Acting on her faith in God’s ability to help her sons overcome the odds piled up against them, Sonya limited their TV watching and required them to read and write reports about two books a week. She marked the reports with her approval, never letting on that she was unable to read them. And even when naysaying teachers gave others reason to doubt her children’s prospects for a bright future, Sonya continued to say, “I’ve got two smart boys. Two mighty smart boys!”

Not surprisingly, her words came to pass. Curtis went on to excel academically and became a mechanical engineer. Ben graduated from Yale, earned his medical degree at the University of Michigan, and became one of the world’s most renowned neurosurgeons. He is best known for leading the surgical team that succeeded with one of the most groundbreaking operations ever attempted: the separation of Siamese twins joined at the head.

Lock Your Wings Upward

How could a mother who started out in such tragic circumstances come through in such triumph? There’s only one explanation. She stopped asking, “Why, God, why?” and chose to believe that God would work all things together for her good. She stopped trying to pull the load of her circumstances by herself and yoked herself to Jesus. She decided to do what Isaiah 40 says and wait on the Lord.

When I say she waited on the Lord, clearly I’m not saying she sat and did nothing. That’s not what waiting on the Lord means. It means looking to Him in faith with expectancy. It means believing His Word and resting on His faithfulness, even when the winds of adversity are churning around you.

Isaiah likens it to what an eagle does when he encounters a storm. Instead of wearing himself out by fighting against the winds, he locks his wings upward and lets the currents lift him higher and higher until he reaches an altitude where the storm is below him. And there he rests and rides it out in peace.

As mothers, we can do the same thing. When turbulence wearies us and threatens our family, we can lock our wings upward with the promises of God. Promises like…

• Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe (trust and be confident) that it is granted to you, and you will [get it].

Mark 11:24

• All your… children shall be disciples [taught by the Lord and obedient to His will], and great shall be the peace and undisturbed composure of your children.

Isaiah 54:13

• How joyful are those who fear the Lord and delight in obeying his commands. Their children will be successful everywhere; an entire generation of godly people will be blessed.

Psalm 112:1-2 NLT

• I have never seen the godly abandoned, or their children begging for bread.

Psalm 37:25 NLT

• In the reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord there is strong confidence, and His children shall always have a place of refuge.

Proverbs 14:26

• The righteous man walks in his integrity; blessed (happy, fortunate, enviable) are his children after him.

Proverbs 20:7

• Because God’s your refuge, the High God your very own home, evil can’t get close to you, harm can’t get through the door.

Psalm 91:9-10 MSG

• God’s love… is ever and always, eternally present to all who fear him, making everything right for them and their children.

Psalm 103:17 MSG

I don’t want to over-spiritualize here. There are times for every mom when we’re physically weary and what we need most is natural or practical help. We need someone else to take out the trash, or wash the dishes, or sort the laundry. When you need that kind of help, ask for it. Let your children lend a hand. They might not do things the way you would, but it’s better to have help that’s imperfect than not to have help at all.

On the other hand, when it’s not just your body but your soul that’s worn-out, take a spiritual break. Spend a few minutes vacationing with Jesus. Grab your Bible and spend whatever minutes you can find accessing the Throne of Grace. Turn your spiritual wings upward with the promises of God and mount up to Him with wings like an eagle’s.

Rest and ride high.