Super quick fun announcement: In the month of December, I’m doing a 12 day series called “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and I’d love for you to join me! (and for you to invite a friend, if you feel so inclined.) Each post will be centered around a number’s appearance in the New Testament and I think it’s going to be a wonderful way to usher in the Christmas season. You can subscribe + share with the links below. 😊
Okay, onto today’s post!
A long time ago now, I had a conversation with someone who had recently had a baby. We were catching up on our respective weeks and I offhandedly said, “I’m just so tired today.”
She looked me dead in the face and said, “you don’t even know what tired is.”
Ever since, I have been absolutely terrified to admit to being tired to a pregnant person, or parent of any kind.
Because how dare I, right?!
Well...no.
It is not a secret that being a parent can be exhausting. It is also not a secret that being a new parent, or parent to a new baby can be extra exhausting. Having been around both friends and family members who have walked through these seasons, I can attest that they are in the trenches, pushed to their limits, forgetting to change out of their slippers, wondering, perhaps constantly, what was I just saying? Was I saying anything? Am I awake or asleep?
But to be a tired parent is not the only kind of tired, and to compare our kinds of tired does us no good.
In her book, Suffering is Never for Nothing, author Elisabeth Elliot wrote, “When I hear other people’s stories about their own sufferings, I feel as though I know practically nothing about the subject myself.” Because when we compare our experiences to other people, we can be quick to belittle our feelings, embarrassed.
I can’t say I’m tired, I’m not a mom.
I can’t say I’m tired, I wasn’t up all night wondering if my home was going to be bombed.
I can’t say I’m tired, I didn’t work a 12-hour shift.
While gaining perspective on the lives other people are living and the challenges they are facing is important, shaming yourself for the genuine feelings you are feeling because they don’t seem “big enough” doesn’t serve anyone.
It is okay to call pain pain, and it is okay to call tired tired, regardless of how it might measure up to other people’s uses of the words.
So today I just want to pray for all the tired people out there.
I want to pray for the parent that is tired because their nights are a constant stream of ups and downs, feedings and diaper changes and soothing children back to sleep, and for the parents who are tired simply because they are awake with worry for their young children, grown children, or the children they lost.
I want to pray for the person who is tired because they don’t know what to do with their life. The person who is stuck on a decision or stuck trying to find one, feeling overwhelmed with options or overwhelmed without them. The person who feels small in a big world but wants their life to feel meaningful and so the constant stream of questions drains their body day after day.
I want to pray for the person who is tired because they try so hard every day to do their best, to make everyone happy, to make the “right” choice, to be who everyone expects them to be, who is so fatigued by “should’s” that they feel they don’t have any energy left to dream about the “could’s.”
I want to pray for the person who is tired of failure, of dead ends, of silence and waiting, who has yanked over and over at that pull cord to try and jumpstart their life and only ever heard the engine sputter and stop. The person who doom scrolls on social media, so jealous of the lives others are living and so ashamed of the life they think they aren’t.
I want to pray for the person who is sick, whose body is fighting so hard to heal, or perhaps just stay alive, that there is not a lot of fight left for energy, for spunk. The person who has never known or has since forgot what it’s like to feel “normal,” to not ache, to feel like anything is possible inside of a day. The person who just wants some relief.
I want to pray for the person racked with anxiety about the future, about what they want it to look like and the ticking clock that says it won’t. The person who is running themselves ragged trying to check every box and not waste a single second, but who also wonders if, somewhere along the way, they’ve already done everything wrong.
Loneliness is tiring, depression is tiring, pain, grief, disappointment, socializing, living are tiring.
There are so many reasons to be tired—so many avenues in which people are introduced to and understand tired—and there are so many different kinds of tired. So I just want to pray for all of the kinds, all of the levels, all of the reasons.
If you feel tired, you are, you don’t to have any proof, you don’t have to have a “good enough” reason. And I pray you might find relief from it, be it in the form of sleep, answers, connections, healing, release, contentment, gratitude, or understanding.
I pray your body, mind and spirit might find peace and that you can take a deep breath into a new day, feeling refreshed, energized, and hopeful.
In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.