How Obedience With A Joyful Heart Provides True Rest For The Anxious Soul

The past year has been a difficult one, full of challenges much like the decade before it. I sometimes feel like a battered ship struggling to stay afloat in an unrelenting storm. And last fall, the seemingly endless stress of balancing marriage, motherhood, and caregiving—while trying to “keep it all together” and hide my depression and anxiety in public—finally caught up with me.

In between my late mom’s birthday and my grandmother’s ninety-second birthday, I had a respiratory illness and lost my voice for a week. Then I went on a women’s retreat with my church and had what was presumably a gallbladder attack on the first night away from home. I was dizzy, weak, fatigued, and in pain. Most of all, I was scared.

I realized my immune system was wrecked, my mind was tired, and my emotions were frayed. At thirty-three years old, I decided it might be time to throw in the towel on the striving for perfection gig and begin living into God’s promises instead. That month, God showed me that once again, I was stretched too thin to do the important kingdom work he was calling me to do—like loving my own children and the people around me well.

My knee-jerk reaction when I’m overwhelmed is often to take a break from serving God and his people, but I know true rest doesn’t come outside of obedience to Jesus. Sometimes I just need to re-frame what service looks like for a season. Every seemingly insignificant act of service we do with great love is kingdom work, whether it’s laundry or cleaning or teaching a child to tie a shoe. If we’re not doing those small acts of obedience with a joyful heart, then we’re probably not doing the big things with pure intentions, either.