The other day, I came across an interview with Ye (Kanye West) where he talks about everything from the music industry to faith. (It's a fascinating listen, although please be mindful the language is terrible, and I obviously am not condoning his views.)

Ye said, “I have my issues with Jesus. There's a lot of stuff I went through that I prayed and I ain't see Jesus show up. So I had to put my experience…in my own hands.”

We could jump to criticize Ye–but maybe he's voiced something so many of us have felt at one time or another. Maybe you're feeling it now.

I am a very goal-oriented person. I love making lists of things I want to do, day-dreaming about how I’ll be different 12 months from now, jotting down a vision for where I want to be in five years. Add to that a new planner (like this one that I can’t live without) with crisp, clean pages and a pack of high quality pens, and I am one happy girl. 

The only problem comes about a month later when I realize how unrealistic my goals were. The kids woke up extra early, so I didn’t write every morning like I’d hoped. A family crisis came up, so I ordered takeout instead of cooking my way through that one cookbook like I’d intended. My body decided to shut down and get sick, so I missed those workouts I’d planned to do.

Real life so often seems to get in the way of living my best life.

I walked into Costco earlier this week, and my eyes bugged out of my head when I saw Christmas trees on display. Their twinkling lights led the way toward aisles filled with toys and reindeer lawn ornaments and holiday gift wrap.

Every year, retailers do this. And every year, it catches me off guard.

Years ago, after my husband and I had come out of a chaotic season and were finally enjoying a little more calm, I asked my counselor, “Why do I still feel so tired?” Our kids were sleeping through the night. I was able to exercise somewhat regularly. I finally got back into my cooking routine (for the most part, anyway). We were no longer functioning in survival mode.

But I was still completely exhausted.

“It’s like you just ran a marathon. At the end of a marathon, you’re still tired,” my counselor told me.

Duh. I should have known this. But sometimes you need to pay a therapist to remind you of the obvious.

A couple years ago, I sat in an Airbnb in Denver with three dear friends and fellow writers. We’d flown in from around the country to laugh, cry, and eat good food with each other. But most of all, we came together to write and make each other better writers.

Over the course of the weekend, each of us had a session where we could workshop our own project with the rest of the group. At that point in my own book writing process, I had about three chapters written, but I needed help putting flesh on the skeleton outlines I had for the others. Together, the four of us jotted down story ideas and relevant Scripture passages. They helped me eliminate redundancies and think through my theology.

She was talking about the writing life, but I think Anne Lamott’s words in Bird by Bird are true for all of life. She wrote, “You can’t fill up when you’re holding your breath.”

Are you holding your breath right now? I mean proverbially, yes, but even physically? 

So many of us are holding our breath, afraid of letting go because we’re not sure we can handle the tears or anger or overwhelm attempting to pour out from our bodies. We hold our breath because we’re bracing for what’s next, waiting for the other shoe to drop. We hold our breath because, ironically, sometimes keeping it all inside feels like the only way to make it through another day.

My phone alarm chimes loudly on the nightstand next to me, and I fumble in the darkness to turn it off. I sit up in bed, rubbing my eyes and then glance at the time. I only have about 20 minutes before the kids wake up. They’ll plod down the steps like zombies, still half asleep but awake enough to remind me they need breakfast. Twenty minutes, I coach myself. Twenty minutes to get something done. I do my own zombie-esque walk to the kitchen, pour my mug of coffee, and curse the fact that I’ve been trying to cut back on caffeine. This cup of half caffeinated coffee isn’t going to cut it today.

I was telling a couple friends yesterday that I am actually looking forward to my kids being home from school over winter break. I’m not sure I’ve ever said that before.

I read recently about how thousands of cattle in Kansas died due to heat stress. They didn’t die from one day of hot temperatures, necessarily. But the persistent extreme heat and humidity that hit many parts of the country–particularly this one region in Kansas–wreaked havoc on herds.

Cattle can usually adapt to the summer heat. Studies show they’re resilient animals, but as one article told me, when there are multiple stressors involved, the animal struggles to cope. Not only that, but cattle need the lower nighttime temperatures to bring their internal temperature down. When nighttime temps are too high, they don’t release enough of their internal heat, and it continues to build and build and build, causing major problems when that cycle persists. Eventually, they can’t carry the cumulative heat load built up in their bodies. “Right now, if we don’t have night-time cooling hours, the animal won’t be starting each day at thermo-neutral, so they’re more at risk on the second or third day,” one veterinarian said.

Okay, let’s acknowledge the elephant (cow?) in the room. Yes, I’m about to compare us to cattle. My metaphor obviously breaks down pretty quickly, but bear with me…

A few weeks ago, my husband and I went to see a play based on C.S. Lewis's (very trippy and often confusing but still profound) book, The Great Divorce. The script and the acting brought truths to light in a way I can easily miss while reading the book.

At one point, I had to pull out my phone to type out this line so I could hold onto it and ruminate over it a little longer:

“Either joy prevails or misery infects it.”

I've been turning that phrase over in my mind for the last week, and I looked up the full quote in Lewis's book. Here, the narrator's guide is leading the narrator around the outskirts of a sort of celestial space and explaining the meaning of what they're seeing. The guide says:

“Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves.”

There's so much to dig into there, and so much in the context of the book that's worth reading. But here's the simple truth I want us to hold onto: Joy will prevail.

I admit it. I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, as the saying goes.

I’m sitting here writing at the eleventh hour when I have multiple deadlines looming over me. I owe another friend some notes for a piece she’s helping me with, and I told her I’d get those to her days ago. Okay, a week ago. It’s still not done, and the list of emails I have yet to respond to grows as quickly as the laundry pile in the corner of my bedroom.

I don’t tell you this because I have some notion that busyness is a badge of honor. I’ve worn myself out far too many times to want to wear that badge anyway. Besides, if you look at my actual calendar, we’re not really that busy. We’re still living a contained life thanks to COVID precautions, and our days mostly consist of LEGOs and riding bikes in the front yard.

But I want the work I do and the way I spend my days to feel productive–and motherhood doesn’t always make that easy. I (kind of) like the feeling of having a deadline looming over me because I know it means something will eventually get done. A box will get checked off. I’ll finally sense accomplishment.

At my childhood home, we had a massive oak tree that towered over almost the entire yard. It housed squirrels and birds, provided shade as we played in the grass, and supported a tire swing we enjoyed for hours on end.

But I never noticed the tiny movements that made its branches stretch over the lawn or its roots dig deep into the earth. I never saw it grow, yet somehow that tree changed from a seed to a towering oak.

Apparently tiny movements add up.