Morning ladies, I have been waiting for this moment all weekend… just us girls, a good cuppa, and the kind of honest talk that only happens when grace is holding the space. Welcome to your Monday morning. You are so welcome here.
I don’t know about you ladies, but there are mornings I wake up and the tiredness is already there before I’ve even opened my eyes properly. Before the coffee is on. Before my feet hit the floor. Just… tired. Bone deep, soul deep, can’t-quite-explain-it tired.
And I’ve learned there are so many kinds of tired, haven’t you?
There’s the physical tired… the kind that comes from a body that doesn’t always cooperate. The kind that no amount of sleep seems to touch. The kind where you push through anyway because life doesn’t pause just because you’re running on empty.
There’s the emotional tired… the tired of holding it together for everyone else. Of being the strong one. Of smiling when you’re quietly crumbling on the inside. Of carrying worries that are too heavy for one person, but somehow ended up in your hands anyway.
There’s the faith tired too… and I think this one is the one we talk about the least. The tiredness that comes from praying and waiting and trusting and not quite seeing. The tired of holding on when letting go feels so much easier.
Sister, I see you. Whatever kind of tired you’re carrying into this Monday… I see you.
But here’s what I keep coming back to, what keeps finding me in the quiet moments when I’m too exhausted to even find the right words to pray…
Jesus already knew about being tired.
Not in a theoretical, theological way. In a real way. Think about that for a minute. The Son of God… fully God, yes… but also fully human. He didn’t float above the dust of this earth in some untouchable, unfeeling bubble. He walked in it. Hot, tired, sandalled feet on rocky roads in the Middle Eastern heat. He got hungry. He got thirsty. He got physically exhausted from the crowds that pressed in on Him from every side, everyone needing something, everyone reaching, everyone desperate.
And He gave. And gave. And kept giving.
He felt the weight of every broken person who ever reached for Him… and He didn’t turn a single one away. The woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, the one who had spent everything she had on doctors who couldn’t help her, who crawled through a crowd just to touch the hem of His robe… He felt that. He stopped. He saw her. Even in the middle of the crush of people pressing against Him from every direction, He felt her need and He met it.
That’s not a God who doesn’t understand what it costs to keep showing up when you have nothing left.
He wept at Lazarus’s tomb. Not because He didn’t know what was coming – He absolutely knew He was about to raise His friend from the dead. He wept because the people He loved were hurting, and their pain moved Him. Grief moved Him. Loss moved Him. He didn’t stand at a clinical distance from human suffering and observe it… He stepped right into the middle of it and let it break His heart too.
He withdrew. Did you know that? Even Jesus needed to step away. Scripture shows us again and again that He pulled back from the crowds, from the noise, from the demands, and went to quiet places to be alone with His Father. Not because He was weak. Because He was wise enough to know that even He needed to be refilled. If the Son of God built rest and withdrawal into His rhythm, girlfriend… what on earth are we doing pretending we don’t need it too?
And then there was Gethsemane. That garden in the dark, the night before the cross, where Jesus fell on His face and asked His Father… “if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” Matthew 26:39 NIV. He asked for another way. He was so overwhelmed that Scripture tells us His sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground. That is not a picture of someone untouched by the weight of what He was carrying. That is a picture of someone who understands, in the most visceral and human way possible, what it feels like to face something that feels bigger than you can bear.
He knows stretched to breaking. He knows the kind of tired that lives in your chest, not just your body. He knows what it is to keep going when every part of you is screaming to stop.
So when He says this…
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 NIV
He’s not saying it from a comfortable distance. He’s saying it as someone who has been there. Who is with you right now. A King who in His walk on this earth spoke these words through His own sweat and tears and dusty, exhausted, fully-human feet.
Not… sort yourself out and then come. Not… come when you’ve got more faith. Not… come when you’re not so messy.
Just come. As you are. Tired and all.
That word weary in the original Greek is “kopiao”… it means to work to the point of exhaustion. To be worn down to the bone. Jesus wasn’t speaking to people who were a little bit tired from a busy week. He was speaking to people who were done. People who had nothing left. People who were wondering if they could keep going at all.
And His invitation to them – to us – wasn’t a motivational speech. It wasn’t a five-step plan to get your energy back. It was simply… come to Me.
I think sometimes we make rest complicated. We think we need to fix ourselves up before we approach God. We think we need to have the right words, the right posture, the right amount of faith. But Abba Father isn’t waiting for the polished version of you to arrive. He’s waiting for the real one. The tired one. The one who barely made it to her knees this morning.
That’s the one He wants.
I’ve had seasons – and maybe you have too – where my prayer life looked nothing like what I thought it should. Where all I could manage was “Lord, I’m so tired. I don’t have words today.” And you know what? That was enough. He met me right there in that barely-a-prayer. Because He knows tired, girlfriend. He really does.
So this Monday, if you’re waking up already weary… if the week ahead feels like a mountain you’re not sure you have the strength to climb… if your body is fighting you, or your heart is heavy, or you’ve been holding on so long your hands are aching…
Can I invite you to just… come?
Not with answers. Not with everything figured out. Just come to Him as you are, right where you are, with exactly what you have – which today might just be your tired.
Picture her for a moment… that woman wrapped in a blanket, too weary to stand, too exhausted to perform, too bone-tired to be anything other than completely undone. The kind of fatigue that has settled so deeply it has made a home in her. She’s not holding it together. She’s not smiling through it. She’s just… there. Wrapped up. Worn out. And desperately in need of something no human hand can give her.
And then the King of heaven walks in.
Not the distant, untouchable King. The One who walked dusty roads and wept real tears and sweat blood in a garden and knows – really knows – what it is to be stretched beyond bearing. He looks at her in her blanket, in her weary, in her completely falling apart….
He stops. Right there at her weary. Because He knows tired, and because He knows tired, He alone can offer what she actually needs.
“Come to me,” He says. “I will give you rest.”
Not rest that just patches you up enough to keep going. Rest that feeds the soul. Rest that reaches the places sleep can’t touch. Rest that says you are seen, you are held, you are called daughter by the King who stopped at your weary.
That woman in the blanket… she is you, ladies. She is me. And that King? He’s already here.
He’s not disappointed in your tiredness. He’s not frustrated that you’re not further along, not stronger, not more rested. He looks at you in your weary, beautiful, still-showing-up self and He says…
Come. I’ve got you. Rest here.
And that is enough for today.
Abba Father, we come to You this morning with our tired. All the kinds of tired – the body tired, the heart tired, the faith tired. We lay it down at Your feet because You told us to, and because we trust that You meant it when You said You’d give us rest. Thank You that You know exactly what we’re carrying. Thank You that You don’t ask us to be anything other than real with You. Meet us here, Lord. Right here in the middle of our Monday morning. Amen.
Coffee, Grace and Honest Talk with me – Anchored In Hope.
