When You’ve Been Carrying More Than You Realized

This morning, I sat with God and I broke down.

There wasn't one big thing that happened. It was more like something in me finally gave way.

Summer is ending, my kids are starting school, and our days are changing again. I'm stepping into new responsibilities and new rhythms, and while I knew all of this was coming—and much of it is actually good—I had become increasingly overwhelmed and easily irritated without really understanding why.

This morning, I finally realized that I had been carrying more than I knew.

There were emotions from the summer I hadn't made time for. Some I had pushed aside because there was always something else to do, while others I hadn't pushed aside at all—I simply didn't know they were there. And some had become so entangled that I no longer knew how to name what I was feeling: sadness over a season ending, joy in watching my kids grow, gratitude for what was ahead, and overwhelm at the same time. Life kept moving, so I did too, until this morning, when apparently I couldn't anymore.

I cried for a while, and strangely, things began to make more sense afterward. I wasn't suddenly falling apart. My heart was finally catching up with everything it hadn't had time to feel.

Sometimes We Don't Know What We're Feeling

I think many of us are much better at functioning than we are at noticing. We make breakfast, answer the email, take care of the kids, finish the project, clean the kitchen, and think about what needs to happen tomorrow. Because we're still doing all the things, we assume we're doing okay.

But functioning and processing aren't the same thing.

Emotions don't always announce themselves clearly, either. Sadness may first feel like heaviness; fear can make us restless; grief can make us unusually irritable; pressure can leave our minds constantly planning the next thing. Sometimes we can't name any particular emotion at all. We just know that something feels off.

When that happens, my instinct is often to fix it: Why am I feeling this way? What's wrong with me? How can I get out of it?

But I'm beginning to think there is a question that needs to come before all of those:

What am I feeling?

That doesn't mean treating every emotion as truth. Our feelings aren't always reliable interpreters of God, ourselves, or our circumstances, and Scripture never tells us to let them lead us. But our emotions are still part of how we experience what is happening in our lives. Sometimes they need to be noticed before they can be understood.

Completely Known, And Invited to Come

What comforted me this morning was realizing that there were things happening inside me that I hadn't even noticed, but God had and He cared.

“You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”
—Psalm 139:1–6

God knows us completely—our thoughts, our ways, even the words on our tongues before we speak them. There are things we've walked through without knowing how deeply they affected us, feelings we haven't found words for, and parts of our own hearts we don't yet understand. None of them are hidden from Him.

And His knowing goes deeper still. He sees not only where we're hurting, but where we're wrong—where fear has shaped us, where frustration has spilled onto others, where we've tried to control what we should have entrusted to Him.

Thanks to Jesus, being fully known by God is not scary.

Jesus, our great High Priest, sympathizes with our weaknesses, and because of Him we are invited to:

"Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."
—Hebrews 4:16

Draw near and bring our tangled feelings to Him.

We don't have to understand ourselves first. We don't have to get our emotions under control or make sure we've responded perfectly. We come precisely because we need mercy and grace.

Sometimes all we have is, Lord, I don't even know what's happening in me. I just know I'm overwhelmed.

We can bring Him that.

His grace makes room for honesty— we can trust Him to comfort what hurts, expose what is false, forgive what is sinful, and lead us in what is true.

God met me there—in the freedom of being completely known and still invited to draw near.

Maybe You Haven't Had Time to Feel It Yet

I wonder if another woman needs to hear this today.

Maybe you've been unusually anxious and can't explain why. Perhaps you've been more irritable than usual, unable to settle down, or constantly thinking about the next thing that needs to happen. Maybe you're exhausted but keep finding another task to do, or you cried over something seemingly small and wondered why your reaction felt so much bigger than the moment.

Sometimes the moment isn't carrying only itself.

There can be weeks or months behind a single tear: a season ending that we haven't grieved, a responsibility we've carried quietly, a disappointment we moved past because someone needed us, or a fear we've never quite put into words.

For mothers especially, it can be surprisingly easy to know how everyone else is doing while having very little idea how we are doing ourselves. So much of motherhood is spent noticing other people—who needs help, who's hungry, who's unusually quiet, what needs to happen next—that we can move through an entire season without really noticing what has been happening in us.

Paying attention to that isn't making our emotions the center of our lives. It's simply recognizing that we, too, are people God created with bodies and limits, affections and fears, grief and joy, and hearts that need His care.

You Don't Have to Fix the Feeling First

This morning reminded me that when something finally surfaces, I don't have to immediately make it go away.

There is a difference between listening to our emotions and being led by them. Scripture never asks us to make our feelings the final authority, but neither does it give us a picture of emotionally detached faith. The Psalms are filled with people bringing fear, anger, loneliness, grief, confusion, and joy honestly before God.

Their emotions aren't the end of the conversation, but they are allowed into the conversation.

Ours can be too.

So perhaps, before trying to solve everything you're feeling, give yourself enough space to notice what is there. Sit before the Lord without turning the moment into another task to do, and ask:

Lord, what have I been carrying that I haven't had time to notice?

You may recognize something immediately, or it may take time. You may not have words for it yet.

Bring that to Him too.

This isn't about becoming perfectly self-aware or learning to process every emotion correctly. It's about bringing our whole selves before the God who already knows us completely and cares for us personally.

This morning, I discovered things in my heart that surprised me.

They didn't surprise Him.

And I didn't have to understand them all before bringing them to Him.

He already knew, and He cares for you.