If it is Friday and you are reading this on your phone in the two minutes of quiet you have found all week, this one is for you.
Have you ever had a morning where you were awake for five minutes and already lost?
That was me a few days ago. I woke up to some difficult news; nothing life-altering, just one of those stress-inducing things that shows up uninvited and makes your chest tighten before you have even had coffee. My sister and her family were staying with us that week, so my usual quiet corner was gone; the prayer room was occupied, the guest room had turned into a playroom. And in my rush to “handle” whatever this was, I skipped the one thing that actually keeps me steady; no prayer, no quiet, not even coffee first. I sat straight down at my computer instead.
Bad move.
The messages started stacking up, and with every one, I felt my calm draining out of me like water from a cracked cup. I was not just stressed about the actual problem anymore. I was stressed because I had let the world get to me before I had gotten to myself first.
Sound familiar? If you are a working mother, I would guess you already know this exact feeling; eyes open, feet not even on the floor yet, and your mind is already running through five different roles you have to perform before breakfast.
Why rest feels impossible when you are a working mother
Here is the honest truth about this season of life; rest does not arrive on its own. Nobody hands it to you. If you are working and mothering at the same time, every single hour of your day already belongs to someone or something before you even open your eyes. Your job needs you. Your children need you. Your household runs on your attention, whether you gave it willingly that morning or not.
So rest, actual rest, the kind that reaches your soul and not just your body, becomes the first thing you sacrifice. Not because you do not value it. Because it is the only thing on the list that will not visibly fall apart if you skip it. Your inbox will notice if you ignore it. Your child will notice if breakfast is late. But nobody notices if you quietly stopped praying, stopped breathing deeply, stopped sitting still long enough to remember who you are underneath all the doing.
I know that trade well. I have made it more times than I would like to admit.
What that morning actually cost me
It was not really about the problem itself. It was about the boundary I had thrown out the window trying to deal with it.
By the time I looked up from my screen, I had lost something more valuable than whatever I was trying to fix; I had lost my center. And I know myself well enough now to recognize what that costs. When I skip my morning routine, I do not just feel rushed. I feel unmoored, like I am reacting to my whole day instead of living it.
That night, tired and still a little rattled, I found myself doing the thing that actually works; I got quiet and started counting what was still true. I thought about the woman who runs our household with so much warmth that our home never stops feeling like a haven, even on hard weeks. I thought about the fact that I had slept, actually slept, the night before, even feeling under the weather. I thought about the simple, unglamorous truth that whatever else was shaking that day, my family was fed, our bills were paid, and nobody in my house was in danger.
Small things. Except they are not small at all. They are the floor everything else stands on.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
He did not say come to me once your to-do list is finished. He said come as you are, weary and burdened, exactly as you are on a Friday afternoon with three unread work messages and a child tugging at your sleeve.
The next morning, I did it differently
I woke up to Allen’s voice gently waking Adi, and then that sound I love more than almost anything; the two of them cuddling and giggling before either of them was even fully awake. We had breakfast together, unhurried. Afterward I sat in my prayer room and just listened to the birds outside for a while, not rushing to say anything to God, just sitting in it.
I felt something in me exhale.
That is what I want you to hear underneath everything else in this post; rest is not the absence of your responsibilities. It is a posture you take before you carry them. I still had the same work waiting for me that day. The same child who needed me. The same list. But I had five quiet minutes first, and those five minutes changed how I carried everything that came after.
That stillness gave me room to notice something else too. Adi has been drawn to screens more than I would like lately, and his toys have been sitting untouched, gathering dust in the corner of his playroom. I have been thinking about setting it up differently; something more hands-on, more tactile, something that invites him to build and touch and imagine instead of just watch.
Because here is what I keep circling back to; if I want him to be present, I have to show him what that actually looks like. Not tell him. Show him. And I cannot show him a version of rest I have never let myself practice.
Rest is not a reward you earn at the end of the week
I used to think rest was something you got to once everything else was handled. Finish the work, finish the errands, finish being needed, and then, maybe, if there was anything left of you, you could rest.
But that is not how it works, and if it were, none of us would ever get there. There is always more work. There is always another need. The list does not end; it just pauses long enough for you to fall asleep and start again.
So rest cannot be the thing waiting at the finish line. It has to be the thing you take on purpose, in the middle of the list, unfinished business and all. Five minutes with your coffee before the phone comes out. A prayer room, even a closet, even the corner of your car in the parking lot before you walk into work. The point is not the location. The point is that you decided, on purpose, to stop being needed for five minutes and just be met instead.
I am also learning that this shows up in my body too, not just my schedule. I have committed to getting back to the gym this week; not to look a certain way, not to prove anything, just because I noticed how much steadier my mind feels when I have taken care of my body first. Motherhood asks so much of you physically, quietly, for years, and it is easy to forget that this body is still yours to care for, not just something that keeps running in the background while you take care of everyone else.
If it is Friday and you have nothing left
You know that feeling; waking up and immediately handing the keys of your day over to whatever crisis showed up first. I do not think you are alone in that, and I do not think it makes you weak. I think it just means you, like me, are still learning where to put your feet first thing in the morning.
You have worked hard this week. You have shown up for your job and your children and everyone who needed a piece of you, and you probably have not had five uninterrupted minutes since Monday.
So here is my invitation for tonight, or tomorrow morning, whichever comes first for you. Before you check anything, sit still for five minutes. Coffee in hand or not. Let your child’s laugh be the first sound you really hear instead of a notification. You do not have to solve everything the second your eyes open.
You are allowed to start your day with yourself, quietly, before you give the rest of yourself away to everyone who needs something from you.
That is not selfish. That is the floor everything else gets to stand on. And you have earned this weekend of rest more than you probably realize. 🌿
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
Working mamas, how do you find your five minutes? I would love to hear what rest looks like for you in the comments. 🤍
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