Jesus Cares When I’m Tired

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Several decades ago, when Ray was a campus minister in Oxford, Mississippi, our minister’s wife Joyce gave me this little gray ceramic mouse as a Christmas present. Joyce said it reminded her of me at Christmas. I do love Christmas and tend to overdo it.

When I was a young mother, my friend Christine used to say that when she was a young mother with little children she thought she would never be that tired again. Then she would pause before saying, “And I haven’t!” I appreciate the sweet understanding that Christine offered me again and again. It’s an understanding that many women need to hear — in those tired mother-of-little-children years and at all the other tired times that come afterwards.

A couple of years ago, Ray and I had the opportunity to visit with a couple we knew when we all lived in Oxford, Mississippi. I’ll call them Joy and Thomas. Joy was a nurse and a great source of knowledge and encouragement to me when I was a new mother.

Soon Joy and Thomas had a baby, too. After we all moved away from Oxford, Thomas and Joy became professors and had another child.

While we four friends sat around their dining room table that evening catching up, she shared the story of one of her tired times. She told about her years of caregiving with her widowed dad. She worked as a professor, took care of her husband and two school-aged children, and two weekends a month, this only child drove eight hours out of state after she got off work on Friday afternoon. On Saturday she prepared and labeled two weeks of meals for her dad and then made the eight-hour return trip on Sunday.

Joy’s life at that time included a devout relationship with Jesus, a close relationship with Thomas and their children, and a very tired body. Many of you know exactly what that is like. The days are long and the lessons you are learning are hard. Jesus notices and He cares deeply.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden,
and I will give you rest.”
Matthew 11:28

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