How to Steward Your Life Well

Today is June 6th, 2026, 6:42 AM, and I really just wanted to have a sit-down chat with you all and talk about some of the beauty that has been on my mind these last few days.

As I am sure many of you know or were able to infer, these last 6 months have been anything but easy for me. In fact, I can confidently say that it was the hardest season of my entire life. I spent most of my free time in self-reflection, curled up on my bed thinking. Pondering. Wondering. Asking hard questions.

I like to think, and lately some delightful ideas have danced through my head, and I would love to share them with you today. Maybe you are also going through something hard, and it will speak to you.

Lately, this word, stewardship, has been coming to mind more often.

Whenever I have been asked at school what my goals are with Sustainable Agriculture, I have always tried to include the word “stewardship” in my answer. It is my way of relating my goals to the Creation Mandate from Genesis 1:26:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

I have been blessed with many wonderful things to take care of so far in my relatively short life. So often, we find ourselves in a scarcity mindset rather than an abundance mindset.

We focus on the things:

-We want

-We lost

-We don’t currently have

It has been a long and grueling process to try to shift out of this mindset of scarcity and truly observe the goodness the Lord has for me right now. There truly is an abundance all around me, and it is up to me to take the responsibility to take care of, to cultivate, and to steward it well.

Let’s quickly use my sleep schedule as an example.

I was a morning person my entire childhood. I loved to wake up early before the rest of the house and just bask in the silence of my own company. It was my favorite part of the day.

As I grew older and started to balance work and college and late-night chats with friends, I lost my mornings, and I would often go to bed around midnight-2AM. I would get about 5-7 hours of sleep each night, and do the same thing the next night, and the night after, until I knew that I wasn’t taking care of myself as well as I could be.

That has been where I was for the past couple of years. Until I got my mornings back through “force”.

I was asked at work a few months ago if I would be interested in changing my schedule to Monday-Friday 5:30AM-10:30AM. I agreed, not knowing how freeing it was going to be for me.

Now, every weekday I wake up at 4:45AM and go to bed by 9PM. I’m getting about 8 hours of sleep every night. I get to walk out to my car during the crispness of the earliest light of the day, I get to quietly sip on my tea while I wait for customers, and after work ends, I still have an entire day at my disposal.

Last weekend, I even woke up earlier at 4:30 so I could hike 6 miles by myself before 6AM. It has brought me so much joy to have this be my schedule, and I feel infinitely more productive.

All of this is to say that I was able to take responsibility for my daily sleep schedule, and I have since become a much happier, more productive individual. Besides, I love having the excuse when I am out with friends: “Oops, it’s already 7:30! I’d better get back home so I can get to bed on time.”

; ) iyaiyk (if you’re an introvert, you know)

Side note: Last night was the latest I have been out in a while; I didn’t leave the party until 10 PM, but that was because playing Mafia with 20 of my friends in an open garage during a thunderstorm was too fun to leave. If you haven’t already, find yourself some good godly friends you can make memories with.

“It’s Briar! Briar’s the Mafia!”

“No, I’m not!”

“I’m the sheriff, and I know Briar, Donald, and Gigi are not the Mafia.”

“Never mind, guys! Briar is not the Mafia!”

🤣

Anyway, where were we? Ahh yes, stewarding our life well. This seems like a good segway to talk about having good community.

I knew that while I was going through the hardest season in my life, I needed to reach out to more people, not less. This is important because a lot of people fall into the trap of isolation when they are going through something difficult. They let relationships fade instead of building them stronger.

Yes, all I wanted at times was to be all alone to think, but I reminded myself that being with friends was what I truly needed.

It even led to some beautiful opportunities. I had one particular friend who went through a very similar thing at the exact same time that I did. I felt her pain at a level that I never would have otherwise. I sent her a text one day telling her that I wanted to get together during the winter break and swap stories to help grieve with each other and encourage each other.

Recently, we had our biannual hot seat at Chi Alpha, where we all go around and share what we appreciate and admire in one another.

I wrote a good post about that last year if you are interested:

This friend that I had reached out to in the middle of my own despair was so deeply touched by that short little morning coffee shop chat. She told me months later during hot seat that words could not express just how much that meant to her to learn that I was going through something like she was and was not only willing to share, but also willing to listen to her.

I’m tearing up just thinking about it. Sometimes we think that to become closer friends with someone we need to do a bunch of fun things together, but what I have found is that grieving with one another is how the deepest friendships often form.

Now, let’s talk about post-graduation goals. As many of you know, I am now the proud owner of an Associate’s degree in Sustainable Agriculture.

That also means I hear the question: “What are your plans now that you’re done with school?” At least 7 times per week.

I used to have a clear picture in my mind about what this summer was going to look like, but now it’s misty. There is a dense fog surrounding it, and I cannot see the full picture.

This song by Strings and Heart has been my anthem lately:

I don’t know what is going to happen next; I don’t know what God has planned for the next chapter in my story.

What I do know is that He is always good, and that He is in control, and I am not. I was not asked to plan out my future. I was asked to steward well what has been put in front of me. If I can take care of the little that I have been given in the now, I can be entrusted to more later.

It’s hard. Waiting is hard. Practicing patience and endurance is hard. Begging God for something and not receiving it is hard. But once again, let’s bring it back to abundance:

-What wonderful plans does He have for my future?

-What has the Lord already done in my life?

-What has He given me to steward right now?

I look around at the things I have been given to take care of. I am currently applying to new jobs, looking at moving somewhere else, friendships to continue, starting up my platforms again, I still have a bedroom to clean, and a Bible to read and study.

In times where it feels like all hope has been lost, look at the testimonies of others. How many people do you know who have been through trials that seemed impossible, and yet they walked out stronger and more resilient because of them? That is always who I want to be.

The person who walked out stronger because of her trials.

Because at the end of the day, we only have one life, and we have been called by our Creator to steward and cultivate it well. He has given us Himself as the One to lean on in our distress. He is the key to overcoming the impossible. He is why I can have peace and joy in the midst of struggling with pockets of depression.

One day, I pray that I will be blessed with more to steward, perhaps a patch of earth to cultivate a garden. Perhaps more friends and family to teach and be taught by.

Perhaps responsibilities that I would not have been ready for if it weren’t for my past.

No matter what is in store for my life, I know what I have been given to take care of right now, and that is what I will focus my attention on.

Thank you for listening to my little menagerie of thoughts for this Saturday morning. If this post spoke to you in any way, feel free to leave a comment or restack with your thoughts. I love to hear from you all. 🫶

-Briar Albaugh