Invitations > Burdens

Do you ever enter the new year with this sense of excitement and gusto, ready to make this the year that you do this, this, or this that you’ve been wanting to do for ages? You flip the calendar to a brand new page with JANUARY practically screaming “Look at all these blank-slate possibilities!” at you from the top, and you feel you can—or at least should—take on the world.

Yet you’re only a few weeks in, and your whole family gets sick. The schedule picks back up with looming work deadlines, kids deciding they all of a sudden hate pb&j’s (well what in the world am I going to pack you for lunch, then?), ever-growing schedules of practices, doctors’ visits, and Oh shoot, the dog is out of food again.

Your previous motivation to get that workout in, wake up early to study Scripture and pray, or build in consistent date nights falls to the bottom of the priority list buried underneath the weight of the U-R-G-E-N-T, in-your-face daily needs.

And then the identity crisis slips in quietly, ready to whisper lies to your heart with every missed habit and dropped ball.

I don’t know if it’s our task- and success-oriented culture or even our own internal pressures to jump on that spinning wheel of proving ourselves or taking advantage of every moment, but this time of year, I sense we all so easily fall prey to high hopes and even higher letdowns.

These good things that the Lord very well may have placed on our hearts then instead become burdens, and when we fail, we throw our hands up in defeat and often take those “failures” on as another identity lie that the enemy delights to hang over our heads.

Not good enough.

Why can’t you be more like him or her?

The Lord has entrusted this to you–why can’t you steward it better?

Do better. Try harder. Work longer. Find one more quick fix.

You are: Lazy. Unorganized. Not smart enough. A let down. Not meant for this.

Anyone else?

But friends, this rat race of striving and striving and striving does not come from the Lord. And it will leave us ultimately exhausted and defeated.

Growing, seeking righteousness, making goals, and taking care of our bodies are in no way bad things. They are very good things, in fact.

Where we can get it wrong, however, is the heart motivation from which we act and where we place our identity. When those are misplaced, that is where we find ourselves weighed down with working in our own strength, through our own ways, and for our own purposes and recognition.

Will Parker Anderson, an editor, writing coach, and one of my favorite voices in writing in general, says that we all need to find a way to “separate our worth from our work. And our work matters a lot to us. It’s just that it can’t define us entirely… God’s love is described as an unconditional gift that’s rooted in his goodness, not an earned right rooted in our performance.”

Does our performance matter still? Absolutely.

Does the love of Christ change based on our performance? Absolutely not.

Where I have been finding more peace and freedom as I step into a new year and seek to become more like Christ through what I do—with joy instead of pressure—is to start with the foundation of Christ’s heart for us all as his followers.

What if we first sought the gentle and easy yoke of a God who lovingly beckons, not condemns?

Who invites, not burdens?

How quickly I take the weight of the world on my own shoulders, where I feel every success or failure is based on my own efforts, that I forget who I am in partnership with and sustained by?

He who is gentle and humble in heart. Whose yoke is easy and burden is light. Who gives us rest for our souls.

The God of the universe, the good Shepherd of our lives, “has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3).

He is “our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

We are “co-workers” with God (1 Corinthians 3:9).

When we first abide in the love of Christ (John 15), remembering “it is by grace we have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9), we will more naturally rejoice in who he is and who are we in him and then act from that foundation.

That is where we will find our full identity in him and not on how we perform or what we do.

That is when we can see this life alongside our Savior as a loving invitation, not a cumbersome burden.

And what joy there is to meet the new year and new possibilities he has for us with our value being found in Christ alone.

Goals for the year

Taylor and I took a two-night time away to spend time praying and planning for the year, which I highly recommend for you as an individual and for you as a couple if you’re married. It is such a great way to take inventory of what is going well and what can be improved moving forward. It also helps us to make strategic choices in what we say both yes and no to based on how we sense the Lord leading us in each season.

Making time as a couple to still our minds from the chaos of daily to-do’s, ponder the faithfulness of the Lord, and seek His will moving forward was such a blessing for us to reflect on 2025 and intentionally seek the Lord for 2026. It’s never too late in the year to do something similar that will serve you and your family for the sake of making much of Christ in every aspect of your life—from your own spiritual walk, your marriage, your children, your career, your life in your local church, your finances, your hobbies, etc.

We asked each other specific questions we compiled from Kingdom Sexuality and this list on Instagram.

A few other helpful tools:

• We love this Habit Forming List from Justin Whitmel Earley (can’t recommend following him enough!)

• AND this Skylight Digital Calendar (I received this as a Christmas, birthday, sorry you live far away and I can’t take you out to eat kind of gift from my parents. I hate to be that girl that recommends something so expensive, but it has been a game changer for helping our family be on the same page with schedules as well as streamlining chores for the kids, meal planning, grocery lists, etc—plus it also serves as a digital picture frame. I meannn.)

Here are a few of our goals that came out of that time that will hopefully provide a springboard for your own family as well:

• Weekly family devotionals

  • One of our reflections as parents is that we’ve done really well having natural conversations with the kids about faith and Scripture, but we never implemented a consistent, weekly devotion time as a family. We are excited to add this to our regular rhythms for the year!

  • We asked the kids to help plan our time, and we’ve come up with this general schedule for two times a week—

    • Prayer: Start with a family member who will pray for us

    • Worship: Sing one song in worship together

    • Word: Study or read Scripture (some ideas for kids and family devotions: The Bible Recap Kids’ Devotional (it’s half off right now!); The New City Catechism for Kids by Gospel Coalition)

      • Our kids asked to learn how the Bible came to be, so we are excited to dive in to this specific topic to start!

    • Memorization: Choose one biblical passage to memorize each month together (idea from my friends: The Biggest Story Verse Cards)

• Consistent writing rhythms

  • Much of the time I feel as if I’m writing into the abyss, and perhaps I am, but it’s still one of my greatest passions that the Lord has placed on my heart. I would love to pursue this further—especially with the 3-5 books I would one day love to write constantly swirling in my head (and all my writer friends said amen). But these dreams require a wider audience and more consistency when I publish content (both very difficult endeavors for me).

    • Ultimately I want my writing to be another form of encouragement for others to know Jesus deeper in their everyday lives, so my prayer is that these efforts will all be in line with that at the center!

  • A few of my goals in my writing world are to publish on my Substack every other Friday (with some leniency depending on what is going on in life!), submit a minimum of five pieces to various publications this year, and be published in one new publication.

  • If you want to see a few of my previously published pieces, you can find some here:

    • Risen Motherhood— A Call to Unnatural Obedience: When Faithfully Following Jesus Doesn’t Feel Easy

    • The Way Back to Ourselves— A Simple Case for the God We Cannot See and Behold! He Who Was, Long Before Us (2nd Place in Storytellers Contest)

    • Part-Time Poets— All That She Holds

    • Her View From Home— What if the Tasks We Dread are Invitations to Draw Near?

• Better sleep schedule

  • I am naturally a night owl, whereas my husband loves the early mornings. But when I was going through my schedule with adding 15 hours of coaching high school soccer each week plus my regular work in ministry, writing, serving the church, and the everyday family/personal happenings, it became clear there are simply not enough hours in the week to do all the things I feel called to do without waking up earlier. Which, in turn, means I have to go to sleep earlier as well.

    • (Cue a temporarily cranky 6am and reluctant 10:30pm bedtime Jess for the next couple of months as I get back on this schedule!)

• Going deeper in theological understanding

  • I am most excited about this one! As I’ve shared in posts before, I read through the Bible every year, so this is my off year in those longer daily readings (let me know if you want some Bible reading plans for this—I’ve used a few different ones that I’ve loved). The “off years” are when I go deeper in studying specific parts of Scripture.

  • To grow in my biblical understanding concerning these specific topics and apologetics, I have a long list of systematic theological books I want to read this year. I’ve just started Exploring Christian Theology: Revelation, Scripture, and the Triune God by Nathan Holstein and Michael Svigel recommended by my seminary/theological nerd of a hubby ;)

If you’ve hung in this far, well done. I pray this will be a blessing to you during the start to this new year as we plan and work in grace out of our identity in him.

Cheering you on as we all seek the heart of Christ,

~Jess

p.s. A few of the above mentions are affiliate links, but I only recommend what I truly love.