Exhausted But Not Devoured
Finding Spiritual Strength in the Weary Places of Motherhood
Heavy eyes. Sore joints. Fan oscillating. Sound machine roaring.
In the darkness and stillness of night in my daughter’s nursery, my mind felt anything but still. My husband, Josh, was out of town for a new job, and on the first day of the trip, both of my children had effectively pushed all of my buttons. And I do mean all of them.
Exhaustion had long since settled in.
Just a couple hours before, I had successfully gotten both kids to sleep, hopped on the treadmill for a 30 minute run to clear my head, showered, let the pets out, checked all the doors, windows, and lights, and crawled in bed.
Finally. I can write quietly before I go to sleep.
Or so I thought…
My butt had not been snuggled up in the bed longer than two minutes before my daughter’s familiar cries began echoing through the baby monitor. Of course.
Now here I was, rocking her in the dark for going on an hour, having attempted to put her down multiple times. Feelings of frustration, anger, and even (though I hate to admit it) resentment began to take root within the dark corners of my weary soul.
I felt smothered. Smothered by the darkness of the room. By the sounds. So soft and soothing and yet all so obnoxious. Smothered by the feeling of someone touching me for the thousandth time. Smothered by the fear that I might somehow become lost in this rocking chair and dwindle away into some meaningless existence. That I might altogether cease to exist as a human being and would simply become this rocking shell.
Back and forth. To and fro. Just a little longer. Surely, she’ll be asleep soon.
She wasn’t. It took her three and a half hours to fall asleep that night. Sleep regressions, man. Something I’ll ask God about when my time here is done. But in those three and half hours I can’t count how many times my thoughts ventured off into a painful black hole of negative thought patterns and baseless accusations toward myself:
You’re a horrible mom. You have no idea what you’re doing. Stop wasting this time. Just hold her. You lost a child, you should never get tired of holding this one. Suck it up. You’re pathetic. You’re weak. Nobody cares.
The exhaustion will do that to you. Have you spiraling down a path of falsehoods you’d never say to yourself in the light of day and eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. I know these lies are not truths from God. But with exhaustion comes vulnerability—physically, mentally, and spiritually. And the enemy just loves to find us in those vulnerable spaces.
“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8 ESV
Oh, how he prowls. When we are tired. When we are angry. When we are restless. When we are grieving. He lies in wait. Ready, Scripture says, to devour.
Satan is predictable in that way—an opportunistic predator. C.S. Lewis demonstrates this point well in one of his most well-known works: The Screwtape Letters. A brilliant piece of satire, the book is a series of instructional letters written by fictional demon Screwtape to his nephew demon-in-training, Wormwood. In the very first chapter, Screwtape describes how the best temptations are not grandiose but ordinary. The best way, Screwtape says, to distract someone from God is by manipulating the seemingly ordinary needs, feelings, and irritations of everyday life.
And this is exactly what Satan does. Hunger. Fatigue. Pain. Frustration. The thousand times you tell your kid to put on their shoes. The sleep regressions. The ordinary and completely normal tensions of parenting. He takes our fatigue and twists it into accusation—accusations of our inadequacy and God’s perceived indifference. These are the cracks where resentment and sin can take root—where Satan’s lies sound the most believable because we are already so vulnerable.
“Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” James 1:13-15 ESV
I rarely draw parallels from more modern cultural pieces, but this one has been on my mind quite a bit lately. My son, Liam, has been fixated on the movie Mufasa: The Lion King (2024). And while as a millennial, some of the story line, songs, and CGI animation had me raising an eyebrow, the contrast in character arcs between Taka (who becomes Scar) and Mufasa intrigued me.
Consistent with his later behavior in The Lion King (1994), Taka (Scar) is sneaky and opportunistic. I won’t spoil the movie for you if you haven’t seen it. But just know that his underlying tendencies and characteristics don’t change. They only become amplified over time. Taking advantage of others. Lying. Manipulating. Twisting truth for his own selfish gain. Betraying those he claims to love. Mufasa, on the other hand, leads with humility, compassion, justice, and hope. He rescues the kingdom from being devoured by the enemy lions, and they begin a life united in paradise.
There’s a reason storylines like this capture our attention: they are mirror images of a spiritual warfare that has been raging for millennia. The Good News, though? We know exactly how it ends, because the work has been finished (John 19:13). While the devil may lurk in the shadows of the dark, he is no match for our God, the Lion of Judah who is the Light of the World (Rev. 5:5; John 8:12). Jesus is the Lion who redeems what the enemy would seek to destroy, who protects what the enemy would seek to devour.
In our most vulnerable places, it is true that the enemy has no desire to show us mercy. He will use any and every opportunity to lead us astray. To be sober-minded is to be aware of this truth. To be alert. To be ready. Dressed proudly in the full armor of God (Eph. 6:13-17) and confident in His provision, we can enter vulnerable spaces honestly and courageously because we know that while the enemy may try to invade those spaces, God has never left us. He carries us through them. Those spaces become spiritual battlegrounds. Places where we witness the goodness of a faithful and comforting God, rather than places where the enemy drags us further into isolation and fear. But resistance to spiritual attacks requires preparation.
In moments like my three and a half hour sleep regression session with my daughter, I operate best with action items. With a battle plan. So when you feel the enemy prowling, when you need an intentional plan on how to stay sober-minded even in the chaos, here it is:
Call out the feelings. God already knows where you are. But calling out the feelings we are having can be tremendously helpful for our own souls. Say them honestly. Your feelings aren’t too big for God and they don’t dictate His character.
Call out the lies. I was listening to a podcast from Jackie Hill Perry and her husband about a year ago about marriage. But this truth they shared stuck with me and I have applied it to so many areas of my life. Call out the lie. What lie is it that you’re believing in that moment that you know is a product of the enemy? I’m a bad mom. This is never going to end. Name it. Bring it to the light. Once you expose it, it becomes much easier to fight it.
Combat the lies with truths. Now that the feelings are exposed and the lies that Satan generates from those feelings are exposed, it’s time to wield that Sword of Truth and to wield it well (John 17:17). This is why being engaged in Scripture is so important. To use the Sword of Truth you need to know the Sword of Truth. The Word tells us what is true: God is present. God is comforting. God is kind. God is loving. God protects us. God sustains us. And so much more.
Sober-mindedness is not a passive state of being. It requires action. Any recovering addict will tell you this. The 12 steps of addiction recovery are steps they work through their entire lives to maintain sobriety. Sobriety maintenance is proactive, not reactive. The same is true of our own call to be of “sober” spirit even when our circumstances might tempt us to become distracted.
To the weary one who is ready this, know that you are seen. Your tired eyes, your shaking hands, your aching muscles, your tear-stained cheeks. God sees you in this place and He doesn’t demand that you hide from Him. He desires to call you to His arms. He desires to fight for you. He says, “You are mine” (Isaiah 43:1).
Head up, weary one. Fix your eyes on the One who has redeemed you. On the One who has never failed and won’t start today. Do not let the enemy’s lies cloud your mind. The physical relief may not come soon. The circumstances might not change. Yet hope is present in the ordinary struggles of this life, and His name is Jesus.