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There's something deeply human about the way pressure shows up in our lives. Sometimes it looks like anxiety. Sometimes it looks like overachievement. Sometimes it even disguises itself as excitement or ambition. But other times, the times that are hardest to explain, it looks like complete shutdown.

And that's where I've been this week.

I have a lot happening right now. Projects stacking on top of projects. The end of the school year rapidly approaching with all of its schedules, events, and responsibilities. I just published my new devotional, Free Indeed, on Amazon. There are things I care deeply about, opportunities I'm grateful for, and work I genuinely want to do.

So naturally… I do nothing.

The dishes sit longer than they should. Emails remain unanswered. The to-do list gets avoided altogether. I scroll. I stare. I nap. I let the chaos swirl around me while I sit frozen in…

Can I tell you about a kind of tired that sleep doesn't fix?

It's the tired that comes from always being on. From waking up with a mental to-do list before your feet even hit the floor. From saying yes when you mean no, from pushing through when everything in you wants to stop, from performing a version of yourself that feels just slightly more put-together than how you actually feel on the inside.

Most moms know exactly what I'm talking about. Most women do as well.

A tale of dead starters, imploding anxiety, and the peace I forgot I already had.

It was a perfectly lovely Sunday. Church was good, the goodbyes were warm, and the sermon, ironically, beautifully, almost too on the nose, had been all about anxiety. About releasing it. About resting in Christ's peace instead of white-knuckling your way through life. I nodded along. I felt convicted in the best way. I walked out of that sanctuary feeling lighter.

And then I turned my key and heard nothing.

My car wouldn't start.

Now, I've been around long enough to know exactly one thing about car problems: it's always the battery. That's just science. Dead car equals dead battery, you jump it, you go home, you make a mental note to get it replaced and promptly forget. I was already mentally dialing AAA and patting myself on the back for having the membership when…

When my oldest son was five, we walked into his kindergarten interview, one of those moments that’s labeled “not a test,” but quietly feels like one. They were observing him, of course… but if I’m honest, it felt like they were observing me. Measuring. Weighing. Deciding what kind of mother I must be based on how my child performed in that room.

And that morning didn’t help.

It was pajama day at daycare, and my son had his heart set on staying in his Christmas onesie...a full Santa Claus suit, in all its red, fleece-lined, slightly-too-warm glory. I tried to convince him otherwise, but he stood his ground. So there I was, walking into this “evaluation” with my five-year-old dressed as Santa in the middle of the school year.

I didn’t laugh. I didn’t take it in. I didn’t see the innocence, the confidence, or even the humor of it.