The Two Lunchboxes I Pack Every Morning Before My Own Shift Even Starts
The Two Lunchboxes I Pack Every Morning Before My Own Shift Even Starts
I set two alarms now, one at 4:40 and a backup at 4:48 in case I roll over on the first one, and most mornings I am standing at my kitchen counter in the dark packing two lunchboxes, a six-year-old's and an eight-year-old's, before I have had a single sip of coffee myself. My daughter has been in a treatment program for five months, and until she is steady enough to take her kids back, that job belongs to me, on top of the warehouse shift I still work five days a week to keep the lights on in a house that was only ever supposed to hold one tired old man and his dog. I am sixty-three years old, fourteen years sober, and some mornings I stand over that cutting board slicing apples for two kids who are not mine to raise and I feel a tiredness that has nothing to do with how many hours of sleep I got the night before. It sits somewhere deeper than my muscles. It sits in the part of me that used to believe getting sober would eventually mean getting to rest.
I used to think exhaustion was simply a math problem, too many hours awake against too few hours asleep, solvable with a long enough weekend if I could ever find one. Solomon already knew better than that three thousand years before my alarm clock existed. "It is vain for you to rise up early, To sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep" (Psalm 127:2, NKJV). I have risen early and stayed up late plenty, and neither one has ever once produced the actual rest I was chasing. Raising these two while working full time has taught me a kind of tired that a nap does not touch. I can sleep eight hours and wake up just as hollowed out as I was the night before, because what is actually worn down in me is not my body. It is whatever reserve I used to draw on to keep showing up cheerful, patient, present, the reserve I assumed would refill itself automatically as long as I kept doing the next right thing. Some weeks it does not refill at all. Some weeks I am just running on fumes and old habit, snapping at a six-year-old over spilled milk in a way that has nothing to do with the milk.
Scripture does not treat this kind of weariness as a modern complaint invented by overscheduled people. Jesus spoke directly to it, to an entire crowd of people worn thin by their own version of what I am carrying. "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30, NKJV). I used to read that invitation as a promise that the workload itself would get lighter. Standing at that counter most mornings, I am starting to understand it differently. The warehouse shift is not getting shorter. The grocery bill for three is not getting smaller. What He is actually offering is a yoke shared with Him instead of carried alone, which is a different kind of lightness than I was originally hoping for.
Here is where my own reasoning has never once gotten me off that fume tank. I can tell myself accurately that plenty of grandparents are doing exactly what I am doing, that my daughter will get well and this season will end, that tired is simply the going rate for love right now. Every sentence is true, and none of it has ever actually put anything back into the tank it was draining. Exhaustion like mine was never really a willpower problem waiting on a better pep talk. It is a supply problem, and no accurate thought about my situation has ever once refilled a reserve that thinking was never designed to refill.
This is exactly what abiding in the Spirit offers that fourteen years of gritting my teeth could never finish producing on its own. Paul does not tell the Romans that the Spirit simply watches us struggle from a safe distance. "Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered" (Romans 8:26, NKJV). Some mornings I do not even have words left to pray. I have learned that the groaning itself, wordless and half-formed over a cutting board, is apparently enough for Him to work with. Paul found the same thing true in his own thorn, something he begged God to remove and never got removed. "And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness'" (2 Corinthians 12:9, NKJV). My strength was never going to be sufficient for two kids and a full-time shift. His was never asking to be supplemented by mine. It was asking to replace it.
Jesus describes the actual mechanism of where that strength comes from, and it is not a technique I perform better with practice. "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:4-5, NKJV). A branch does not strain to produce fruit through sheer effort. It simply stays attached, and the life flows through it from somewhere else entirely. I have spent most mornings this year trying to be the vine instead of the branch, generating my own patience from scratch instead of staying close enough to receive it. Zechariah told a discouraged, undermanned remnant rebuilding something that felt impossible exactly what their actual source was going to be. "'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' Says the LORD of hosts" (Zechariah 4:6, NKJV). My might has a ceiling. His Spirit does not. God told Moses, leading a people far more exhausted than I will ever be across a far longer desert, the one thing that actually made the load bearable. "And He said, 'My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest'" (Exodus 33:14, NKJV). Not easier terrain. His Presence, going with me into the exact terrain I already have to cross.
I watch a world right now that looks as exhausted as I feel most mornings, nations worn thin by wars that will not resolve, families stretched past what they were built to carry, a whole generation running on fumes and calling it normal. I believe the ache for real rest, not another vacation but an actual end to the weariness, is one more signpost pointing toward the rest Christ is still preparing to give in full. "There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience" (Hebrews 4:9-11, NKJV). That rest is not here yet in its finished form, but Paul describes exactly how it arrives when it does, with a certainty louder than any exhaustion I have ever carried. "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, NKJV).
I packed those two lunchboxes again this morning, apples sliced, the same two tired alarms behind me. God is alive today, and He already knows exactly which counter you are standing at before dawn, which reserve in you ran dry weeks ago while you kept showing up anyway. He has a plan for you that was never contingent on you finding your own strength to finish it, and a rest that He is still fully able to give right now in the middle of the labor, long before the final rest arrives for good. He will never leave you alone at that counter, and He is coming back to end every exhausted morning this world has ever handed any of us.
---
Scriptures used (NKJV): Matthew 11:28-30; Exodus 33:14; Psalm 127:2; Romans 8:26; 2 Corinthians 12:9; Zechariah 4:6; John 15:4-5; Hebrews 4:9-11; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.
I set two alarms now, one at 4:40 and a backup at 4:48 in case I roll over on the first one, and most mornings I am standing at my kitchen counter in the dark packing two lunchboxes, a six-year-old's and an eight-year-old's, before I have had a single sip of coffee myself. My daughter has been in a treatment program for five months, and until she is steady enough to take her kids back, that job belongs to me, on top of the warehouse shift I still work five days a week to keep the lights on in a house that was only ever supposed to hold one tired old man and his dog. I am sixty-three years old, fourteen years sober, and some mornings I stand over that cutting board slicing apples for two kids who are not mine to raise and I feel a tiredness that has nothing to do with how many hours of sleep I got the night before. It sits somewhere deeper than my muscles. It sits in the part of me that used to believe getting sober would eventually mean getting to rest.
I used to think exhaustion was simply a math problem, too many hours awake against too few hours asleep, solvable with a long enough weekend if I could ever find one. Solomon already knew better than that three thousand years before my alarm clock existed. "It is vain for you to rise up early, To sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep" (Psalm 127:2, NKJV). I have risen early and stayed up late plenty, and neither one has ever once produced the actual rest I was chasing. Raising these two while working full time has taught me a kind of tired that a nap does not touch. I can sleep eight hours and wake up just as hollowed out as I was the night before, because what is actually worn down in me is not my body. It is whatever reserve I used to draw on to keep showing up cheerful, patient, present, the reserve I assumed would refill itself automatically as long as I kept doing the next right thing. Some weeks it does not refill at all. Some weeks I am just running on fumes and old habit, snapping at a six-year-old over spilled milk in a way that has nothing to do with the milk.
Scripture does not treat this kind of weariness as a modern complaint invented by overscheduled people. Jesus spoke directly to it, to an entire crowd of people worn thin by their own version of what I am carrying. "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30, NKJV). I used to read that invitation as a promise that the workload itself would get lighter. Standing at that counter most mornings, I am starting to understand it differently. The warehouse shift is not getting shorter. The grocery bill for three is not getting smaller. What He is actually offering is a yoke shared with Him instead of carried alone, which is a different kind of lightness than I was originally hoping for.
Here is where my own reasoning has never once gotten me off that fume tank. I can tell myself accurately that plenty of grandparents are doing exactly what I am doing, that my daughter will get well and this season will end, that tired is simply the going rate for love right now. Every sentence is true, and none of it has ever actually put anything back into the tank it was draining. Exhaustion like mine was never really a willpower problem waiting on a better pep talk. It is a supply problem, and no accurate thought about my situation has ever once refilled a reserve that thinking was never designed to refill.
This is exactly what abiding in the Spirit offers that fourteen years of gritting my teeth could never finish producing on its own. Paul does not tell the Romans that the Spirit simply watches us struggle from a safe distance. "Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered" (Romans 8:26, NKJV). Some mornings I do not even have words left to pray. I have learned that the groaning itself, wordless and half-formed over a cutting board, is apparently enough for Him to work with. Paul found the same thing true in his own thorn, something he begged God to remove and never got removed. "And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness'" (2 Corinthians 12:9, NKJV). My strength was never going to be sufficient for two kids and a full-time shift. His was never asking to be supplemented by mine. It was asking to replace it.
Jesus describes the actual mechanism of where that strength comes from, and it is not a technique I perform better with practice. "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:4-5, NKJV). A branch does not strain to produce fruit through sheer effort. It simply stays attached, and the life flows through it from somewhere else entirely. I have spent most mornings this year trying to be the vine instead of the branch, generating my own patience from scratch instead of staying close enough to receive it. Zechariah told a discouraged, undermanned remnant rebuilding something that felt impossible exactly what their actual source was going to be. "'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' Says the LORD of hosts" (Zechariah 4:6, NKJV). My might has a ceiling. His Spirit does not. God told Moses, leading a people far more exhausted than I will ever be across a far longer desert, the one thing that actually made the load bearable. "And He said, 'My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest'" (Exodus 33:14, NKJV). Not easier terrain. His Presence, going with me into the exact terrain I already have to cross.
I watch a world right now that looks as exhausted as I feel most mornings, nations worn thin by wars that will not resolve, families stretched past what they were built to carry, a whole generation running on fumes and calling it normal. I believe the ache for real rest, not another vacation but an actual end to the weariness, is one more signpost pointing toward the rest Christ is still preparing to give in full. "There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience" (Hebrews 4:9-11, NKJV). That rest is not here yet in its finished form, but Paul describes exactly how it arrives when it does, with a certainty louder than any exhaustion I have ever carried. "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, NKJV).
I packed those two lunchboxes again this morning, apples sliced, the same two tired alarms behind me. God is alive today, and He already knows exactly which counter you are standing at before dawn, which reserve in you ran dry weeks ago while you kept showing up anyway. He has a plan for you that was never contingent on you finding your own strength to finish it, and a rest that He is still fully able to give right now in the middle of the labor, long before the final rest arrives for good. He will never leave you alone at that counter, and He is coming back to end every exhausted morning this world has ever handed any of us.
---
Scriptures used (NKJV): Matthew 11:28-30; Exodus 33:14; Psalm 127:2; Romans 8:26; 2 Corinthians 12:9; Zechariah 4:6; John 15:4-5; Hebrews 4:9-11; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.
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