Before I had children, I thought tiredness was simple math — enough sleep in, enough energy out. Early motherhood introduced me to a different kind of tired, one that eight hours of sleep does not touch, because it is not really about the body. It is the soul carrying a weight it was never quite built to carry alone.
Jesus’ invitation was not to the physically exhausted only. It was to the “heavy laden” (Matthew 11:28) — those weighed down by more than tired muscles. I have found that the rest He offers is not always a nap, though I will never say no to one. It is more often a loosening of the grip I have on needing to hold everything together myself.
On my hardest days as a young mother, the thing that actually restored me was rarely more sleep. It was handing the weight of that day back to God in prayer, admitting I could not carry it alone, and letting someone else — my husband, a friend, a sister at church — carry a piece of it with me.