I can get really tired.

You know that feeling. That bone-crushing exhaustion that feels endless. It does not abate. It is forever. (I know, not dramatic at all.)

As women, we often feel that we must carry the weight of everyone’s schedules and emotions and needs.

We fill our academic schedules to make sure we graduate on a prescribed timeline while also leading all the clubs and doing all the service projects.

We manage businesses, lead meetings, make conference calls before realizing it’s been hours since we’ve gone to the bathroom.

We are up to our elbows in diapers and playdates and doctor’s appointments on zero sleep.

We care for our aging parents and manage end-of-life care as we say goodbye our loved ones.

We drive to practice after practice and juggle parent-teacher conferences, PTA meetings, and field trips not remember the last time we’ve checked in with our spouse.

Society plays this off like it’s a badge of honor. It’s the commodification of busy. It glorifies running on empty. If you are a good wife / mother / student / daughter / friend / teacher / professional, you had better be multi-tasking and rocking the eye bags.

But sometimes, I’m just tired and I need to rest. Jesus asks us to dwell within His perfect and Sacred Heart. He invites us into true rest and endless comfort.

We can lay down our burdens and be enveloped by His perfect love.

He always goes after His lost sheep as the First Reading promises us. (See Ezekiel 34:11-16.) He knows us to the depths of our soul—every cell, every breath. We can find true rest in Him.

[bctt tweet="We can lay down our burdens and be enveloped by His perfect love." username="Substance_Soul"]

Let us pray this prayer to the Holy Spirit together authored by a Church Father.

Dr. Samantha Aguinaldo-Wetterholm is a wife to Paul, mom to three little ones, and practices dentistry at a public health community center for low income families in the Bay Area, California. She (unashamedly) thinks ice cream is its own food group, loves anything Harry Potter, does not leave the house without wearing sparkly earrings, and is an enthusiastic proponent of the Oxford comma. She is a contributing author to our children's devotional prayer book, Rise Up. Find out more about her here.