What God Whispered When I Hit Burnout
Oct 13, 2026Summary
Today I am opening up my personal journal to share what God whispered when I hit burnout after trying to juggle a mile-long to-do list, motherhood, and ministry. If you have a "go, go, go" personality and feel like you always have to stay busy to prove your worth and value, you are in the exact right place! So many Christian women struggle to rest because we subtly equate our daily productivity with how much God and our families value us.
In this deeply vulnerable and practical episode of the Arise Women of God podcast, host Tamara K. Anderson shares three powerful tips to help you step away from chronic exhaustion. First, you will hear a convicting object lesson from a 13-week-old puppy named Bruno about mastering "the power of doing nothing" and truly living out Psalm 46:10.
Next, Tamara shares the raw moment she hit a wall after launching 186 podcast episodes in a single year while caring for her family and her adult son with special needs. When she asked the Lord what she should do, His unexpected answer shifted everything: "I want you to be happy. Your mission is to have joy." Finally, we dive into Isaiah 53 to discover the ultimate key to healing from depletion. Tune in to learn how to simplify your schedule, let go of false guilt, and yoke yourself to our Savior Jesus Christ so He can carry your sorrows and restore your peace today!
Episode Takeaways: What God Whispered When I Hit Burnout
- Learn the Power of Doing Nothing (Psalm 46:10): Like a puppy in training, we have to train ourselves to sit still! Your worth and value are not measured by the length of your to-do list. Turn off your phone, watch a sunset, or sit with your kids to show them they matter more than checking boxes.
- Reclaim Your True Mission—Joy: When work and obligations encroach on everything you enjoy, burnout is inevitable. Take your schedule to God in prayer and remember His desire for you: your mission isn't just to grind through tasks; it is to have joy and point souls to Christ!
- Yoke Yourself to the Man of Sorrows (Isaiah 53): When we are stressed and raging at little things, our instinct is to hide our faces from God in guilt. Instead of waiting until you break, yoke yourself to Jesus Christ daily. He has already borne your griefs and carried your sorrows, and He will help you discern how to simplify your load.
Reflection Questions for Healing from Burnout
- Do you struggle with "the power of doing nothing"? How often do you tie your personal worth and value to how many boxes you check off your to-do list?
- If God looked at your current schedule and whispered, "I want you to be happy; your mission is to have joy," what is one draining obligation you would feel prompted to simplify or let go of?
- Read Isaiah 53:3-5. When you feel overwhelmed, do you tend to hide from God because you feel guilty, or do you let the Savior carry your sorrows?
Resources Mentioned
Free Resource: The Mom's Burnout Reset Guide: Trading Survival Mode for Christ-Centered Peace downloadable pdf here: https://www.womenwarriorsoflight.com/the-moms-burnout-reset-guide
Host
Tamara K. Anderson @tamarakanderson
Transcript
Tamara K Anderson
00:00:00.640 - 00:11:57.320
Hey, ladies.
How many of you feel burned out because your to do list is way too long?
You have a go, go, go personality, and you feel like you always have to keep busy to show that you have worth and value.
And maybe you, like me, have a hard time resting.
Oh, sisters, I feel you and you are in the right place.
And by the end of today's episode, you will know three powerful tips to help you solve burnout.
Stay tuned.
Ordinary women, Extraordinary faith.
When God calls, we say yes.
Hello, and welcome back to the Arise Women of God podcast.
I'm your host, Tamara K. Andersen, and I am so thrilled to be here today with you talking about three powerful tips to help you see Step out and away from burnout.
Now, the first is a tip that I've been pondering a long time, but I truly learned by example by watching a puppy named Bruno.
The second tip is a whisper God taught me just this morning when I was writing in my journal about being burned out about podcasting.
And the third tip is a lesson that is the key to all of it.
Not only helping you release Burnout now, but every time you feel like you're off balance from here through the end of your life.
So let's dive in with the first tip, which is something I learned from a puppy named Bruno.
So this past Sunday, I went to our church choir practice, which happens to be at the home of our choir director, and he and his wife have a new puppy, and he is 13 weeks old, and they've been doing puppy training with him.
So even though he was so excited every time one of us showed up, the wife of our choir director sat in the kitchen right beside all of us, and she had her puppy Bruno on a leash, and she said, I have been told that he needs to learn the power of doing nothing.
And so our goal right now for these next four weeks, ladies, four weeks, is for him to learn to sit and that he doesn't have to be doing something every hour of every minute of the day.
And so literally anytime he got excited, she would calm him back down and just sit him down and sit there and we all sang.
And at the end of it, she goes, look, he did it.
He did Nothing for this 45 minute choir practice.
And I remember sitting there going, ah, I think the Lord is trying to teach me something here, too.
Bruno had to learn to be still.
And I think you and I, sisters, have to learn to be still as well.
We're so used to going and doing and being, and we have to have all these things to Prove that we have worth and value, not only in the eyes of those around us, but in the eyes of God.
Well, how does he see me?
And I need to be doing things right.
And it's almost like the length of our to do list shows how much we're needed and valued when the truth is just like we're taught in Psalm 4610, that we have worth and value, and God invites us to be still and know that he is God.
How many times, my friend and sister, do you struggle with just being still?
And maybe you and I, like Bruno, need to learn the value of just doing nothing, of sitting, relaxing, turning our phone off, watching a sunset, and knowing and feeling that God loves us and is with us, whether we're checking boxes or sitting still.
And sitting still can include spending time with those you love most, telling your kids or your spouse or your loved ones that they are of more worth and value than your to do list over here.
And I want to spend time with you.
It's a thing I've been working on for several years, and I'm thankful that I was reminded of it again by Bruno.
The second thing I wanted to share with you was a tip that God taught me just this morning.
And I've been journaling the last few days about how I'm a little bit burned out of podcasting.
We felt at the beginning of this year that we needed to launch five episodes a week.
And at this point in the year, we have launched 186 podcast episodes.
And I'm feeling it, ladies.
I'm feeling it because I'm juggling that and motherhood and being a wife and helping my son with special needs, who's now an adult, and keeping his schedule going and helping out at church and making meals and doing laundry and running errands.
And I'm feeling less and less joy and everything because so much of what I have to do for work here has encroached on the things that I enjoy doing.
And when we don't take time to do the things that we enjoy, we feel more and more burned out.
So I was writing in my journal, and I like to write a question, and then I pray and ask God, what is the answer to this?
And I kind of feel it out.
And I wasn't getting super specific answers.
Like, I was asking, how many times a week do I need to be podcasting right now?
You know, two times, three times.
And the answer was, you can.
I'm like, come on, God, I need some specifics here.
Usually you're way more specific with me.
And he wasn't.
And I asked him, can I stop podcasting?
He said, not yet, but you can.
You can choose, right?
And then I asked him this important question.
I said, but what do you want me to do?
And here, ladies, here is the answer that I think we need to remember.
He said, I want you to be happy.
And at that moment, I wasn't.
I'm burning the candle at both ends like most of you, right?
I want you to be happy.
And I said, but what is my mission?
What should I be working on?
What should I be doing?
Listen to this, ladies.
To have joy.
It's your mission to have joy.
To point souls to Christ.
Am I happy?
Do I have joy?
How would you answer that right now in your life?
And if you're not, what do you need to do to change that?
Ponder that for a minute.
That's what he asked me to do a few questions later.
What does that look like?
Ponder that.
So ponder what needs to change.
Take that plan to God.
Take a list of what you're doing to God.
I'm going to give you a resource in a little bit that.
That has a not to do list.
And you can go through this process with Him.
It's so fantastic.
But before I do that, I'm going to tell you the third tip.
And this, my friends, is the key to.
To all these things, to healing from burnout.
And the key to this is found in Isaiah, chapter 53.
And listen to this.
See who can understand exactly what you're feeling right now.
He is despised and rejected of men.
How many of you have ever felt despised or rejected?
Mm.
I've wanted to fade into the back before, believe me, especially when I was younger, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
Ladies, have you been sorrowful?
Not feeling much joy or happiness?
Have you felt grief in your heart?
Are you there right now?
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him.
Sometimes when we're so stressed, we want to hide from God because we feel like we're not doing enough.
We're so busy, we don't have time to spend with Him.
And so we're kind of like.
Like that.
Now, these next two verses are amazing and powerful.
Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
Yet we did esteem him, stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace is upon Him.
And with his stripes, we are healed.
Oh, my dear friends, the key to surviving moving through burnout and healing from it is found in these verses.
Jesus Christ has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
We often try to carry them all by ourselves and we don't do a very good job of it because it is so heavy and so hard and so difficult and it was never meant to be carried by one person.
And it's not until we're literally breaking from burnout that we fall on our knees and say, dear God, it is too heavy.
I can't keep going.
I'm exhausted, I'm tired, I can't think straight.
I'm not happy.
And my to do list is still a mile long.
I don't have strength or patience to deal with my kids.
I'm raging at the silliest little things.
And we feel guilt because we know that as Christian women, we should be better than this.
But listen, ladies, let's get real.
Those are the moments we need Jesus the very most.
And it doesn't take much to yoke yourself to him every single day.
And then he helps you carry the load.
He helps you then discern, do I really need to be doing this?
Is there a way to simplify it?
I talked with a friend and she helped me look at everything I was doing and say, how can we simplify this?
I talked with my husband, did the same thing, and I'm talking to God and doing the same thing.
Guess what the answers are coming of how I can simplify what things I can let go of, what things I can change.
Have I been in burnout before?
Yes.
Am I better than I used to be?
Yes.
Have I learned things along the way?
Yes.
Do I still get in the same rut every once in a while?
Yes.
But I am gradually doing better at yoking myself to Jesus.
And guess what?
Every time he helps me learn how to solve this problem of where I am right now, today.
And so I testify that as you too learn to be still, that it's okay for you to find joy and happiness out of life and that's what God wants.
And to yoke yourself to the Savior and have him help you carry your griefs and your burdens and your sorrows and heal you that you too can get out of burnout.
If you want some additional tips, I invite you to click the link below and check out our Mom's Burnout Reset Guide where we give several more powerful tips and tricks how to Calm Down a Rage the powerful not to do list I was telling you about earlier because that is one of my favorite hacks that I use almost every time I'm feeling overwhelmed.
Grab your copy by clicking the link below.
Thanks for joining us today and until next time.
May you arise and stand with God and do life God Strong.
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It helps us grow and ensures heaven's whispers stay at the top of your feed whenever you need them most.
