Out of the Overwhelm
A Minister's Message from Rev. Dr. Chris Shorow, Senior Minister cshorow@fccedmond.org 405.341.3544
Brigid Schulte, in her book Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, describes a moment when her life felt like “trying to run a race wearing ski boots.” Many of us recognize that feeling. Life is full. Overscheduled. Overextended. We are trying to hold together work, family, and responsibilities that rarely let up.
What we’re experiencing is not just busyness. It’s overwhelm. A steady sense of carrying more than we can sustain. It shows up in our bodies, our relationships, our mental health, and our sense of purpose. We hear the constant message to go, do, produce, work harder. Along the way, the peace of Christ can begin to feel distant.
Our May series Out of the Overwhelm: Work, Love, and Play for a Wholehearted Life invites a deeper question. Not just how to manage it all, but whether the way we are living is leading us toward a life that feels whole.
As we move through Mother’s Day and Graduation Sunday, we will name the real pressures people are carrying. Parents stretched thin by competing expectations. Mothers holding the invisible weight of home and work. Graduates asking what comes next. Many of us wondering if life is supposed to feel this relentless.
Schulte helps us see that overwhelm is not simply a personal failure. It is shaped by systems and expectations that leave us overworked, under-rested, and disconnected from what makes us fully alive.
Scripture meets us here. Jeremiah speaks to people trying to rebuild after everything has come undone. Ruth stays when it would be easier to walk away, choosing connection in the midst of loss. And in the Gospel of Luke, a desperate father brings his son to Jesus after everything else has failed. What felt broken and beyond repair is gathered back together. A future that once felt out of reach begins to open again.
These are not distant stories. They are stories of people living with pressure, uncertainty, and limits. And in each one, we see a different way of living take shape. More grounded. More connected. More whole.
Together, Schulte’s insights and the witness of scripture point us toward a more wholehearted way of living. One where work is shaped by purpose, love is shared rather than carried alone, and play and rest are not optional, but essential to being fully alive.
Jesus’ words still speak into the middle of our lives: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled.” This is not peace that comes from doing more or trying harder. It is peace that grows as we begin to live differently.
Join us as we begin finding a way out of the overwhelm, and toward a life marked by meaning, connection, and a growing sense of wholeness.