64: Receiving the Restlessness of Winter

Ever feel like January has 47 days? That elastic sense of time can be more than seasonal blues; it can be a holy nudge to stop measuring worth by output and start rooting identity in Christ. We open up about restlessness, rainy days with kids who want action, and the surprising wisdom of not rushing to fix discomfort. Instead of trying to out-hustle the feeling, we explore how receiving winter can strengthen your soul for the work ahead.

Together we unpack why being precedes doing and how anchoring in the Great I Am clarifies what to steward next. You’ll hear a fresh take on the butterfly-in-the-cocoon story and what it teaches about necessary struggle, plus a vivid lesson from pruning an apple tree that looked “ruined” until spring arrived heavy with blossoms. These pictures reframe the urge to keep adding tasks: some branches look lively yet steal strength, and pruning them is the most loving, strategic move you can make.

We get practical about building rhythms that form character without theatrics—unhurried Scripture, honest self-examination, and small boundaries that protect deep work. We also hold space for tension: the harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few, and excellence matters. The difference is starting from rest, not rushing toward approval. If January feels endless, maybe it’s because you’re invited to become someone who can bear the weight of future fruit.

If this speaks to you, share it with a friend who’s sprinting on empty, subscribe for more soul-strengthening conversations, and leave a review with one place you sense God inviting you to slow down this week.

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Transcript

Choosing Rest As An Intention

Winter, Restlessness, And Indoor Life

Receive The Season, Not Endure It

Productivity Versus Formation

Restlessness, Kids, And Letting Them Struggle

Doing As Avoidance Of Deeper Work

The Butterfly And Necessary Struggle

Rooting In Christ Before Doing

Pruning For Fruitfulness

Be Still, Surrender, And Trust

Harvest, Laborers, And Prayer

Leanne Tuggle 0:51

Every year, right around this time, I start seeing these posts or memes or even just comments from friends about how January is so long. You'll see something like, today is January 47th or something like that. Why does it feel like January is so long? I'm wondering if it's because December kind of goes by in such a blurt, so fast-paced, because of all the things that we have to do for Christmas. Or maybe because February is literally the shortest month. Maybe that's why January feels so long. I'm not really sure why it feels this way. But I do know that time seems to approach warp speed by the time we get to April and we just fly through the rest of the year. So I've been thinking a lot about this over the last several weeks because one of my intentions for this year is to really embrace rest so that I can be a better steward of what God has entrusted to me. I want to approach the work that God has put before me with excellence and to not already feel burnt out by the end of January. This means that rest is a crucial part of being a woman on a mission. I also think that winter tends to feel long because we are naturally forced to spend a lot more time inside. And while we embrace the coziness around the holidays, by mid-winter, we are over it. There is a longing to get outside and to do something. And so we start to feel restless. Here in California, where we currently live, we are spoiled by gorgeous sunny days most of the year. So when the rainy season does inevitably arrive, we sort of don't know what to do with ourselves. Now, I grew up in Washington State, so I actually love rainy days, but my children have not had that same upbringing and they have no idea what to do on rainy days. They don't appreciate it. And so it has been intriguing to observe them these last few weeks as they have struggled with restlessness. And it's from my reflections of this restlessness that I come to you today with this episode and this central question that I want us to explore. What if winter or this current season is not something to simply endure, but something God wants us to receive? This season, and I'm talking about winter, but I think you can think of it figuratively too, is learning to just be. Now, someone like my husband, who is settled and content with who he is, finds comfort in the simplicity of this season. While someone like me, who is always looking for the next thing to do, struggles with so much time for internal reflection. And I often don't like what I find hidden beneath the layers of striving and doing. Or even when you are graduating from college, people will ask you, so what are you going to do? And the question that I hear now a lot is, so what did you do today? There is this focus on do. What did you accomplish or achieve? We tend to place a higher value on productivity than formation. And then pretty soon our sense of self becomes tied to what we do instead of who we are. But here's the irony of this: the art of being helps to define what you are to do or what you are to steward in this season. And the best way to learn how to be is to lean into the great I am. God first refers to himself as I am when he is speaking to Moses in the burning bush. And then Jesus later in John 8, 58, repeats that same idea by saying, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. Knowing who God is provides the antidote to our restlessness in this season. On the rainy days recently, when my children have been stuck inside, I've watched them struggle with boredom and restlessness. My twin boys, in particular, often resort to wrestling each other or getting into mischief, engaging in activities that they know they really shouldn't. So usually when I sense this restlessness, it's my natural instinct to just get them out of the house, take them somewhere, do something with them, to sort of run them around somewhere because they're more likely to settle down when they're worn out. And if you are a mom of boys, I know you understand this. It's actually, I think, a self-preservation or a way of keeping our home safe from destruction. That's my theory, at least. So if you're a boy mom, I know you get it. And yet, this time, over these last couple of weeks, I decided not to come to their rescue with a solution to their restlessness. I chose instead to let them kind of struggle through that. Maybe that makes me a bad mom, but I also think that they're old enough to kind of work through it. So this provided many opportunities to learn some important lessons that may have otherwise not happened because I just got them out of the house. And then I realized that this is exactly what God often does with us. It is our tendency to busy ourselves or to fill our plates with more things when we start to feel restless. Instead of digging in to find out why we feel restless or perhaps working through our sin of striving or rebellion, we just do more things. The doing can become a way of avoiding trusting God with the unseen work in our lives. The lessons we could be learning by discerning what the Holy Spirit is trying to teach us in this season are missed because we're too busy doing all the things. No one really likes to feel uncomfortable. In fact, we often go out of our way to avoid things that are painful or make us cringe. We would rather make some new goals or focus on doing more things instead of experiencing any sort of discomfort. And the internal work of addressing sin or searching for the root of our restlessness is unpleasant at best. So we bury that discomfort under a calendar full of things to do. You've probably heard the story about the butterfly and the cocoon, but allow me to remind you of it just for this analogy. The story begins that there is a man going for a hike out in the woods when he finds a cocoon and notices a small butterfly trying to get through this very tiny opening. So the man observes the butterfly struggle to push its way out of the cocoon. And in an effort to help this poor butterfly who appears to be stuck, the man gently cuts the cocoon to make it easier for the butterfly to emerge. And the butterfly does break free. However, it's weak. Its body and wings are shriveled and it is not able to fly. What the man didn't realize is that the temporary discomfort of struggling to get out of the cocoon was exactly what was necessary for the butterfly to become strong and ready for its God-intended purposes. The winter season does seem long. The year is stretched out before us, and we feel restless and uncomfortable. Like we just want to start doing the things already. But this is the exact moment when you need to decide to root yourself in Christ. When you get to lean into who you are as a woman of excellence, God often does his deepest work in obscurity. Instead of wishing away these weeks of winter, choose to spend your time drawing closer to God. Get uncomfortable as you wrestle with difficult portions of Scripture. Confront the reasons why you are tempted to look to the world before the Word every morning. Seek to understand who God is calling you to be in this season before you start doing more things. Growing up in a Christian home, I was familiar with the passage in John 15 about pruning. It says in the first two verses, I am the vine and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does not that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. So I was familiar with these verses, but it wasn't until I watched my dad prune the apple tree in our backyard that I really understood what the verses meant. I was horrified by how many branches he was cutting off of this tree. It hardly even looked like an apple tree anymore. And I remember running outside to ask him what he was doing. And he told me that he had to cut these branches off the tree. He showed me how the branches that he was pruning were all growing straight up and they wouldn't be able to hold any fruit. These branches would only suck out all the water and nutrients from the branches that were trying to bear fruit. The tree would not produce what it was meant to do in the fall. As I watched him clip away the branches, I realized that pruning is really counterintuitive. And yet it is necessary for the process and for the abundant harvest that comes later. And when spring did arrive, I noticed how many more blossoms were on our tree. All that pruning resulted in breathtaking beauty and an abundant harvest. The restlessness that you feel this winter is necessary. You need this season in order to slow down and root yourself in Christ. Take time to seek the Lord and prune the parts of your life that are not in alignment with his mission for you. Before you start doing all of the things, choose to be still and know that he is God, as it says in Psalm 46:10. You may need to address your rebellion or even your resistance to what God is leading you towards. You might need to surrender your plans for his, or at the very least, decide to trust that his ways are better than yours. The way forward this year might start with a bit of struggle. That's why January feels so long. You can't rush the process of learning to just be. This time is not wasted. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Learn to embrace your restlessness and know that God is preparing you for whatever comes next. Allow God to do his work in and through you. Ask him to reveal to you what he is forming in you right now. And then get ready, because after the work of becoming is complete, there will be a fruitful and abundant harvest. Make no mistake, there is plenty of work to do, and the workers are few. Matthew 9:37 through 38 quotes Jesus saying, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. So be sure you are rested so that you can be ready for the mission God is preparing you for this year. Ephesians 3, 14 through 21 is a beautiful prayer for spiritual strength, and it seems fitting for such a time as this. I pray that you feel encouraged during this season of quietly becoming. So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all of the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.