When the Wind Blows

The pecan trees on our property don’t turn all at once. They hold onto green longer than I expect, and then a gust comes through and the leaves let go like rain pouring from the branches, so much at once, from every direction, that it could be mistaken for a downpour. Just as we finish clearing the yard, another wind sweeps through and covers it all over again. It’s not gradual. It’s not gentle. It’s sudden, and it leaves a mess behind it, no matter how fast we clean it. 

That’s exactly how overwhelm feels, isn’t it? Not one slow, manageable thing at a time, but everything at once: the ministry deadline, the child who needs you right now, the phone call you weren’t ready for. And just when you think you’ve cleared the yard, another gust comes and covers it again. It’s easy to believe you’ve been blown off course, that the mess scattered across your yard means you’ve failed at ministry instead of tended to it.

I know that feeling well. With six kids, something was always happening: a fever in the night, a fight to referee, a forgotten permission slip, a heart that needed more than I had left to give. Somewhere in the same years, I was also walking my parents through their final seasons before they passed. I remember thinking my real ministry was waiting for me on the other side of it all, once the wind finally stopped long enough for me to catch my breath.

There was a version of me back then who kept a mental list: the book I hadn’t written, the messages I hadn’t prepared, the podcast episode that needed editing, the ministry I felt sure I was neglecting while I mopped up one more mess. I thought faithfulness meant finishing the list. I didn’t yet understand that faithfulness, in that season, looked like showing up for whatever the wind brought that day, even when it didn’t feel like ministry at all.

I couldn’t see it then, but I see it now: I missed that the overwhelm itself was the ministry. The middle-of-the-night conversations. The patience I didn’t feel like I had but somehow found anyway. The faith I practiced with no answers, only presence. None of that was a detour from what God was doing. It was the thing itself. I just kept looking past it, waiting for something that felt more like “ministry” to begin.

Maybe you’re standing in a downpour of your own right now, watching leaves cover the yard as fast as you clear it: motherhood, caregiving, a curveball you didn’t ask for, and telling yourself you’re behind because it feels so relentless. But a pecan tree never apologizes for how it rains its leaves. It simply trusts the Hand that sends the wind.

This fall, when the next gust comes and covers what you just finished clearing, don’t rush past it looking for calmer ministry ahead. Look closer. The overwhelm may be exactly where God is already at work.

You are not behind. You are not missing it. You are right where He has you.

Where is the wind blowing in your life right now? How can we pray for you as you face your own downpour this fall?

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