Honestly, Sandie

Sleep on the Floor. I use music as creative inspiration only and take no liberties with the original work. If you listen while reading, sit with the question: What became normal in your life that should have been a clue?

SHIFTING FOCUS – The Things I Couldn’t See Clearly Yet

The performance expectations are absolutely bananas.

Be authentic. But thriving.

Be vulnerable. But not messy.

Be honest. But uplifting.

Speak life, which apparently means never saying, “Hey, I think I’m drowning a little.”

Have boundaries.

But cute boundaries. Sweet boundaries. Boundaries that quietly evaporate the second somebody important looks stressed.

Smile.

Serve.

Need rest.

But not in a way that inconveniences anybody.

Do not wear a mask.

But definitely do not let anyone see the version of you running on caffeine, obligation, emotional labor, stale Goldfish crackers, and adrenaline for so long you forgot what rested even feels like.

The second exhaustion lands on your actual face, suddenly people are worried about your spiritual condition.

Wild.

Because here is the complicated part.

I loved serving.

Actual joy.

Not martyrdom.

Not performance.

Not gold-star church girl energy.

Joy.

Talking to moms while their lives quietly cracked open and reminding them they were still worthy of love. Sitting with youth students inside conversations too heavy for their age. Fear. Loneliness. Shame. Identity. Anxiety. The things adults forget teenagers carry.

Prayer nights.

Kids camp.

VBS.

Youth lock-ins.

Running video.

Running sound.

Creating merch.

Planning events.

Coordinating hotel rooms, rental cars, schedules, snacks, permission slips, emotional meltdowns, volunteers, rides, and whatever fresh chaos appeared five minutes before doors opened.

Spray paint on my hands at midnight making signs no one would remember three days later.

Taking out trash.

Cleaning bathrooms.

Chasing garbage through ridiculous wind because apparently ministry also includes fighting airborne napkins in a parking lot.

Christmas shopping for families who had nothing because no child deserves a hard Christmas if I can help it.

Showing up to a new mom’s house with cleaning supplies because prayer matters, but somebody still has to wipe down the counters.

Groceries.

Phone calls.

Coffee dates.

Late-night tears.

Showing up.

Showing up.

Showing up.

That part mattered.

The doing filled me. The demand to never stop emptied me.

There is a difference.

Serving never drained me. Loving people lit me up.

The problem arrived when stopping started to feel dangerous.

Rest felt selfish. Capacity felt suspicious.

Somewhere along the way, exhaustion quietly became personality.

We planned vacations around the calendar.

Missing weekends felt vaguely criminal.

A revival landed on my child’s birthday once and somehow my brain still said:

Be there.

That sentence hurts.

Because I loved my kids.

Fiercely.

Still do.

But systems built on devotion rarely demand everything all at once.

Nobody walks into your life and says:

“Hi. We would love to slowly convince you your worth depends on usefulness.”

No.

It happens one yes at a time.

One team.

One meeting.

One prayer night.

One emergency.

One little ask.

One more thing.

One more thing.

One. More. Yes. Because I liked it.

Then suddenly, I am pregnant, raising three kids, sleeping on church floors during camps and New Year’s Eve lock-ins while surviving on caffeine, logistics, adrenaline, Diet Pepsi, stale snacks, and the deeply held belief that showing up mattered more than sleep.

Which sounds concerning when I say it out loud.

Somewhere along the way, sleeping on the floor stopped feeling sacrificial and started feeling normal. Even if was only a handful of times.

That should have been a clue.

The first straw came years earlier.

Thresholds rarely arrive looking dramatic.

No soundtrack.

No lightning bolt.

Usually just a Wednesday and a weird feeling in your stomach.

At that point I had been teaching kids on Wednesday nights for years. First through fourth grade. Glue sticks. Goldfish crackers. Tiny bathroom emergencies. Bible stories. Whatever mysterious sticky substance appears when children gather in groups larger than four.

I loved it.

At the same time, I had stepped into helping lead a moms group on Thursday mornings. Also beautiful. Also life giving.

For what felt like the first time in forever, I noticed my own capacity.

Revolutionary.

Groundbreaking.

Suspicious behavior for someone whose personality had quietly become:

Sure. I can help.

So I said something radical.

“I think I want Wednesday nights back.”

Not forever.

Not dramatically.

Not “I quit.”

Just:

I think I need margin.

Later I checked the schedule.

I had been removed.

Someone else had been added.

Someone important.

Someone who, in my mind, never did kids ministry.

The feeling hit fast.

Not relief.

Panic.

Oh my God.

They must be desperate.

Which tells me now everything I need to know.

Because instead of thinking:

Great. They found coverage.

My brain translated it into:

Look what they have to do because of you.

Nobody guilted me.

Nobody pressured me.

Nobody asked.

I overrode myself before anyone else had to.

“No, no. It’s fine. I can do it.”

And just like that, Wednesday came back.

Years later, I asked whether putting her on the schedule had been strategy.

A pressure point.

A way to make me step back in.

“Yep.”

One word.

Tiny straw.

Big clarity.

Because eventually systems stop needing to pressure you.

You become your own enforcer.

You hand yourself the costume.

Smile.

Serve.

Do not look tired.

Do not sound tired.

Need help.

But inspiring help.

Have boundaries.

But boundaries that disappear if someone important needs something.

The contradictions are exhausting.

You are told to be authentic while quietly learning exactly which version of yourself people prefer.

There is a children’s story that wrecks me every single time.

Of course there is.

I am me.

An old camel named Hashmakaka in The Last Straw.

He is tired.

Achy.

Already carrying enough.

People keep asking him to carry tiny offerings for the baby king.

Milk.

Fruit.

Fine cloth.

Honey.

Little things.

Beautiful things.

Reasonable things.

That is what gets me.

Nobody says:

Destroy yourself.

Nobody says:

Please slowly confuse exhaustion with goodness.

They ask for something small.

Helpful.

Loving.

Reasonable.

One more thing.

One more thing.

One more thing.

If you love people, saying yes feels beautiful.

That is the trap.

Love and depletion start dressing alike.

Then finally, after everything he is already carrying, a child asks him for one tiny piece of straw for the baby’s bed.

Straw.

Not gold.

Not furniture.

Not a miracle.

Straw.

And the camel collapses.

Not because of the straw.

Because of everything.

That part undoes me.

Because burnout is almost never the giant thing.

It is one more Wednesday.

One more volunteer shift.

One more crisis.

One more missed dinner.

One more birthday rearranged around somebody else’s priorities.

One more “Can you help?”

One more thing.

Looking back, the Wednesday was a straw.

Not the straw.

A straw.

The first whisper.

The first ache.

The first moment some quiet part of me asked:

What if loving this should not cost this much?

I never forgot that straw.

I just lost sight of it.

All the pieces blurred together.

The yeses.

The joy.

The exhaustion.

The loyalty.

The ache.

The identity.

Carrying stopped feeling like a choice and started feeling like who I was.

Then one day, after years of saying yes, someone told us they had been asked not to ask anything more of Sandie and Alex.

Funny sentence.

Devastating sentence.

Clarifying sentence.

After all the camps and bathrooms and prayer nights and crying in parking lots and groceries and logistics and late nights and showing up and showing up and showing up…

The message landed anyway.

No confrontation.

No explanation.

Life is rarely that cinematic.

They cut my husband loose.

The ache arrived through him.

Some losses arrive through the person whose leaving hurts you most.

The strangest thing about devotion is how quickly depletion starts dressing like virtue.

Tired becomes noble.

Overextended becomes faithful.

Unavailable to yourself becomes generosity.

You stop asking:

Am I okay?

And start asking:

Am I useful?

That distinction will ruin a person.

Because somewhere along the way, I mistook being indispensable for being valued.

Worse?

I liked being indispensable.

Being needed feels meaningful.

Until one day you realize you no longer know who you are without being needed.

The problem was never devotion.

Devotion is beautiful.

Showing up is beautiful.

Care is beautiful.

The problem was the performance of devotion.

The costume.

The pressure to prove goodness through depletion.

The quiet belief that collapse somehow equals commitment.

Everybody sees the camel kneel.

Holy.

Beautiful.

Devoted.

Meanwhile, the camel is just tired.

That detail wrecks me.

Because how many people are quietly collapsing while everyone around them mistakes it for faithfulness?

How many women are hanging on by decorative string while somebody calls them strong?

How many helpers, moms, volunteers, teachers, caregivers, church girls, public servants, wives, daughters, and friends are one tiny straw from the floor while everyone applauds how dependable they are?

The doing filled me.

The demand to never stop emptied me.

There is a difference.

Depletion is not devotion.

Exhaustion is not proof you loved well.

A fried nervous system is not holiness.

Being needed is not the same thing as being nourished.

I used to think the story was about collapse.

Now I think it is about permission.

Permission to stop.

Permission to tell the truth about what carrying costs.

Permission to admit love and depletion can exist in the same room.

The Wednesday was a clue.

The birthday was a clue.

The floor was a clue.

The tired was a clue.

The camel was a clue.

Something in me had been asking for rest long before I knew how to hear it.

That is what hits me about Sleep on the Floor.

People hear escape.

I hear threshold.

How long are you going to confuse obligation with aliveness?

How long are you going to carry things because you forgot you were allowed to stop?

Distance changed the focus.

The pile finally came into view.

The camel sat down.

Turns out, I needed to as well.