What Is Overflowing?

I didn't expect getting COVID to become one of the most significant moments in my spiritual life. Not because I had some profound experience while I was sick. At first, I was simply miserable. I was too weak to get out of bed, too exhausted to take care of anyone, too sick to keep life moving the way I always had. And if I'm honest, that was unsettling.

For years, my life had revolved around caring for other people. My husband. Our eight kids. Homeschooling. Ministry. Friends. There were so many good things filling my days. I loved serving the people God had entrusted to me. I just didn't realize how much of my identity had quietly become tangled up in being the one who held everything together.

Lying in bed, unable to do any of it, I found myself wondering, how are they going to be okay without me?

Then God, in His kindness, showed me something I couldn't have seen while I was busy. They were okay. Not because I had planned everything perfectly, not because I had somehow held everything together. They were okay because He had been holding them all along.

That realization undid something in me. As I lay there, I sensed the Lord whisper something I have never forgotten. "I'm going to take you on a journey." I didn't know what that meant. I only knew I believed Him.

Looking back now, I think that journey began with one simple invitation. Not to do more. Not to try harder. Not to become more capable. But to begin paying attention to my own heart.

There is a verse I keep coming back to, one that has quietly reshaped how I think about every relationship in my life. "Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks." Luke 6:45. For a long time, I read that verse as being about words. Watch your mouth. Guard your speech. But the more I have sat with it, the more I realize Jesus isn't just talking about our words. He's talking about what is underneath them.

When Jesus talks about the heart, He means the whole inner person: our emotions, our beliefs, our fears, our old wounds, the stories we have come to believe about ourselves and about God. Whatever is in there doesn't stay in there. It quietly spills over into the way we live and love.

Over time, I've learned that this overflow isn't just spiritual. It's embodied. Our bodies often reveal what our hearts are holding long before our minds catch up. A tight chest. A racing mind. A hurried pace. A short answer. A sigh we didn't even realize escaped.

Our bodies often notice what's in the reservoir before we do.

I used to think this was mostly true in the big moments, a conflict, a difficult conversation, a parenting failure. But I've discovered it's just as true in the ordinary ones: the way I answer my husband when I'm running on empty, the tone I use with my kids after a long day, the patience I have, or don't have, with a friend who needs me to simply sit with her in something hard.

None of that comes from what I know intellectually. It comes from what is happening beneath the surface. From what I am carrying. From what my nervous system is holding. From what I believe to be true in that moment.

I think of it like a reservoir, a hidden well that feeds everything I say and do. I can prepare the right words, plan the right response, say all the right things. But if the reservoir underneath is anxious, hurried, fearful, or exhausted, that is what eventually overflows. People experience it in my pace, my tone, my reactions, even my silence.

We can only invite others into the places we ourselves are learning to inhabit. If I have not practiced peace, I will struggle to offer it. If I have not sat with Jesus in my own pain, I will rush to fix pain in others. If I have not learned to be still with Him, I will struggle to be still with someone else. If I have not grounded my identity in being loved, I will keep looking for ways to earn it.

This is why Jesus' first invitation is never, do more. It is always, come. Remain. Abide in Me.

When I'm not noticing what's happening inside me, this is what often leaks out without my meaning it to. Sometimes I realize I'm not actually responding to the person in front of me. I'm responding to an old fear. I mistake silence for rejection. I assume disagreement means something is wrong. I begin carrying emotions that were never mine to carry. Before long, I'm trying to rescue instead of simply being present.

But when I slow down long enough to notice what is actually happening in me, and bring that to Jesus before I bring it to anyone else, something different begins to overflow. Calm instead of pressure. Curiosity instead of defensiveness. Presence instead of the need to fix.

That healing is still happening in me. I don't write any of this as someone who has arrived. I write it as someone who is still learning. Still practicing. Still returning.

If you sit with this today, I'd love to leave you with one small practice. Not a task. Just an invitation. Take one slow breath in. And out. Think of one moment recently when you responded to someone you love in a way that surprised you. Not with judgment. Just curiosity. Ask quietly: What was happening inside me in that moment? What did I notice in my body? Jesus, what do You want me to know about that moment now?

Breathe in: Lord, You meet me here. Breathe out: Fill my heart with Your peace.

You were never meant to fill your own reservoir. That was never the plan. The invitation is simply to keep returning to the One who fills it, again and again.

Perhaps that's where healing begins. Not by trying harder, but by becoming curious about what is overflowing from our own hearts, trusting that Jesus is not afraid of anything He finds there.

Next week we'll begin learning how to notice what's happening beneath the surface, because we can't bring to God what we've never stopped long enough to notice.

Until next time, may you slow down, notice His presence, and return again to the One who is already holding you.

Grace and peace, Sacha