Overwhelmed Working Mom | Overwhelm, Work Life Balance, Financial Stability, Mom Guilt, Time Management

Have you ever wondered how in the world you're supposed to spread the gospel with your overwhelmed mom schedule? Between pickup and drop-off, you barely have time to eat and drink your water, let alone go out and preach the good word. If you've ever wanted to do more for the kingdom in this season with little ones, this one is for you.
In week three of our Armor of God series, we're lacing up the sandals of peace. I'll be honest: this was the piece of armor that stumped me most while writing Swords Up. Every other piece was a weapon, so how do you weaponize peace? It took a conversation with my husband, a combat veteran, to show me I was looking at it all wrong. The sandals of peace aren't meant to destroy. They're a rescue mission. And they're not one more thing on your plate. They're an invitation.
In this episode, you'll learn:- Why the sandals of peace are a rescue mission, not an attack- The difference between peace of God, peace from God, and peace with God- Three practical ways to share the gospel of peace in the life you already have: share your testimony, get into biblical community, and ask God to inconvenience you- Why your story is exactly what someone in your sphere needs to hear
Scriptures mentioned: Ephesians 6:14-15, Psalm 107:2, Titus 2:1-8, Hebrews 10:25, Proverbs 27:17
Go deeper: This series is drawn from my book, Swords Up: Mastering the Weapons of Spiritual Warfare for Today's Christian Woman. Grab your copy here: https://a.co/d/097FjFyi
Join the newsletter: Get weekly encouragement, new resources, and a behind-the-scenes look at the podcast: https://jpharrington.com/insider
Next week: the five functions of the shield of faith, and what they mean for the schemes the enemy has planned for you.

Do you ever feel like you're one comment away from losing it? You promise yourself you've left that version of you behind, and then six o'clock hits and there she is again. If you're ready to break the cycle of reacting first and repenting later, this one is for you.
In week two of our Armor of God series, we're putting on the breastplate of righteousness. We'll look at why scripture tells us to guard our hearts above all else, what righteousness really means, and why Paul describes it not as armor but as a weapon of war. Righteousness is a weapon the enemy wants to use against us: in how we parent our kids, how we love our husbands, and how we compare ourselves to our sisters. Today we take it back.
In this episode, you'll learn:- Why the heart needs guarding, and what scripture says about where our reactions really come from- How righteousness grows through sanctification, and why it's ours to pursue- Three practical ways to break the trigger cycle: get real, get in the Word, and get practical- How drawing near to God makes old triggers lose their grip, not because you got stronger, but because you got closer
Scriptures mentioned: Proverbs 4:23, Proverbs 14:10, Jeremiah 17:9, Mark 7:21-23, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, 2 Corinthians 6:2-7, Romans 6:13, James 4:7-8
Resources mentioned:- First 5 app: https://first5.org/- BEMA Podcast: https://www.bemadiscipleship.com/
Go deeper: This series is drawn from my book, Swords Up: Mastering the Weapons of Spiritual Warfare for Today's Christian Woman. Grab your copy here: https://a.co/d/097FjFyi
Join the newsletter: Get weekly encouragement for your faith and your motherhood, straight to your inbox: https://jpharrington.com/insider
Next week: the sandals of peace, and why your story matters more than you know.

Do you end your days feeling like you came up short, even when nothing actually went wrong? Does your to-do list for being a "good mom" never seem to get shorter?
This week kicks off a seven-week series on the Armor of God, based on my book Swords Up: Mastering the Weapons of Spiritual Warfare for Today's Christian Woman. Grab your copy here: https://a.co/d/0e8MJtoL
We're starting where Paul started: the belt of truth. I used to think the belt was just an accessory. Then I learned what it meant to a Roman soldier. His belt held his sword at his side and kept his breastplate in place. Without it, the rest of his armor didn't work. The same is true for us.
We'll unpack what it means to gird ourselves with truth, and why every other piece of your armor hangs on one truth: Jesus Christ is Lord. Then we'll put the world's version of motherhood, the boss babe, PTA mom, and picture-perfect-bento-box standard, side by side with biblical motherhood. Through Matthew 11:28, John 17:14, and Galatians 5, you'll see that God never handed you a to-do list. The fruit He promises isn't something you achieve. It's something that grows when you stay close to Him.
You'll leave with one question to take into your week: where in your motherhood have you been holding back from the Lord? Because He's either Lord over everything, or He isn't.
Next week, we're putting on the breastplate of righteousness.
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Do you make decent money but still have no idea where it goes? Does it feel like your paycheck evaporates the moment it hits your account?
In this episode, I'm getting real about a habit that kept my bank account in the red in my twenties: a constant stream of shoes, clothes, and handbags I couldn't afford but couldn't stop buying. I'll walk you through the loop I was stuck in, the lie, the grab, and the emptiness, and why every purchase left me hungrier than before.
This isn't a budgeting episode. It's a heart episode. Through Genesis 3 and Jesus' conversation with the woman at the well in John 4, we'll uncover why nothing you buy can fill a God-sized hole, and why my real problem was never money. It was that I didn't have enough God in my life.
You'll walk away with three steps to break the overspending loop and win back your financial stability from the inside out: radically pursue God, invite Him into the places you ache, and honor Him with your tithe (yes, we're talking Malachi 3:10).
If your money keeps slipping through your fingers, this one's for you, mama.
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Have you ever wondered what your stress is actually doing to your kids? The snapping. The worn-out days. The nights you've got nothing left to give.
In this very special episode, I don't guess at the answer — I hand the mic to my daughter Ariel and ask her what she actually saw during one of the hardest seasons we've ever walked through: her dad deployed, me recovering from a back injury, writing a book, and running our home as the only adult in the house.
Some of what she remembered was hard to hear. But by the end, my eleven-year-old showed me something about that season I never saw coming — and it changed the whole way I see the moments I once thought were my worst.
Here's what you'll walk away with, mama. Something practical: a way to stop guessing what your hard season did to your children and actually find out — plus what to do differently when the load is more than one person was ever meant to carry. And something deeper: a picture of how God can be quietly at work in the very season you'd give anything to redo.
There's a moment in here where I come undone — a full panic attack on the kitchen floor. If you've walked through that yourself, go back and listen to Episode 17, "After the Panic Attack: A 5-Letter Framework for When Overwhelm Hits." This episode is the second half of the promise I made you there: that God doesn't waste your hardest moments — He's redeeming them, even the ones you'd give anything to take back.
If you're the mama who's always been there and still feels like it somehow wasn't enough — this one's for you. Take a deep breath, sis. Let's walk through it together.
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Mama, does the smallest correction still send you spinning? Do you replay one comment for days, defending yourself long after the conversation's over — and then wonder why you're so tired?
What if that reaction isn't a flaw in your personality… it's a wound with a name.
In this episode I sit down with Demaries Glaspie — prophetic teacher, worship leader, and author of Picked on Purpose: From Rejection to Revealed Sonship — who takes us all the way back to the childhood trauma and rejection that quietly shaped who she became, and how it followed her into her mothering before she ever had the words for it.
We talk about the "orphan heart," why you can feel unseen even when you're surrounded by people who love you, how rejection rooted in childhood trauma can quietly steal your identity, and the one picture — a tree and its fruit — that will change how you look at your own reactions forever. Demaries also shares the honest, hopeful work of breaking a generational cycle instead of handing it down.
If you've ever felt like you have to earn your place, hold it all together yourself, or that something is just "wrong with you" — this one's for you. You are not an orphan. You were picked on purpose.
Want to hear specifically how rejection shows up in your motherhood? Jump to minute 23.
Grab Demaries' book, Picked on Purpose: https://a.co/d/0c2KEkDwConnect with Demaries: https://demariesglaspie.com/
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Do you barely see your kids during the week — and then spend the whole weekend scrambling to make up for it? Packing in the trips, the outings, the activities, sure the fun will finally add up to enough?
I've been that mom. I married my high school sweetheart at 19, and he spent the first five years of our marriage deployed to war. So when he came home, I thought I had to cram every lost memory into whatever time we had. And what I learned fast is that cramming doesn't create closeness — it steals it. It leaves you tired, cranky, and rushing from one thing to the next with no real connection to show for it.
The same thing happens with our kids. That drive to make up for lost time on the weekend doesn't serve you, and it may not be serving them the way you hope.
In this episode, I'll walk you through a gentler way: taking that mommy guilt to the Lord (1 John 3:20), releasing what you don't need to carry, and simplifying so the connection can actually happen. I'll also share the moment from our Labor Day weekend that blew me away — after the beach, after the mall, I asked my daughter her favorite part of the whole weekend. Her answer wasn't what I expected, and it changed how I see quality time completely.
You don't have to do the most to be enough. Sometimes a coloring book and a deck of cards say more love than a packed calendar ever could.
Take a deep breath, mama. Let's slow down together.
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Have you handed that voice over to God — done the work, silenced the inner critic — and you still feel heavy?
Here's the trap, mama. Because we laid it at the feet of Christ, we think we're supposed to feel weightless. And when we don't, we start reading that heaviness as proof we did something wrong.
In this episode I'm telling you about the Bible study my friend and I quit. The Life Ready Woman by Shaunti Feldhahn — the one where she said out loud that you cannot be the power CEO and the PTA superwoman and everything else all at once, because there aren't two or three of you. I threw that book across the room. Ten, twelve years later, I know she was right.
But here's the part she never mentioned: that pull you feel between motherhood, your work, and your marriage doesn't mean you're failing. It means you've been entrusted with something of great value. That's not the weight of condemnation. That's the weight of stewardship.
We'll sit with three truths — your home, work, and marriage were entrusted to you, period; you were meant to tend these things, not produce the outcome; and tending them will never be equal, because there's a season for everything under the sun. Then we'll open Romans 12:2 and talk about why the world's pattern has you running on empty, and what it looks like to be transformed instead of conformed — because the heavy lifting belongs to the Owner, not to you.
Don't confuse the heft you're feeling for a sign you're failing.
Take a deep breath, mama. We'll walk through this season together.
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You're in the room with your kids — but you're also answering one more email, checking one more text. And that quiet guilt creeps in: they're getting the lesser version of you again. If only there were more time.
Mama, I've been there. In this episode I take you back to one ordinary summer Tuesday — meetings stacked all day, my little girl painting gems beside me — and the moment I looked up, saw those chubby little hands and those round cheeks, and thought the most terrible thing: I am a bad mom.
But that's not the truth, and it's not yours either. You're not a bad mom — you're just carrying a lot. And the very fact that you're asking the question tells you everything about how much you love them.
So let's win back your hours. I'm walking you through the three S's that have restored balance to my own workweek: situational awareness (does this really have to be done today?), setting boundaries (why rest was never a suggestion), and simplify (what can actually come off your list). And along the way, one word tucked inside Ecclesiastes 3 that completely changed how I see my kids' childhood — and the fleeting little season you're standing in right now.
Take a deep breath, mama. We'll walk through this together.
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Are you emotionally exhausted, mama? You're sleeping. You're eating. You're doing all the right things. And still there are moments where you just sit there — completely numb, dry and used up on the inside.
Here's what I learned the hard way: it wasn't my kids draining me. It wasn't my job. It was the dialogue running in my head all day long, asking me one annoying little question — are you doing enough?
Maybe for you it sounds like: are you doing enough to spend time with your kids? Reading to them? Getting their vegetables in? Creating the Kodak moments they'll tell their own kids about someday? Or maybe, like me, it takes the shape of your work — am I doing enough to make this thing a success, and am I still showing up for my babies while I do it?
Sis, that voice is running us ragged. And it is not the Lord.
In this episode, I'm walking you through REST — recognize the voice, examine where it comes from, set it against Scripture, and turn it over to the Lord. We'll get honest about whose voice you're actually listening to, ask the Holy Spirit to show you the root, and stand on Romans 8:1: there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Because when that inner critic drains you emotionally, you can't show up in excellence for the things God gave you to steward — not as a mom, not in your work, not as a kingdom wife.
This is part one. There's something bigger driving our emotional exhaustion, and we're going after it next week.
Take a deep breath, mama, and keep your eyes on God.
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