Day 1—“Everything is awesome!”
Day 2—“Everything is terrible!”
Day 3— “Where am I?”

That’s what writer, priest, and mother Hannah King tweeted during the first week of school last fall. Like many, King found herself in “a kind of survival mode that runs on adrenaline and cultivates numbness,” she explained in a recent CT article.

Everything was exciting. Everything was exhausting.

This year, King is encouraging herself and others to engage the new semester with a more holistic approach. She prompts Christians to remember that they are free to experience transition times in all of their many layers. It’s okay if it’s fun. It’s okay if it’s sad. It’s okay if it’s all the feelings at once.

“Instead of merely focusing on external routines and benchmarks, we can prepare for the intangible work of soul care that the stresses of transition will bring,” King writes. “We can embrace spiritual practices that cultivate grace, both for ourselves and for those in our care.”

As rhythms and routines ramp up, may we include whole-person care on our priority lists. Perhaps in doing so, we’ll find ourselves experienced fewer days characterized by “Where am I?” and more that feel like “I’m so thankful to be here.”