Jeffrey and I moved recently.
We went from a spacious home in Franklin, Tennessee (seven sweet years, eight minutes from everything, subdivision living) to a log cabin on six acres in the mountains. Two hours from… well… almost everything. Not exactly a hop, skip, and a jump.
If you want the full story of how we got here, including (deep inhale)… the house that fell through-the buyer whose company decided not to relocate him after all-the SEVEN houses suddenly for sale in our neighborhood-the week we spent hemorrhaging money in a hotel while our stuff sat on trucks-the moment we had to move BACK INTO our empty house and sleep on a mattress on the floor eating Chinese takeout with the dogs-and the closing that finally happened in a conference room at Lipscomb University during a break from shooting Advent content-go listen to Episode 57 of the Everything Made Beautiful podcast. It’s a wild ride.
But here in this space, I want to go deeper. Not into the logistics of the move, but into the meaning of it. Because this isn’t really about real estate. It’s about what happens when God invites you into something new, and you have to decide if you’re desperate enough to say yes.
The Word That Found Us
When Jeffrey and I drove up the mountain to see this cabin for the first time, something strange happened. With every mile we climbed, peace increased. Everything in our souls relaxed. We pulled into the driveway, I looked at Jeff, and said, “Uh oh.”
We fell head over heels despite ourselves.
And we both heard the same word: Refuge.
Not “vacation home.” Not “downsized option.” Not “practical next step.”
Refuge.
That word has been rattling around in my soul ever since. Because Scripture doesn’t use it casually.
What Refuge Actually Means
The word “refuge” appears approximately 40 times in the Psalms alone, and each time it’s deeply intentional. When David writes “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge” (Psalm 18:2), he’s not being poetic for poetry’s sake. He’s describing actual survival.
David knew what it was to run for his life. To hide in caves. To need protection from people who wanted to destroy him. His refuge wasn’t metaphorical; it was desperately literal. And yet, even in those physical hiding places, David understood that his true refuge was God Himself. The cave couldn’t save him. The wilderness couldn’t protect him. Only God could. The physical refuge was simply a tangible reminder of the spiritual reality: God is our refuge.
When we named this place Deep Woods Refuge, we weren’t being cute (but does anyone wanna hit me up with a logo?) Instead, we were making a deeply personal statement about what we believe this place is meant to be.
Cities of Refuge: Intentional Sanctuary
In Numbers 35, God establishes six Cities of Refuge throughout Israel. These weren’t random towns that happened to offer safety. They were strategically placed, carefully designated, intentionally created sanctuaries.
Here’s what strikes me about those cities: they didn’t exist for the perfect people. Cities of refuge existed for the broken, the desperate, the ones who needed somewhere safe to land while justice and mercy did their work.
Deep Woods Refuge, for us, feels like our City of Refuge moment. We’re not running from something terrible we’ve done, thank God! But we ARE running toward something we desperately need.
And here’s where it gets complicated. We aren’t running from bad things. We are running from good things that were slowly killing us because we (mostly me) didn’t have them in their appropriate places at their proper paces.
Do you know how disorienting that is? When everything you’re doing is good, genuinely good, Kingdom good, making-a-difference good, and you’re still dying inside? When your calendar is full of “God things,” and you’re more exhausted than you’ve ever been?
There’s no real common language for that in the church and ministry space. We know how to talk about burnout from sin. We know how to address someone who’s exhausted from running in the wrong direction. But what do you do when you’re exhausted from running in the RIGHT direction? When the very things that are supposed to give you life are draining it instead?
I’ll tell you what you do. You feel guilty. You feel confused. You wonder what’s wrong with you spiritually that serving Jesus is making you want to crawl into your bed, binge Netflix, and not come out.
We were doing all the right things. We had an open-door policy in our lives, and people walked through it constantly, which is beautiful! It feels good to be needed and wanted. It’s a gift to be able to serve people. And also… we were depleted down to our very bone marrow.
The sad reality I learned is that you can be faithful and fried at the same time. You can love Jesus with your whole heart and still be running on fumes. You can be doing exactly what God called you to do in one season and miss that He’s calling you to something different in the next.
The pace wasn’t sustainable. The availability wasn’t healthy. The constant output without adequate input wasn’t holy; it was just slowly killing us while looking really impressive on the outside.
I think there’s this unspoken belief in Christian circles that if you’re doing God’s work, He’ll just supernaturally sustain you indefinitely. At least that’s what we want to believe because then maybe we don’t have to make hard decisions. Often, even though we don’t say it out loud, I think we tend to assign burnout to people who aren’t trusting enough, praying enough, or relying on the Spirit enough. Poor them… they just got out of whack. If you’re really walking with Jesus, you’ll be able to keep up the crazy pace forever, because new mercies, after all!
But nah. That’s not biblical. That’s just destructive ministry ideology dressed up in spiritual language.
Even Jesus withdrew. Even Jesus said no to crowds who wanted more of Him. Even Jesus prioritized time with the Father over time with the masses. He had boundaries. He rested. He went away to lonely places. And if the Son of God needed that, what on earth makes us think we’re exempt?
So we needed protection from the pace that, while good (or at least in the service of good things), was slowly killing us. We needed shelter from the constant demands that leave no room for our souls to breathe. We need this space to process, to heal, to become who we’re meant to be in this next season. And frankly, I need a buffer for my people-pleasing tendencies because my button gets stuck on “yes” when it really should be “no.”
And just as those ancient cities were intentional, this refuge is intentional. We didn’t stumble into it. We sought it out. We chose it.
Because sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is admit that you cannot keep going. That the good things have become too many things. That your yes to everything has become a slow no to your own soul.
Seeking refuge isn’t quitting. It’s wisdom.
Under His Wings
Psalm 91:4 says, “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.”
There’s something profoundly tender about this image to me. Wings don’t just protect… they enfold. They draw close. They create an intimate space of safety where you can be completely vulnerable because you’re completely covered.
I’ve been thinking about this photo and so many like it that show precisely how a mother hen operates with her young. She doesn’t just metaphorically provide coverage for them. She literally gathers them. She physically lowers herself. She creates a space where the only thing those babies can see is HER. They’re not just under her wings, they’re pressed against her. Close enough to feel the warmth. Close enough to hear her heartbeat. See those little legs sticking out from underneath her? They’re there with her, but that look on her face DARES someone to try and come after them.
This imagery undoes me a little.
Because I realize how often I’ve been standing NEAR the wings without actually getting UNDER them. How many years I’ve known theologically that God covers me, while practically staying too busy to actually feel covered. I’ve been circling the perimeter of His presence, acknowledging it exists, maybe even teaching about it, but not nestling in. Not pressing close. Not staying long enough to hear the heartbeat.
Remember what Jesus said about Jerusalem? “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” (Matthew 23:37)
He LONGED to gather them. It wasn’t obligation, it was ache. And they wouldn’t come. Ugh.
I wonder how many of us are doing the same thing. Running around exposed and exhausted, white-knuckling our way through ministry and motherhood and marriage, when we could be hidden and held, if we’d just stop long enough to let ourselves be gathered.
When I stand on our porch at Deep Woods and look up at the canopy of trees, layer upon layer of leaves creating shade, shelter, what feels like a cathedral ceiling of creation, I see a physical picture of His covering. But more than that, I’m learning what it means to actually position myself beneath it. To stop running. To get close enough to feel the warmth again. To stay there until I remember what His heartbeat sounds like.
When you’re moving at breakneck speed, managing everything, serving everyone, keeping all the plates spinning, you can know you’re under God’s wings without ever feeling it. You’re too busy to nestle in. Too distracted to hear the heartbeat. Technically covered but practically exposed because you won’t stop moving.
Deep Woods Refuge is our conscious choice to stop moving long enough to let ourselves be gathered. To rest under His wings. To stay there. The baby birds don’t just dart under the wings and dart back out. They stay. They settle. They rest until they’re ready to emerge again.
Maybe that’s what we’ve been missing. Not the coverage, but the staying.
Seeking Is Active
Here’s an important distinction I don’t want you to miss: You don’t stumble into a refuge. You seek it out.
This matters because refuge requires agency. It requires recognizing your need. It requires admitting you can’t keep going the way you’ve been going. It requires choosing to run toward something rather than just running away from everything.
Jeffrey and I could have stayed in Franklin. It is straight up lovely. We could have kept the house, kept the pace, kept pretending we were fine. But we would have been lying… to ourselves most of all. I want to be clear that this was no one else’s fault, but it was also no one else’s to solve but ours. Choosing this frankly felt like an act of spiritual warfare. And getting here felt like quite a bit of it, too!
But it was us saying to ourselves, “We’re worth protecting. Our souls are worth stewarding.”
And it was us saying to God, “We trust You. We trust that less square footage can hold more life. We trust that fewer commitments can create more impact. We trust that withdrawing from the center doesn’t mean we’re no longer useful, it means we’re finally getting healthy enough to be useful.”
The Hardest Part
I’ll be honest with you. The hardest part of refuge isn’t getting here. It’s learning a new way of being entirely. Jeffrey and I are achievers. Doers. I’ve never met a perfectly penned to-do list I didn’t like. We are people who have historically felt most valuable when we’re being productive. But this move is teaching us (forcing us, really) to redefine what “productive” even means.
So being here means learning to measure productivity differently. And that’s uncomfortable. And holy. And exactly what we need.
What This Means For You
Now. Here’s where I want to land, because this isn’t really about our cabin in the woods. It’s about refuge.
So I want to ask you something directly: Where is YOUR refuge?
Not a vacation spot you visit once a year. Not a coffee shop where you occasionally escape. And frankly, I don’t mean the gold star church answer of “God.” I mean a refuge… a place of protection, shelter, covering. A place where your whole self can exhale. And if you don’t have one, would you make it a goal to find one?
Maybe for you it’s not a cabin in the woods. Maybe it’s a room in your house that you’ve neglected to make sacred. Maybe it’s a practice you’ve abandoned. Maybe it’s a rhythm you’ve never established. Maybe it’s a boundary you’ve refused to set.
Maybe you’ve been so busy being available to everyone else that you’ve never sought out what would actually be a refuge for you.
Refuge doesn’t chase you down. You have to seek it out.
And seeking refuge requires admitting you need it. It requires confessing that the pace you’re keeping isn’t sustainable. It requires acknowledging that the constant availability isn’t holy, it’s just exhausting.
So, if you’ll permit me to be frank for a minute…
I’ve openly admitted that I spent years believing my value was tied to my usefulness. That if I wasn’t producing, I wasn’t worth much. That if I wasn’t connected to and producing big impactful things for “that” or “them” then maybe my life wasn’t impactful either. Rest was a luxury for people who didn’t have such “important things” to do.
And all of it was a lie.
But here’s the part that’s harder to admit: I liked believing that. There’s something intoxicating about being needed. Something that feels holy about being exhausted for Jesus. Something that looks really impressive when your calendar is full and your phone is blowing up and everyone needs a piece of you. God, see how valuable I am to you?
In ministry land, we’ve built entire identities on our indispensability. We’ve confused our availability with our anointing. We’ve worn our burnout like a badge of honor and called it faithfulness. And the Church has often applauded us for it. “She’s so dedicated.” “She’s always there.” “We can count on her, no matter what.” Meanwhile, our souls are shriveling up, and we’re snapping at our husbands, and we can’t remember the last time we sat with Jesus without a to-do list running in the background.
So let me ask you something I’ve been asking myself too: When did “I’m so busy” become a humble brag instead of a confession? When did we start believing that our frantic pace was evidence of our faithfulness rather than a sign that something was deeply wrong?
Y’all, this world will take everything we’re willing to give. The churches and the ministries will take everything you’re willing to give. Good, godly, Kingdom-building work will take everything you’re willing to give it. And for those of us who let it, it will call us heroes while it hollows us out.
But God? God invites us to come away. To rest. To stop earning what’s already been given. For me, and I suspect many of us, the problem is that we’ve been performing for so long that we don’t know how to just BE anymore. We don’t know who we are without the doing. And that terrifies us.
So we keep running. Keep producing. Keep saying yes. Keep being dead tired while refusing to actually stop. Keep coping in unhealthy ways. Keep swearing that once (fill-in-the-blank) season is over, things will “slow down.”
And all the while, the wings are there. The refuge is available. The Father is calling. We’re just not willing to come.
An Invitation
So Deep Woods Refuge isn’t the end of our story. It’s the means to a different kind of engagement with the world. We’re not hiding from life, we’re being healed for it. We’re not checking out, we’re getting restored so we can offer something real whenever we engage.
And any time we engage, we’ll do it differently. From a place of rest instead of depletion. From a place of wholeness instead of fragmentation. From a place of being covered instead of being exposed.
So here’s my question for you, and I’m asking it with love and a little bit of the sternness of someone who waited way too long to figure this out:
What would it look like for you to seek refuge?
Not escape. Not avoidance. Not irresponsibility.
Refuge.
The kind that protects your soul so you can actually live from it.
The kind that covers you so you can finally stop performing.
The kind that lets you go deep, into rest, into God, into what makes you YOU, so that when you emerge, you have something real to offer.
You don’t have to buy a cabin in the mountains. But you do have to stop pretending you can keep going at an unsustainable pace indefinitely.
Seek refuge, friends. Run toward it… toward Him.
And it’s not selfish. It’s stewardship. Of the one beautiful life you’ve been given.
Peace.
If this struck a chord with you today, or if you have your own story of seeking and finding refuge, or if you need a place to say something you haven’t said before, I’d love to hear from you. Please comment or reply so I know. I’m praying for you… for us.