I am in hospital, having had colorectal surgery yesterday. The room is dimly lit, no lights on, the sky covered by heavy clouds. A lady with Housekeeping is tidying up; my beautiful adult daughter is gently snoring on the fold-out couch. I’ve been practicing trying to try for the last year and a half, and now it’s a mandate. I hope I come to like it but I probably won’t, not all the time. Yet this where I am, and this is what it is, and I feel grace continually falling all over me, blanketing my sore shoulders, soothing my aching belly. That’s probably the gabapentin and oxycodone kicking in, but who am I to question how grace comes?
Blessings to you, Kate, and to this whole community. Thank you for all you all do (and don’t do) in the name of love, every day.
This is luminous. Grace arriving via medication and quiet presence still counts. I’m holding you gently in this dim, tender moment and praying for deep healing.
Thank you for sharing this moment and journey of your life. Thank you for reminding us that this is human and not failure. I loved you line, “I hope I will come to like it but probably won’t, not all the time.” What an honest true statement. I can’t help think that grace meets and holds us even there. Blessings on the recovery and healing from surgery.
Thank you for sharing this moment and journey of your life. Thank you for reminding us that this is human and not failure. I loved you line, “I hope I will come to like it but probably won’t, not all the time.” What an honest true statement. I can’t help think that grace meets and holds us even there. Blessings on the recovery and healing from surgery.
Kate thank you. Yesterday morning I stubbornly did not heed the wise advice of our dear Anne Lamott and stood on the scale. The number threw me into a headspace that said I was failing… again. And that cloud hung over me all day. In fact, I felt like I had a sign hung around my neck which everyone could see, “She’s failing and “getting healthy” and gaining the weight back.” It’s so dumb the categories we fight to win (loved your video). This essay on limited agency will continue to be the reminder and encouragement I need to remember the pain and loss I have felt these past five years and not dealt with. The pain and hurt I have lived through trying to pastor a congregation who did not want me. And the grief of leaving them and the hope I had. The pain walked with me into the shiny new year of 2026. I am working to let go of my grip on it and its grip on me and to accept and live in the reality of limited agency. Thank you. My BA not my MDiv don’t quite prepare or help me realize the truth of that as I walked into pastoral ministry. They tried, maybe, but it was silenced under the denominational standard to meet all needs, increase attendance and members, report how may were baptized and saved! There is within the evangelical world a machine mentality - even of pastors.
WOW Kate!!! I can’t think what a POWERFUL treat is on “living life” these ideas would have been to any adolescent ! Your sentence” When limitation is framed in failure, suffering acquires a moral charge. We don’t simply struggle, we conclude that we are deficient.”
Even now, as a 70 something, the concept of “limited agency” is so meaningful. If I am able to reframe my days ahead with this sense that we are, I am not this overflowing , never ending source of agency than it helps create a greater acceptance of “I do have limited agency for a variety of reasons but that limited agency should not be a catalyst for guilt or a sense of deficiency!
This thought is HUGE. I certainly want my young adult ( 30s) and my friends to hear this. If I was a practicing Counselor I would be incorporating this concept into my practice. As parent, I SO would have loved to have had this as a bedrock if what I would have shared with my young and evolving children! As my former 10 year old and beyond I would have loved to have heard my parents speak these words, leading to a greater self worth.
Huge, Kate!
I also live with someone who does suffer from Major Depression. Your discussion of “people who are tired…” “trying” can feel like another demand they cannot meet”….this reminder that sometimes trying is just not possible, yet that the trying in each day, honoring the effort is important too.
Thomas Merton quoted something to the effect: “Take more time, cover less ground.” I scrapped reading the Bible in a Year, today Jan 7!! I wasn’t retaining anything. I was checking boxes! I’ve decided to read the Bible in 3 years—one chapter a day. A slow, digestible and contemplative journey…If it takes longer than 3 years, so be it.
I’m trying to give myself grace as my productivity I hoped I’d see in this new year was squelched by an autoimmune flare up from stress and holiday sugar and grief that comes with another negative pregnancy test to make it 3 official years of “not this month”. I had great plans of daily Pilates, crushing my job to do list with ease and purpose, and tackling another month trying to fundraise for our campus ministry and was quickly reminded that I am human and needed to slow down already. I need to breathe and do what I can do and give grace to myself for having limits. I am just one person, and today I’ll do what I can and take many tea breaks as I remind myself to breathe and that I’m doing my best.
Several years ago, I was diagnosed with degenerative arthritis of the spine. As the diagnosis suggests, this is a chronic pain condition that becomes worse over time. So, trying to try has become the story of my life, too. My mantra for 2026 is, "embrace the good days & accept the not-so-good days with as much grace as possible."
Thank you for this profound reminder of human limitations.
‘Embrace the good days, accept the not-so-good days’ is a whole spiritual practice. I’m so sorry for the chronic pain—may grace meet you on the rough days without requiring you to perform bravery. 🩷
Thank you! This is the message we need for January. January always feels like the middle of the year to me, not the beginning, at time for rest, not a time to take on new things. And as a person in the middle of my eighth decade (i.e., 70s), I'm really, really tired. Bless you, Kate!
January really does feel like the middle! I’m so glad you named the tiredness honestly. Bless you right back—especially in this season of earned weariness.
Hate to take up more “talking time@ but I did not ( above) talk about a “specific” area where this concept today will help me a lot. I innately see people’s needs and always want to reach out. I typically do. I feel it is the DNA of me. Of late, I have felt the pressure of feeling trying to be on constant “reaching out “ machine. Today, after reading this I will breathe deeper with an acceptance that 1) My agency is limited. I am human. 2) I will not feel or carry a sense of deficiency if and when I simply can’t reach out as I would like. ☺️
There’s no better way to learn to live with limits than losing a limb. When cancer took my leg and I began walking with a prosthesis, I realized I was always hurrying. And when I hurried, I fell. It’s very humbling to fall, so I am learning to slow down.
The way the wellness industry has moralized their version of self care that includes all the things most everyday people could never do in a day, assuming everyone has the same unlimited resources of time, physical ability and just plain good luck to draw the long straw on genetics is savage. So tired of reading the flood of things to do to attain this treasured wellness a few were a 50 point list. If you are doing everything “right” you will still die, its not a moral concept, our bodies will age, our genetics will kick in, our lifetime of working hard and caretaking and living in industrialized areas are things most people can’t avoid will effect us unwillingly. You are not a better person if you rise at dawn do a cold soak take a run get your dose of sunshine walk barefoot in the grass meditate on a cushion for an hour all before working caring for family running errands cooking shopping doing homework and sports and then putting your phone in a box for the night using your red light dry scrubbing your legs and sleeping in your cold light controlled room. Sorry you are still gonna die like all the rest of us folks. My thought is do what you can and stop thinking it makes you a better person somehow and be grateful you can do that and a little less smug. I love the concept of trying to try, that’s where I am today. Thats what I am capable of today and I am ok with it. Thanks for letting me rant ha !
I am jumping on a plane today to be with my mom who is having surgery on Friday. While i was reading this, my to do list of what i didn’t get done at home before leaving began to whirl around my head. The ease at which i (we) can fall into task-mode is astonishing. I hope to daily be anchored to what is most important, knowing that what was left undone can sit awhile. I am grateful for the reminder that we are merely human♥️
Yes—trying to try refuses the period at the end of the sentence. It keeps the door cracked open without demanding we walk through. I love that you heard it grammatically. 💛
I am in hospital, having had colorectal surgery yesterday. The room is dimly lit, no lights on, the sky covered by heavy clouds. A lady with Housekeeping is tidying up; my beautiful adult daughter is gently snoring on the fold-out couch. I’ve been practicing trying to try for the last year and a half, and now it’s a mandate. I hope I come to like it but I probably won’t, not all the time. Yet this where I am, and this is what it is, and I feel grace continually falling all over me, blanketing my sore shoulders, soothing my aching belly. That’s probably the gabapentin and oxycodone kicking in, but who am I to question how grace comes?
Blessings to you, Kate, and to this whole community. Thank you for all you all do (and don’t do) in the name of love, every day.
This is luminous. Grace arriving via medication and quiet presence still counts. I’m holding you gently in this dim, tender moment and praying for deep healing.
Sending prayers!
Thank you for sharing this moment and journey of your life. Thank you for reminding us that this is human and not failure. I loved you line, “I hope I will come to like it but probably won’t, not all the time.” What an honest true statement. I can’t help think that grace meets and holds us even there. Blessings on the recovery and healing from surgery.
Thank you for sharing this moment and journey of your life. Thank you for reminding us that this is human and not failure. I loved you line, “I hope I will come to like it but probably won’t, not all the time.” What an honest true statement. I can’t help think that grace meets and holds us even there. Blessings on the recovery and healing from surgery.
*Colectomy, not colorectomy. The latter sounds like they took the color out of my life!
Kate thank you. Yesterday morning I stubbornly did not heed the wise advice of our dear Anne Lamott and stood on the scale. The number threw me into a headspace that said I was failing… again. And that cloud hung over me all day. In fact, I felt like I had a sign hung around my neck which everyone could see, “She’s failing and “getting healthy” and gaining the weight back.” It’s so dumb the categories we fight to win (loved your video). This essay on limited agency will continue to be the reminder and encouragement I need to remember the pain and loss I have felt these past five years and not dealt with. The pain and hurt I have lived through trying to pastor a congregation who did not want me. And the grief of leaving them and the hope I had. The pain walked with me into the shiny new year of 2026. I am working to let go of my grip on it and its grip on me and to accept and live in the reality of limited agency. Thank you. My BA not my MDiv don’t quite prepare or help me realize the truth of that as I walked into pastoral ministry. They tried, maybe, but it was silenced under the denominational standard to meet all needs, increase attendance and members, report how may were baptized and saved! There is within the evangelical world a machine mentality - even of pastors.
WOW Kate!!! I can’t think what a POWERFUL treat is on “living life” these ideas would have been to any adolescent ! Your sentence” When limitation is framed in failure, suffering acquires a moral charge. We don’t simply struggle, we conclude that we are deficient.”
Even now, as a 70 something, the concept of “limited agency” is so meaningful. If I am able to reframe my days ahead with this sense that we are, I am not this overflowing , never ending source of agency than it helps create a greater acceptance of “I do have limited agency for a variety of reasons but that limited agency should not be a catalyst for guilt or a sense of deficiency!
This thought is HUGE. I certainly want my young adult ( 30s) and my friends to hear this. If I was a practicing Counselor I would be incorporating this concept into my practice. As parent, I SO would have loved to have had this as a bedrock if what I would have shared with my young and evolving children! As my former 10 year old and beyond I would have loved to have heard my parents speak these words, leading to a greater self worth.
Huge, Kate!
I also live with someone who does suffer from Major Depression. Your discussion of “people who are tired…” “trying” can feel like another demand they cannot meet”….this reminder that sometimes trying is just not possible, yet that the trying in each day, honoring the effort is important too.
Thanks for this valuable post! 👏👏☺️✨
As a fellow “70 something” your comment and these wise words from Kate made my day!
We should talk! Your post was my morning thoughts.
How did you know I absolutely needed this message today, at this exact moment, and for every day hereafter? Thank you!
Me too
Thomas Merton quoted something to the effect: “Take more time, cover less ground.” I scrapped reading the Bible in a Year, today Jan 7!! I wasn’t retaining anything. I was checking boxes! I’ve decided to read the Bible in 3 years—one chapter a day. A slow, digestible and contemplative journey…If it takes longer than 3 years, so be it.
I must make a disclosure
in this time before I die.
I am not needing closure,
but I must race to try
to finish that which is undone,
to shape my duties and each dream
so that at end they will become
rather more than what they seem,
relics of foreshortened days
limping to a shaking stop.
Instead, let them be songs of praise
that even though cancer did crop
what once might have been their all
still stand proud as they're standing tall.
I’m trying to give myself grace as my productivity I hoped I’d see in this new year was squelched by an autoimmune flare up from stress and holiday sugar and grief that comes with another negative pregnancy test to make it 3 official years of “not this month”. I had great plans of daily Pilates, crushing my job to do list with ease and purpose, and tackling another month trying to fundraise for our campus ministry and was quickly reminded that I am human and needed to slow down already. I need to breathe and do what I can do and give grace to myself for having limits. I am just one person, and today I’ll do what I can and take many tea breaks as I remind myself to breathe and that I’m doing my best.
I’m so sorry, hon. That’s so much to carry at once. Breathing, tea breaks, and doing what you can—that is wisdom. 🩷
I read poetry like Gerard Manly Hopkins "terrible sonnets" which end like this:
Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
's not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather — as skies
Betweenpie mountains — lights a lovely mile.
I find great solace in embracing my limits with the lines: "call off thoughts awhile elswhere, leave comfort root-room"
“Call off thoughts awhile.” What a mercy that line has been to so many of us. Thank you for bringing Hopkins into the room—he knows about limits.
Several years ago, I was diagnosed with degenerative arthritis of the spine. As the diagnosis suggests, this is a chronic pain condition that becomes worse over time. So, trying to try has become the story of my life, too. My mantra for 2026 is, "embrace the good days & accept the not-so-good days with as much grace as possible."
Thank you for this profound reminder of human limitations.
‘Embrace the good days, accept the not-so-good days’ is a whole spiritual practice. I’m so sorry for the chronic pain—may grace meet you on the rough days without requiring you to perform bravery. 🩷
Thank you! This is the message we need for January. January always feels like the middle of the year to me, not the beginning, at time for rest, not a time to take on new things. And as a person in the middle of my eighth decade (i.e., 70s), I'm really, really tired. Bless you, Kate!
January really does feel like the middle! I’m so glad you named the tiredness honestly. Bless you right back—especially in this season of earned weariness.
I’m taking time to put together a jigsaw puzzle without feeling guilty and also sit and relax when I feel tired even though the jobs aren’t done!
When is there ever a scarcity of jobs to do??!!
I appreciate you Kate!🤗
Hate to take up more “talking time@ but I did not ( above) talk about a “specific” area where this concept today will help me a lot. I innately see people’s needs and always want to reach out. I typically do. I feel it is the DNA of me. Of late, I have felt the pressure of feeling trying to be on constant “reaching out “ machine. Today, after reading this I will breathe deeper with an acceptance that 1) My agency is limited. I am human. 2) I will not feel or carry a sense of deficiency if and when I simply can’t reach out as I would like. ☺️
There’s no better way to learn to live with limits than losing a limb. When cancer took my leg and I began walking with a prosthesis, I realized I was always hurrying. And when I hurried, I fell. It’s very humbling to fall, so I am learning to slow down.
The way the wellness industry has moralized their version of self care that includes all the things most everyday people could never do in a day, assuming everyone has the same unlimited resources of time, physical ability and just plain good luck to draw the long straw on genetics is savage. So tired of reading the flood of things to do to attain this treasured wellness a few were a 50 point list. If you are doing everything “right” you will still die, its not a moral concept, our bodies will age, our genetics will kick in, our lifetime of working hard and caretaking and living in industrialized areas are things most people can’t avoid will effect us unwillingly. You are not a better person if you rise at dawn do a cold soak take a run get your dose of sunshine walk barefoot in the grass meditate on a cushion for an hour all before working caring for family running errands cooking shopping doing homework and sports and then putting your phone in a box for the night using your red light dry scrubbing your legs and sleeping in your cold light controlled room. Sorry you are still gonna die like all the rest of us folks. My thought is do what you can and stop thinking it makes you a better person somehow and be grateful you can do that and a little less smug. I love the concept of trying to try, that’s where I am today. Thats what I am capable of today and I am ok with it. Thanks for letting me rant ha !
Had a good laugh over what you posted. So true.
I am jumping on a plane today to be with my mom who is having surgery on Friday. While i was reading this, my to do list of what i didn’t get done at home before leaving began to whirl around my head. The ease at which i (we) can fall into task-mode is astonishing. I hope to daily be anchored to what is most important, knowing that what was left undone can sit awhile. I am grateful for the reminder that we are merely human♥️
Bless you on the way to your mom. And yes—task-mode is astonishingly sticky. May the undone things stay politely in the corner for now!
You vividly depict the hamster wheel so many of us are running on. Thank you for this word of grace!
I’ve been trying to embrace/welcome limits for years— the idea of “trying to try” is helpful because grammatically it keeps on going/giving!
Yes—trying to try refuses the period at the end of the sentence. It keeps the door cracked open without demanding we walk through. I love that you heard it grammatically. 💛