Putting Yourself Back Together in a World That’s Coming Apart
By Toby Armstrong
Lately, it feels like everything is unraveling. The world is fractured—politically, socially, even spiritually. We scroll through endless headlines of crisis and conflict, absorbing the weight of wars, injustice, and division. Closer to home, our personal lives often mirror this chaos—relationships fraying, burnout creeping in, anxiety simmering beneath the surface. I know this because I’ve felt it, too.
A few years back, I hit a wall. The constant weight of responsibilities, the unrelenting pressure to “hold it together” for others, the exhaustion of trying to fix what I had no power to change—it all caught up with me. I found myself sitting in my car after a long day, feeling utterly drained, gripping the steering wheel as if that could somehow keep me from falling apart. Maybe you’ve been there, too. Maybe you’re there now.
When everything around us seems to be coming apart, how do we begin to put ourselves back together?
When life feels unstable, our instinct is to grasp for control. We overanalyze, overwork, and try to fix what’s broken—both in the world and within ourselves. But Jesus offers a radically different way: surrender. Not surrender as defeat, but as trust. In Matthew 11:28, He invites the weary to come to Him, not for more striving, but for rest.
True healing begins not when we try to force things back into place, but when we acknowledge our limits. When we release the illusion that we alone can hold everything together, we open ourselves to the presence of God, who holds us even when the world feels like it’s falling apart. As Glenn Pemberton writes,
“We live in a world that is beyond our control, and life is in a constant flux of change. So we have a decision to make: keep trying to control a storm that is not going to go away or start learning how to live within the rain.”
Jesus doesn’t call us to control the storm—He calls us to find Him in the midst of it.
Jesus never minimized suffering. When He stood at the tomb of Lazarus, He didn’t rush to "fix" the situation—He wept (John 11:35). In the same way, putting ourselves back together requires allowing ourselves to feel deeply. Naming our grief, fear, and exhaustion is not weakness; it’s the first step toward healing. The way of Jesus is not about numbing pain but walking through it with honesty and compassion.
What if, instead of pushing past our emotions, we invited Jesus into them? What if we sat in our sorrow, frustration, and confusion and asked, “God, where are You in this?”—trusting that He is not absent but present in the very places we feel undone?
When the world around us fractures, Jesus invites us into a different rhythm—not one of frantic self-preservation, but of intentional restoration. The way of Jesus is about wholeness, not perfection. It’s about embracing grace rather than striving to “get it together.”
We see this in how He interacted with the broken and weary—offering presence over pressure, relationship over quick solutions. He reminded His followers that they were already deeply loved, already belonging, already held. Our healing is not about proving our worth but about remembering it.
In a world unraveling, the most radical thing we can do is choose to rebuild—not by ourselves, not through sheer effort, but alongside Christ, who makes all things new.
What is one area of your life that feels like it’s coming apart? How might Jesus be inviting you to put yourself back together—not through control, but through surrender, presence, and grace?
