The Gift of Focus: Holding on to Christ When the Season Feels Heavy

This time of year carries a different weight depending on who you ask. Some are wrapping gifts, planning dinners, and feeling grateful for the year behind them. Some are celebrating the birth of Jesus with a full heart. Others are moving quietly through the holidays, carrying heaviness, memories, unanswered prayers, or grief that shows up without warning. And then there are those of us who live in the space between joy and sorrow. That tension is real. I know it well. Yet even in the middle of that tension, one truth has never shifted: God is faithful. His goodness sits steady, even when our emotional landscape is changing by the hour. The harder part is keeping our focus on Him when everything else—memories, expectations, disappointments, pressure—tries to pull our attention somewhere else.

A lot of believers struggle with this, not because they lack faith, but because no one ever taught them that staying focused on God is a spiritual discipline. It’s part of spiritual warfare. And the battlefield is almost always the mind.People use that phrase loosely, but mental warfare is real. As someone who coaches Christian women through cognitive-neuroscience-informed methods, I see it every day. Women who pray, worship, serve, give, lead, and pour themselves out faithfully still get hit with anxiety, intrusive thoughts, distraction, or emotional fatigue, especially during the holiday season when everything is louder and more demanding. My goal is to help you make sense of the link between spiritual health and mental health, and to offer a way to center your focus so your mind and heart can settle in God’s truth. 

Let’s start by understanding something simple but powerful: the mind and the brain are not the same. Scripture uses “mind” in connection with the soul and heart and defines it as the place where your will, emotions, desires, and thoughts live. Strong’s concordance includes all of that in its definition of the heart.

The brain is different. It’s the physical hardware. It’s shaped by childhood experiences, attachment patterns, trauma, culture, relationships, wins, losses; your whole life story becomes wiring. Those patterns become the lenses through which you see the world.  This is why two people can experience the same moment and interpret it in completely different ways.The beautiful part is that the brain is moldable. It can change. Neuroplasticity means that new thinking, new habits, new beliefs can form new pathways. 

And this is exactly what Scripture calls us into when it says we are renewed in the spirit of our mind. Paul understood this deeply. Romans 7 is one of the most honest pieces of writing in the Bible. Many theologians believe Paul was describing mental warfare as the push and pull between what his spirit knows and what his flesh feels. When he says in Romans 7:23, “I see another law at work in me” that’s what many of us would describe as old patterns, old fears, emotional triggers, or the pressure to perform for others even when we’re empty inside. And because I want you to know I’m not talking at you from a distance, let me say this plainly: this is my first holiday season in 41 years without my family. It hurts in a way I don’t have fancy language for. There have been moments when I’ve sat in the quiet and felt grief touch every part of me. And yet, even with that heaviness, I’m choosing to focus on God—not by ignoring my feelings, but by letting God hold me through them.

My morning routine with God has been my survival. Coffee on the porch. Silence. Scripture. Reflection. Those moments have become a form of breathing. Recently, during one of those quiet mornings, God whispered the phrase “The Perfect Setup” to me. It wasn’t new language, but it had a new meaning. It led me straight to Psalm 119:73, where God reminded me that He never forms without purpose and never allows breaking without intention.

Psalm 119:73 says: Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding to learn your commands.

We say “God made me” as if we’re talking about a one-time event. But the God who stands outside of time created us in fullness, not the fragmented versions that life shaped us into. That means the truest version of you exists in God’s mind, untouched by trauma, memory, or pressure.  

Life shapes us, yes. But shaping and making are not the same thing. Shaping bends, compresses, and molds based on circumstances. Making establishes foundation, identity, and purpose. That revelation changed the way I see myself and the way I see God.

This is why John 8:32 tells us it’s the truth that makes us free. Truth restores us back to what God made before life shaped us into something else. This brings me to the first focus point.

Focus Point 1: Nothing outside of God has the power to make me, so nothing outside of God has the power to break me.

We are clay in the potter’s hands. Sometimes the potter breaks down what no longer fits the original design. Breaking isn’t punishment. It’s preparation. God breaks what needs clearing so He can breathe into what needs reviving. Nothing in your life is too dry for God to breathe on—your marriage, your finances, your purpose, your confidence, your joy, your hope. He can breathe life into all of it.

Focus Point 2: You can’t have what you won’t do, and you can’t do what you haven’t become.

Genesis 1:28 showed us God’s order long before we understood psychology: be fruitful, do the work, and then have dominion. Being comes before doing, and doing comes before having. But many of us try to skip straight to “have.” 

We want peace without practicing presence. 

We want clarity without slowing down. 

We want joy without releasing what steals it. 

We want fruit without tending the garden of our hearts.

This is the real work of focus…becoming aligned with God before we attempt to perform for God. Philippians 4 then shows us how to guard this alignment. And before Paul offers any steps, God addresses the heart.

Philippians 4:6 says:“Be anxious for nothing”

It doesn’t say “try not to be anxious.” It says “be.” That’s a command, not a suggestion. And it’s hard. Anxiety is a whole-body experience. It affects the mind, the nervous system, breathing patterns, decision-making, and focus. It doesn’t disappear because we want it to.That’s why God calls us into a spiritual practice, not a spiritual performance. 

Being anxious for nothing requires intentionality. 

It may look like saying no to gatherings so you can rest. 

It may look like slowing your mornings instead of rushing yourself. 

It may look like letting yourself feel what you feel without pretending you’re fine. 

It may look like surrendering the picture you had of the holiday and embracing the one you’re in.

This leads to the third focus point.

Focus Point 3: Release worry on purpose. 

Then release it again tomorrow. And the next day.

Worry will try to return. Fear will try to return. Loneliness will try to return. But your focus can return to God just as consistently. That is the practice. That is the warfare. That is the transformation.

Whether this season feels light or heavy, God’s invitation remains the same: “Focus on Me.” His peace isn’t seasonal. His presence isn’t fragile. His love doesn’t depend on what you lost or what didn’t go the way you hoped. When you shift your focus back to Christ, you aren’t ignoring reality, but you’re anchoring yourself in truth. And truth brings clarity. Truth brings strength. Truth brings rest.

Christ is steady in every season. Let your focus return to Him, and let your soul breathe again.