The Spiritual Cost of Too Much

Clear the Noise. Deepen the Roots.

“You have abandoned the love you had at first.”
—Revelation 2:4

I found myself in that place in March 2025.

I had not walked away from God. I still loved Him. I worked in ministry and did many of the things a faithful Christian woman is supposed to do.

But my attention had scattered in a hundred directions, and my heart had become crowded with lesser loves.

At the time, I had a six-month-old, a one-year-old, and a three-year-old. Because raising three children under three apparently left too much room in my schedule, I decided to try becoming an Instagram content creator.

I was looking for additional income because three children and daycare have a way of making even a decent salary look nervous.

And honestly, I was shocked by how much money you could make with virtually no following.

But my favorite part?

Allllll the free clothes.

Packages arrived constantly. The newest Amazon set came in three colors. Metallic loafers came in platform and flat. My walk-in closet was packed so tightly that the piles above the racks depended on one another for structural support.

One day, I stood in the middle of it wearing jeans and a bra, staring aimlessly at everything I owned with still “nothing to wear.”

My husband walked in and said, “Whoa.”

It was not the hubba hubba, look at my lady kind of whoa.

It was the something has gone terribly wrong in here kind.

He had simply said out loud what I already knew.

A Picture of My Heart

Standing in that closet, the Holy Spirit gently helped me understand something I had not yet been able to name:

My closet had become a picture of my heart.

The closet was crowded with clothes. My heart was crowded with competing desires.

I wanted to be present with my children, but I was busying them while I negotiated brand deals and edited videos.

I wanted peace, but I was losing sleep to meet deadlines.

I wanted to remain rooted in God, but I was giving my attention to proving that I was capable, smart, savvy, and worth noticing.

Meanwhile, I was six months postpartum and slipping into the worst anxiety and depression I had experienced after any of my pregnancies.

There was a constant hum beneath everything.

Guilt that I was not a better mother.

Pressure to close the next deal.

The sense that I was behind somewhere, failing someone, forgetting something.

Sometimes the anxiety became so intense that I could barely function.

The First Clearing

Eventually, I donated seven trash bags of clothing to Goodwill.

You would have thought I had not touched the closet.

But the Holy Spirit used something visible, something that had taken so much of my attention, to show me what was happening within me.

I had allowed hustle, comparison, social media, and consumption to quietly shape my desires.

Sometimes we do not abandon our first love by consciously rejecting God.

We simply give our best attention, energy, and affection to everything else.

Sixteen Months of Clearing

That closet moment did not produce instant freedom.

It began a process that has now been unfolding for sixteen months.

Since then, I have donated many more bags of clothing. I backed away from most brand partnerships because I could no longer encourage other women toward the consumption narrative I was trying to escape.

I deleted social media apps from my phone.

I now schedule one Linen & Light post each week from my computer, then close it. I do not scroll through everyone else’s posts, monitor likes, or watch my follower count.

I continue editing my closet into a capsule wardrobe. Not an impressive thirty-piece, year-round capsule designed to prove how minimal I am. Just mix-and-match pieces I genuinely love wearing and that help me feel like myself.

Our family also began practicing Sabbath on Saturdays.

No work. No chores.

Just worship, rest, and fun.

We gather our favorite simple pleasures into one day: a second cup of coffee, donuts and the playground with the kids, an afternoon without an agenda, and a favorite dessert.

It is absolutely delightful.

I also began protecting small pockets of attention for God.

I listen to guided prayer while I get ready in the morning. I wake fifteen minutes before my children to sit in silence, practice solitude, and read Scripture.

These practices do not earn God’s presence or transform me by themselves.

But they guard my first love.

They help me become attentive to the Holy Spirit’s work, the kind of inner reformation I could never bootstrap my way into.

What Is Forming You?

I am still far from finished.

Sometimes I still want the free sweater because I saw an outfit on Pinterest that I would really like to recreate.

But my heart yearns for Him more than it used to.

God is slowly untangling my identity from what I produce.

He is teaching me to notice the holy in the mundane work of mothering, marriage, and keeping a home.

The spiritual cost of too much is not merely a crowded closet.

It is allowing the world to shape us without noticing it is happening.

We cannot spend all week absorbing culture’s definitions of success, beauty, motherhood, and worth and expect to naturally live as women formed by a different kingdom.

Your “too much” may be clothing.

Or it may be achievement, comparison, constant information, impossible expectations, or the pressure to optimize every part of your life.

Sit with the Holy Spirit and ask:

What is taking up space in my heart?

Be honest with Him.

You may not want to surrender what He reveals. Tell Him that too. Ask Him to change your desires, and then take one small step of obedience.

Clearing the noise will not transform your heart.

But it may help you recognize what has been forming it.

And as you return your attention to Jesus, the Holy Spirit will deepen the roots.

Clear the Noise. Deepen the Roots.

Simplicity is the practice.
Formation is the goal.
Faithfulness is the fruit.