A Divided Mind
Searching for a Signal
Some answers don’t arrive while we’re awake enough to search for them.
There are days when my mind feels like a cellphone searching for a signal in a dead zone. The battery isn’t dead. The phone isn’t broken. It just can’t connect. That’s what this season of life has felt like. There are ideas I want to build, businesses I want to grow, conversations I want to have, relationships I want to strengthen, and responsibilities I want to honor. On paper, none of those things seem impossible. Yet there are days when the weight of carrying all of them at once, leaves me standing still. When I stop long enough to think about it, I realize why.
I’m Ty, a Son of GOD, a Husband, a Brother, an Uncle, host of the Scarred Sons Podcast, owner of Never Miss a Spot Commercial Cleaning, an account manager at Spectrum Paint, and a man who carries a deep desire to become the provider I’ve always envisioned. None of those identities are fake. None of those dreams are wrong. In many ways, they complement one another.
The problem isn’t that I have too many dreams. The problem is that I keep trying to carry all of them, at the same time.
When that happens, my mind becomes divided. I don’t become lazy. I don’t stop caring. I simply stop moving. The ambition that usually pushes me forward, becomes the very thing that keeps me standing still. Over the past few years, I’ve hit so many invisible walls, that I’ve started asking myself if they’re trying to tell me something. Not walls I can see. Not failures that make headlines. Just moments where every direction I choose, seems to end with another closed door.
Lately, I’ve been wondering if God has been trying to get my attention, not because He’s angry with me, but because He’s inviting me somewhere I’ve been too busy to go. Two therapy sessions ago, my therapist shared something that has stayed with me ever since. He knows how deeply I’ve desired a relationship with my father. Like many Scarred Sons, I’ve spent years hoping for conversations we’ve never had, and a relationship we’ve never built. Then he asked me to consider something I wasn’t expecting.
“What if your spiritual Father has that same desire toward you?”
I sat there quietly.
I didn’t argue with him.
I didn’t immediately embrace it either.
I just let the words settle.
I’ve replayed that conversation over and over since then. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if I’ve spent so much of my life longing for one father, that I haven’t made enough room for the other. I don’t know all of God’s reasons, and I won’t pretend that I do. But I can’t shake the feeling that while I’ve been asking God to restore one relationship, He’s been patiently inviting me to deepen another.
That realization has been difficult to process, not because I doubt God, but because I know myself. I’ve become so accustomed to figuring life out on my own, that I don’t always leave room for Him to guide me. I pray. I believe. But if I’m honest, I often come to God with my plans, instead of waiting for His.
When life becomes overwhelming, I work harder. I think longer. I organize more. I try to solve problems that were probably never mine to carry alone. Then I wonder why I feel exhausted. I don’t want anyone reading this to think I’m a Bible scholar. I’m not. Most of the time, I don’t know exactly where to turn. I start with whatever I’m feeling, search for what God says about it, and spend time there. That’s become part of my healing.
I don’t search Scripture because I’ve mastered life. I search Scripture because I haven’t.
That’s how Matthew 11:28 found me during this season.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
— Matthew 11:28
Until recently, I had never read that verse. Truthfully, I’m still learning my way through Scripture. Matthew 11:28 didn’t find me because I had all the answers. It found me because I finally admitted I needed one. When I read the verse, it didn’t feel like I had stumbled across another passage of Scripture. It felt like a personal invitation.
Maybe that’s because I’ve been fighting rest. I think about babies who refuse to go to sleep. They rub their eyes. They cry. They crawl around the room aimlessly. They fight with everything they have against the very thing they need most. Eventually, they surrender and fall asleep. When they wake up, nothing around them has changed. The room is the same. The people are the same. But they’ve been restored.
If I’m honest, I’m not much different. I’ll work until there’s almost nothing left. I’ll convince myself that one more task, one more email, one more building, one more idea, or one more podcast episode, will finally make me feel caught up. Eventually, my body forces me to stop. At first, it feels like defeat. Then morning comes. I make my coffee or tea. I spend a little time with God. I sit quietly in my truck. And somehow the same problems don’t seem nearly as impossible as they did the night before. The circumstances haven’t changed. I have.
Maybe rest doesn’t change our circumstances. Maybe it changes the person walking back into them.
As I’ve continued to process what my therapist shared, another thought has surfaced. I think one of the reasons I’ve struggled to move closer to God is because somewhere deep inside me, I’m afraid of disappointing Him. That may sound strange. But when you’ve experienced disappointment from a father, it can quietly shape how you approach every relationship that resembles one. Part of me wonders if I’ve kept myself busy because work feels safer than stillness.
Productivity is measurable.
Achievement is visible.
Stillness requires trust.
Stillness requires listening.
And listening sometimes asks us to surrender the very control, we’ve spent years convincing ourselves we needed to survive. Maybe that’s what I’ve been fighting all along. Not sleep. Surrender. Maybe these invisible walls aren’t punishment. Maybe they’re invitations.
Maybe God isn’t shutting every door. Maybe He’s gently closing the ones I’ve been trying to force open, so that the only door left is the one where He’s standing, patiently waiting for me. I don’t write this as someone who’s arrived. I’m writing it as a Scarred Son who’s still learning to slow down. Still learning to listen. Still learning that not every closed door is rejection, sometimes it’s redirection.
Maybe the signal was never weak.
Maybe my life had simply become too loud to hear the One, who has been calling me all along.
I feel this has been missing all along. I wasn’t looking for another strategy. I wasn’t looking for another podcast episode, another customer, another business idea, or another late night trying to force everything into place. I was looking for a signal. And the signal wasn’t hidden at all. It was waiting for me on the other side of rest. My circumstances didn’t change overnight. My responsibilities were still there when I woke up. But something inside me was different. The noise had settled enough for me to hear what mattered again.
If you’ve been carrying a divided mind, I hope you’ll give yourself permission to stop trying to solve everything tonight. Rest isn’t quitting. Sometimes it’s the place where clarity finally catches up with you.
Sometimes the answer isn’t found by pushing harder. Sometimes it’s found by becoming still.
Peace and love,
-Ty