21 Days of Prayer & Fasting - Running on Empty, Returning to the Well

“I kept coming to the well

for just enough to survive—just enough strength, just enough grace, just enough energy to keep going—without ever sitting down long enough to receive living water.”

Tomorrow, I begin 21 days of prayer and fasting.

And I want to say this gently, but honestly—this isn’t a New Year’s resolution, a spiritual challenge, or a reset wrapped in productivity language. This isn’t about discipline, aesthetics, or becoming a “better version” of myself. This is what happens when someone who has been strong for a very long time finally admits they are tired in places strength was never meant to reach.

I’ll be joining the 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting alongside Transformation Church, following a Daniel Fast with necessary adaptations for health reasons. I’ll also be stepping away completely from social media. If you need me during this time, you’ll have to call me or email me. I’ll still be moving my body daily, drinking more water, and caring for myself physically—but none of those things are the heart of this. They are simply outer signs of something far deeper happening underneath.

Because the truth is, I’ve been surviving on fumes for a long time.

From the outside, 2025 looks like a year worth celebrating. I published my first children’s book. We sold over 100 copies in under a year. I traveled, created, served, built, and lived out prayers I once whispered quietly to God, unsure if He heard them. There were moments that felt miraculous—doors opening, dreams materializing, purpose unfolding in real time.

And yet, it was also one of the loneliest and heaviest years of my life.

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being the strong one. The dependable one. The one who always shows up, always figures it out, always carries the weight without complaint. Strength convinces people you’re fine. It convinces them you don’t need checking on. And eventually, you start to believe that too.

So I carried heartbreak without naming it. I carried disappointment without processing it. I carried grief without resting it anywhere safe. I poured into people, projects, organizations, and futures while quietly ignoring the fact that my own cup had been empty for far longer than I wanted to admit. I prayed for help while still gripping control. I asked God to rescue me while refusing to slow down enough to be held.

That’s the part no one warns you about—the way self-reliance can disguise itself as faith.

This year also brought relational losses I wasn’t prepared for—not because love was absent, but because imbalance had quietly become normal. There were relationships I invested in deeply, ones I believed were permanent and mutually chosen. But over time, I had to face a hard and humbling truth: some dynamics were only working because I was over-pouring.

I was showing up, extending grace, creating space, offering understanding, carrying emotional weight—while silently hoping that someone would notice I was empty too. I needed to be seen. I needed to be chosen. I needed reciprocity. Instead, many of the people I loved kept their eyes fixed on their own lives, their own work, their own needs, assuming I would always be fine because I always had been.

And for a long time, I let that be enough.

But strength without boundaries slowly turns into self-abandonment.

Setting boundaries this year required a kind of courage I didn’t know I had. It meant accepting that love doesn’t grow where effort is one-sided. It meant grieving relationships not because I didn’t care, but because I cared enough to stop pouring where there was no return. It meant releasing the belief that if I just gave more, waited longer, or tried harder, someone would finally show up for me in the way I needed.

Some relationships didn’t survive that shift—and that loss hurt deeply. Not because I was rejected, but because I finally stopped over-functioning to keep the connection alive. I stopped shrinking my needs to preserve comfort. I stopped mistaking endurance for intimacy.

And in that letting go, God showed me something I couldn’t unsee: boundaries weren’t a failure of love. They were an act of obedience. A declaration that I am worthy of relationships that pour back, not just pull from me.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, God kept bringing me back to a story I’ve known for years: the woman at the well.

She went to the well at the hottest part of the day—not because she liked the heat, but because she didn’t want to be seen. She carried her jar the same way I carried my strength—out of habit, out of survival, out of necessity. She came for water that would get her through the day, never expecting that the One who could quench her thirst entirely would already be sitting there waiting.

And what strikes me now is this: Jesus didn’t shame her for coming thirsty. He didn’t rush her. He didn’t tell her to try harder.

He simply said, “If you knew who was sitting with you, you would ask—and I would give you living water.”

That’s when it finally clicked.

I wasn’t burned out because I was doing bad things.
I was dry because I kept coming to the well for just enough to survive—just enough strength, just enough grace, just enough energy to keep going—without ever sitting down long enough to receive living water.

I was still carrying my jar.
Still doing it myself.
Still coming at the hottest part of the day.

My body eventually told the truth my mouth wouldn’t.

After my accident and months of minimizing symptoms, doctors ruled out anything catastrophic. What remained was undeniable: my nervous system was stuck in survival mode. Stress had lodged itself so deeply in my body that it began speaking for me. Years of high responsibility, unresolved grief, emotional suppression, and constant output had finally demanded attention.

And it forced a question I could no longer avoid:

How long do we expect the strong ones to keep going without rest?
How long do we keep carrying jars when living water is being offered?

How useful am I to God, to others, to the work I love—if the temple He entrusted to me is running on depletion?

So for the next 21 days, I’m stepping back.

I’m stepping away from leadership roles, responsibilities, and identities I’ve carried with pride and purpose—not because they don’t matter, but because they matter too much to be fueled by burnout. Systems are in place. People are empowered. Emergencies will be handled. And learning that the world does not fall apart when I rest is part of my healing.

This isn’t disappearance.
It’s a holy pause.

It’s me setting the jar down.

For these 21 days, I want to sit at the well—not to grab enough water to survive another day, but to stay long enough to be changed. I want to meet God again not as the One who sends me out, but as the One who invites me to sit down. Not as the God of assignment, but as the God who notices when His daughter is tired.

I’m sharing this because I know I’m not the only one. I know there are strong people reading this who haven’t been checked on in a long time—people who keep showing up, keep holding space, keep believing, keep giving, while quietly unraveling inside. If that’s you, let this be permission to pause. To be honest. To ask for help. And let this also be a reminder to check on the strong ones in your life—not because they’re weak, but because strength should never require isolation.

For the next 21 days, I’m choosing surrender over striving, healing over hustle, presence over performance. I’m choosing the well over the grind.

And before I step into this fast, I want to pray—not just for myself, but for anyone who sees themselves in these words.

A Closing Prayer

God,
I come to You not with answers, not with strength, not with a list of what I’ve accomplished or carried—but with honesty. With tired hands. With a heart that has learned how to endure but is still learning how to rest.

You see what I’ve held together when no one else noticed. You see the tears swallowed, the prayers whispered in the dark, the moments I kept showing up when I was already empty. You see the way I learned to be needed before I learned how to be held. And still, You stayed.

So today, I loosen my grip. I set the jar down. I lay down the weight I was never meant to carry. I release the identities I built out of survival instead of sonship, instead of daughterhood.

Teach me how to come to the well again—not to draw just enough to keep going, but to sit, to drink deeply, to be restored. Regulate what stress has tangled. Heal what grief has hardened. Quiet what striving has kept loud.

And God, I pray for every strong soul reading this—the ones who rarely get checked on, the ones who keep carrying, the ones who don’t know how to ask for help anymore. Meet them gently. Interrupt their burnout with Your presence. Give them permission to rest without guilt, to be honest without fear, to be human without losing their faith.

For these next 21 days, I choose surrender over striving, trust over control, presence over performance. I choose You—not as a last resort, but as my first refuge.

Meet me at the well.
I’m ready to receive.

Amen.

-Paige Maria Johnston