The Exhaustion of Holding Everything Together
Learning to release what was never ours to carry.
There is a kind of tiredness that sleep cannot fix.
It is the exhaustion of the woman who feels responsible for everything.
The woman who anticipates everyone’s needs, worries about the people she loves and lies awake trying to find solutions to problems she cannot control.
She is capable. Dependable. Strong.
But underneath it all, she is tired.
And perhaps the most exhausting part is that she has forgotten what it feels like to put anything down.
When responsibility becomes control
There is nothing wrong with caring deeply or being responsible. But somewhere along the way, responsibility can quietly become control.
We begin believing that if we worry enough, pray enough or intervene enough, we can somehow influence the outcome.
Especially when it concerns the people we love most.
But I am learning something important:
I can love without controlling. I can pray without manipulating. I can care without carrying.
And I can trust God even when I cannot see what He is doing.
Martha understood this struggle
In Luke 10:38–42, we meet Martha, who is busy serving Jesus, while her sister Mary sits at His feet.
Martha is doing something good. But her serving has become overshadowed by anxiety.
What touches me is how Jesus responds.
Martha, Martha.
He calls her by name, with tenderness.
He doesn’t condemn her service. He gently draws her attention to what she is missing — His presence.
And I wonder how often we do the same.
We become so busy managing the lives God has entrusted to us that we forget to rest in the presence of the One who holds them.
The courage to surrender
I have been asking myself a difficult question lately:
What am I still trying to control because I don’t completely trust God with the outcome?
It’s easy to say we trust God when life unfolds as we hoped.
But what about when the answers don’t come? When the future remains uncertain? When the people we love make decisions we cannot understand?
Perhaps our greatest struggle is not believing that God is able.
Perhaps it is trusting Him when His ways look different from ours.
Jesus reminds us in John 14:27 that His peace is unlike anything the world offers.
His peace is not dependent on everything turning out the way we want.
It comes from knowing Who holds us, even when we don’t know what tomorrow holds.
Open your hands
Imagine holding something tightly in your fists.
Now slowly open your hands.
Nothing about your circumstances may have changed.
But your posture has.
You have moved from striving to surrender.
From gripping to trusting.
Surrender is not giving up on what matters. It is placing what matters into the hands of the One who loves more perfectly than we ever could.
It doesn’t mean we stop praying, loving or taking responsibility.
It means we stop carrying the part that belongs to God.
Perhaps REST is not about learning to do less.
Perhaps it is about learning to trust more.
A moment with the Father
Today, sit quietly with your hands open before Him.
Ask yourself:
What am I carrying that God never asked me to carry?
And then pray:
Father, I release what I cannot control. I surrender the people I love, the outcomes I fear and the future I cannot see. Teach me to trust You more deeply and allow Your peace to rule in my heart. Amen.
You don’t have to hold everything together. You are held by the One who does.
Walk Held, Beloved.
#TheWaySheWalks #WalkHeldBeloved #RestInGod #SurrenderToGod #TrustingGod #PeaceOfChrist #WomenOfFaith #ChristianWomen #FaithOverFear #LetGoAndLetGod
