What are You Carrying?

What are you carrying?

Not the things people can see. The responsibilities. The calendar. The everyday demands of life.

I mean the things you carry quietly—the fear, the disappointment, the guilt, the unanswered prayers, the pressure to be strong, the people you’re trying to fix, and the future you’re trying desperately to control.

In this episode, we’re talking about the weight we carry, why we sometimes hold onto things God never asked us to carry, and what it actually looks like to surrender them to Him.

Because just because you’re capable of carrying something doesn’t mean you were meant to.

So pull up a chair, take a breath, and let’s talk about what you’re carrying—and what it might look like to finally put it down.

You don’t have to carry it alone. 🌿

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey friend, welcome back to the Olive Branch Journal. I'm Delilah, and I'm really glad that you're here. If you're new around here, the Olive Branch Journal is a little corner of the internet where we talk about faith, life, and all the things in between. The beautiful things, the messy things, the ordinary things, and sometimes the things we don't quite know how to put into words. So pull up a chair, get comfortable, and let's talk. I want to start today's conversation with a question. And I want you to actually think about your answer. What are you carrying? Not what's on your schedule, not what you have to get done today, and definitely not the responsibilities that everyone can actually see. What I mean by this question is what are you carrying inside? What is taking up space in your heart? What have you been thinking about when you're lying in bed at night? What's the thing that you keep coming back to? What is it that you haven't necessarily told anybody? I think that we have gotten really good at carrying things quietly. You know, we can be overwhelmed and still answer a text message. We can be heartbroken and still go to work. We can be anxious and still show up for everybody else. We can even be exhausted and still say, I'm fine. And sometimes we get so good at functioning while we're hurting that nobody realizes we're hurting at all. And sometimes we don't even realize it ourselves. I actually did a blog post about this called What Are You Carrying? And while I was writing it, I kept thinking about how strange it is that we carry something for so long that it starts to feel normal. You know, like carry something for a week and then a month, and then before you know it, it's been a year. Eventually you stop thinking this is heavy, and you get to the point where you're like, this is just my life. And I feel like that's actually really dangerous. You know, just because you've learned how to function under the weight doesn't mean that the weight isn't there. You can become really good at surviving something that was never meant to become your permanent reality. And I think some of us need to pause long enough to acknowledge this is actually really heavy. You know, maybe you've been calling it tired, but you're exhausted. Maybe you've been calling it stress, but you're overwhelmed. You could be calling it being responsible, but you're carrying things that aren't yours. And unfortunately, you could be referencing it as being strong when really you're just afraid to put the weight down. And when we think about things that we pick up, you know, just because you're capable of carrying something doesn't mean that God asked you to carry it. And that really gets me because how often do we tell ourselves, I can handle it, so we handle it. Someone has to do it, so we do it. Well, so-and-so needs me, so we become everything that they need. Well, if I don't take care of this, nobody will, so we take care of it. And slowly, without realizing it, we start picking things up. You know, a person's emotions, their choices, relationships we can't fix, a future that we can't predict, or an outcome that we can't control. Sometimes it can be the past that we can't change, a mistake that we cannot undo, a person who doesn't want to change. We carry it, we carry it, and we carry it, and then wonder why we're so exhausted. And I promise, those statements, I personally have said each of those myself. So I know how hard it is to hear this, but I also know how easy it is to pick things up and think that that's what we're supposed to do. So I am truly speaking from experience on this topic. And I feel like it especially becomes complicated when it comes to the people that we love. You know, we don't want to be selfish, we don't want people to feel like we've abandoned them. We want to help and we want to be there, and we want the people we love to be okay. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that. You know, Jesus does call us to love people, to serve them, to bear one another's burdens, but there is a difference between helping carry someone's burden and making their burden your identity. You can love someone without being responsible for every decision that they make. You can pray for someone without being responsible for the answer. You can support someone without being able to fix them, and you can show up without becoming their savior. And honestly, I think we forget that last one. We're trying to save people God never asked us to save. We're trying to change people that only God can change, and we're trying to control outcomes that were never ours. Meanwhile, God's standing there saying, give them to me. And then there's tomorrow. How many of us are carrying things that we that haven't even happened yet? We're worrying about conversations that haven't happened. We're afraid of outcomes that we've not experienced. We we're even grieving things that we haven't lost. We're planning for disasters that may never come. And we're mentally living through future pain because we're trying to prepare ourselves for it. And I get it. I understand why we do it. Uncertainty is uncomfortable. We would like to know what's coming so that we can make a plan. You know, we want a guarantee and we want God to hand us the entire map and say, here, here's exactly how this is gonna go. But most of the time he doesn't. He gives us the next step, he asks us to trust him with the one after that. Jesus tells us not to worry about tomorrow because tomorrow has enough trouble of its own. And I think sometimes we need to hear that literally. You don't have to live tomorrow today. Tomorrow isn't here. You are, and God is here with you. Maybe today is enough. Maybe this moment is enough, and maybe you don't have to figure out your life before breakfast. But then, of course, there's also the burden of being the strong one. You know, maybe you're the person that everyone calls because you're dependable, you always seem to know what to do, you listen so well, and you're the one that gives advice. You are who checks in on everyone else and the one that actually shows up. And maybe people don't even ask if you're okay anymore because you're always okay, except maybe you're not. Maybe you've gotten so used to being the strong one that you've forgotten you're allowed to need somebody too. You're allowed to say, I'm not okay. I don't know. I can't do this by myself. You're allowed to rest. And please hear me when I say you are not failing because you have limits. You are human. You were never supposed to be God. We don't have to know everything, we don't have to fix everything, and we don't have to hold everyone together. We are not responsible to carry everyone else's emotions, and we don't have to have the answers. We are allowed to need God, and that's actually where we're supposed to start. If you read Matthew 11, 28, Jesus says, Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. I love that Jesus doesn't say, Come to me once you figured it out. He doesn't say, Come to me once you're strong enough, or come to me once you've gotten yourself together. He simply says, Come to me. Weary, burdened, exhausted, come. And I think sometimes we make surrender sound so much more complicated than it is, because surrender can be as simple as, God, this is too heavy for me, and that's it. You don't need the perfect prayer, perfect words, you don't have to explain yourself to God because he already knows. We can simply just say, God, I can't carry this anymore. And then we give it to him. And now I get it. I struggle with control issues. So you could be thinking, Okay, well, I've already given this to God, but then you've worried about it again. You surrendered it and then picked it right back up. You prayed about it and then started trying to control it again. You told God, I trust you. And then you spent the next three hours imagining every possible way things could go wrong. And that doesn't mean that you failed. Surrender isn't a one-time event. Sometimes it's daily, hourly. Heck, for some situations, it could be every five minutes because it is an active decision that you make. You know, it can be, God, I give this to you, and then five minutes later, okay, God, apparently I picked it back up again. And so then you give it right back. That is not failure. That is learning to trust. And maybe maturity isn't getting to a place where you never worry. It could just be getting to a place where you recognize the worry sooner and you know where to take it. And there are many of us where the hardest things to surrender are the things that we really, really want. You know, sometimes we aren't holding something because we're stubborn. We're holding on to it because we're scared. We're scared that if we let go, God won't give it back. Or maybe that his answer might be no. We're scared he might choose a different path than the one we've been praying for. And we're scared that surrender means losing. But that's where trust becomes real. Because it's easy to say, God, I trust you when God's doing exactly what we want. And it's much harder when we're standing in the middle of uncertainty with open hands saying, even if this doesn't go the way I want, I still trust you. That is a different kind of faith. It's not saying, God, I know how this ends. It's saying, God, I know who holds the ending. And maybe that's enough. So I want us to go back to the original question, what are you carrying? I want you to really think about it. Maybe even pause the episode afterward and write some things down. What is weighing on me? What am I afraid of? What am I trying to control? What am I replaying, grieving? What am I holding on to? Whose emotions have I taken responsibility for? What am I trying to fix that only God can fix? Maybe the biggest question: what am I carrying that God never asked me to carry? And when you find it, don't just acknowledge it. Give it somewhere to go. Give it to God. I want you to imagine holding something. You're holding that burden in your hands, and you've been gripping it for so long that your hands are tired. Maybe you're afraid to open them because you don't know what happens when you let go. But imagine opening them anyway and saying, God, I trust you with this. Not because you understand, not because you're certain, not because you're guaranteed the outcome that you want, but because you trust Him. You can say, God, I trust you with my future. I trust you with this relationship. I trust you with this person, this disappointment, this unanswered prayer. I trust you, God, with what I cannot control. And maybe the most difficult one, God, I trust you with what I don't understand. And then open your hands and leave it there. And now I would like to take the opportunity to pray for you because you have given me some of your time to sit here and listen to this episode. So I don't want to just leave you with nothing. So, God, you know what we're carrying. You know the things nobody else sees, and you know the thoughts that we've never said out loud. You know the weight behind every smile, the fear behind the confidence, and you know how tired we are, God. Some of us are carrying too much, whether it be people, the past, the future, we're carrying expectations, guilt, fear. We're carrying things we cannot control. So today we bring them to you. Please teach us what is ours to carry and what belongs in your hands. Help us to stop trying to do your job. Help us to trust you with the things we cannot fix. Help us release the things we cannot control. And Lord, for the person listening who is exhausted, meet them there. Remind them that they don't have to be strong all the time, that they don't have to have all the answers. Remind them that they are allowed to rest. Remind them that you care, God. And when we pick these burdens back up, gently remind us that we already gave them to you. Help us learn to leave them there. We trust you with our lives. We trust you with our people. God, we trust you with our future, and we trust you with our unanswered questions. And even when we don't understand what you're doing, help us to trust that you are still good. We do ask all of this in your name, Jesus. Amen. Now take a breath. You don't have to solve everything today, and you don't have to figure out tomorrow today. You don't have to carry everything simply because you can. Some things are yours to handle, some things are yours to pray about, and some things are simply God's. So put them down. Thank you so much for pulling up a chair and spending a little time with me today. I hope this conversation reminded you that you don't have to carry everything on your own. If you haven't already, you can find the written version of today's conversation over on the Olive Branch Journal blog. And if this episode meant something to you, share it with someone who might need that reminder that they don't have to carry it along either. Until next time, friend, keep looking for grace between the pages of your story.