Your life is not going to collapse if you loosen your grip for a minute.
If you carry a lot, you probably know the feeling. Maybe some nights you lie awake running the list: the bill, the appointment, the friend who seemed quiet, the thing at work you might have said wrong. Underneath sits a belief that if you stop holding it all, everything will come apart.
For some people that belief started early, as the eldest child a tired parent leaned on and called "the strong one." If that was you, you may have learned to notice what needed doing before anyone asked, and gotten very good at it. Over the years, being needed can quietly start to feel like the only thing keeping the house standing.
He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
You have never been the one holding everything together; Christ already is, and he isn't tired.
Paul writes this about Jesus, and the claim is enormous. Everything God made, from the stars to the beating of your heart, holds together in him, and that includes you and everything you're worried about. If your mind has been working overtime, it has been straining at a job that was never yours to carry alone. When you breathe out, the people you care about are still held, by hands that held them long before you arrived and will keep holding them while you rest.
Try this today
- Take one slow breath and, as you breathe out, name one thing you've been gripping and tell God you're letting him hold it for the next hour.
- If you notice your shoulders tightening later, let them drop and quietly remember who holds all things.
Sit with this
What are you holding right now that you fear would fall apart if you let go?
Jesus, I'm tired of carrying everything as if it all depends on me. Help me breathe out and trust that you are holding what I can't. Thank you that the people I love are held by you, even when my hands are empty.
Breathe out slowly; what you love is still held.
Amen.
Every day with God counts forever.
