There is a kind of tired that sleep cannot fix.
It lives somewhere deeper than your body. It settles into your bones, your spirit, the quiet moments when no one is watching and you finally stop performing. It is the tired that comes from carrying things you were never meant to carry — for years, sometimes decades — and never once asking for help.
That was me.
And it took a global pandemic, watching people I loved operate out of fear, and a God who had been patient with me my entire life to finally bring me to the place where I could put it all down.
This is Episode 4 of The Seed & Soulful Podcast — and this is the story of how I went from seeking to surrendered.
What the Pandemic Revealed
I told you in Episode 3 about the cracking open. The division. The rage. The Bible I bought at a bookstore with no idea where to start.
But there is more to that story.
Because the pandemic did not just divide strangers on the internet. It divided people I knew personally. Family. Friends. People I loved and trusted. And I watched fear take over in ways I never expected.
Get this shot or lose your job. No vax card, no concert. No vax card, no gathering. People being told they could not participate in their own lives unless they complied. And I watched good people — people I cared about — go along with it. Not because they believed it was right. But because they were afraid of what would happen if they did not.
Something in me broke watching that. Not in anger. In grief.
Because fear does something to people. It makes them small. It makes them controllable. It makes them turn on the people they love.
And I kept asking the same question over and over: what is the antidote to this kind of fear? What do people have when they have nothing left to stand on?
The answer I kept coming back to was Jesus.
The Weight I Had Been Carrying
But here is the thing about surrender — it does not happen in a single moment. At least not for me.
Because my surrender was not just about 2020. It was about my whole life.
It was my childhood. My early teens. My twenties. Every season where I picked up something heavy and decided I was going to carry it myself. Every wound. Every mistake. Every version of myself I was not proud of.
I carried all of it. For decades.
By the time I was in my late twenties and into my early thirties, I was soul tired. The kind of tired that sleep does not fix.
Now here I am in the last year of my thirties — and I can look back and see exactly where God was in every single one of those seasons. Even when I could not feel Him. Even when I was not looking for Him.
That is where God meets a lot of us. In the tired.
Feeling Condemned — In the Best Way
When I started really reading the Word and sitting in church and letting God in, I felt something I did not expect.
Conviction.
Like a light being turned on in a room you have been living in the dark. You start to see things. Things about yourself. Things about the way you have been living. Patterns. Wounds. Choices you made when you did not know better.
And for a moment it is overwhelming. Because you think — if God can really see all of this, how could He possibly want me?
But that is exactly where the gospel meets you.
He already knew. He saw every single thing. Every dark corner. Every mistake. Every season you ran the other way. And He sent Jesus anyway.
That is not condemnation. That is grace.
What Surrender Actually Looked Like
So what did surrender look like for me?
It looked like finally saying out loud — I was never meant to carry this alone.
It looked like taking the weight of my childhood, my teens, my twenties — all the things I had been dragging behind me for decades — and laying them down. Not perfectly. Not all at once. But intentionally. Day by day.
It looked like humility. Real humility. The kind that only comes when you stop pretending you have it all together and admit that you need help. That you need a Savior.
It looked like knowing — really knowing — that Jesus gave His life for me. Not for a perfect version of me. Not for the me I was going to become someday. For the me that existed right then, in all my mess.
And when that truth finally landed — not just in my head but in my heart — everything changed.
I was scared. I was relieved. I was broken. I was free.
All at the same time.
What Surrender Actually Does
Here is what I have learned about surrender in the time since:
It makes you humble.
Not the fake kind of humble where you downplay yourself. The real kind. The kind where you stop trying to be God in your own life and let the actual God be God.
And when you do that — when you really hand it over — something lifts. Not all at once. Not perfectly. But something lifts.
Because we were never meant to carry it all on our own. That was never the design. The weight you have been carrying — the childhood stuff, the young adult stuff, the shame, the fear, the grief — you were never supposed to hold all of that by yourself.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." — Matthew 11:28
That is not a suggestion. That is an invitation. And it is open to you right now — exactly as you are.
For the Woman Who Is Reading This
I know someone reading this right now is carrying something they were never meant to carry.
Maybe it has been years. Maybe it has been decades. Maybe you have been strong for so long you do not even remember what it feels like to put it down.
Surrender is not weakness. Surrender is the bravest thing you will ever do.
You do not have to have it all figured out. You do not have to clean yourself up first. You just have to be willing to say — I cannot carry this anymore. And I do not have to.
Because Jesus already carried it. That is the whole point. That is what the cross was for.
"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." — Romans 8:1
No condemnation. Not for your past. Not for your twenties. Not for the things you did before you knew better.
No condemnation. 🙏
Listen to Episode 4
🎙️ Episode 4 of The Seed & Soulful Podcast — From Seeking to Surrendered — is available now on Spotify.
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If this post blessed you — share it with one woman who is tired of carrying it alone. 🌱
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