And, beloveds, we can wear ourselves OUT trying to make them the same thing.
Make the call.
Have the conversation.
Tell the truth.
Apologize when the apology belongs to you.
Set the boundary.
Ask for help.
Do the work.
Rest when rest is what your body and mind are asking for.
Try again if trying again is yours to do.
Walk away if staying is costing you pieces of yourself you were never required to surrender.
Do. Your. Part.
And then?
Let God/Life/The Universe handle the rest.
Now, I know everybody reading this does not believe what I believe.
That’s okay.
I call Him God.
You may call it Life.
You may call it the Universe.
You may call it chance, circumstance, reality, or simply the stuff I cannot control.
You may not believe anybody or anything is “handling” it at all.
You still have a chair here.
Because you don’t have to believe what I believe to know what it feels like to exhaust yourself trying to control an outcome that refuses to belong to you.
You can love somebody.
You cannot make them love you well.
You can tell the truth.
You cannot make somebody believe you.
You can apologize.
You cannot control whether your apology is accepted.
You can prepare.
You cannot guarantee what happens next.
You can show up.
You cannot control who meets you there.
You can plant.
You cannot stand over the ground screaming, GROW!
Well.
You can.
😂
But now you’re just outside arguing with dirt.
And the dirt is undefeated.
😂😂
There is freedom in knowing the difference between responsibility and control.
Responsibility asks:
What belongs to me?
Control says:
And now I need to manage everybody else’s part too.
No, beloved.
Put that down.
For me, this is where my faith enters the conversation.
There is a story in Exodus where the people are terrified, trapped between what is behind them and what appears impossible in front of them.
And the message contains two things that have stayed with me:
God will fight.
And they still have to move forward.
That speaks to me because of what I believe.
But you don’t have to share my faith to recognize the principle.
Releasing control does not mean releasing responsibility.
“Let it go” does not mean ignore what is yours to do.
And “something bigger than me will handle it” should never become an excuse to leave your part sitting on somebody else’s doorstep.
Sometimes you are the apology.
Sometimes you need to make the call.
Sometimes you need to change.
Sometimes you need to stop waiting for somebody else to fix what is sitting squarely in your hands.
And sometimes?
You have done everything that belongs to you.
That’s the part I want us to recognize too.
Because there comes a point when continuing to wrestle with something isn’t responsibility anymore.
It’s an attempt to control what cannot be controlled.
And that will wear you slap out.
Maybe you are waiting for an answer.
Maybe somebody you love is making choices you cannot make for them.
Maybe you did your absolute best and the outcome still wasn’t what you wanted.
Maybe you’re standing in a season that doesn’t have a neat explanation.
Maybe there isn’t a lesson hiding behind every corner.
Maybe everything doesn’t happen for a reason.
Maybe I don’t need to hand you a pretty sentence and tell you everything is going to work out exactly the way you want.
I don’t know that.
Neither do you.
And pretending otherwise doesn’t make hard things easier.
But I do know this:
You can decide what belongs in your hands.
And you can decide what doesn’t.
For me?
I give that second pile to God.
You may give yours to Life.
You may give yours to the Universe.
You may simply look at it and say:
This is beyond my control, and I am not going to destroy myself trying to control it.
Different language.
Same exhale.
Do what is yours.
Own what is yours.
Repair what is yours.
Carry what is yours.
And when you reach the edge of what actually belongs to you?
Stop.
You don’t have to keep reaching over that line just because uncertainty makes you uncomfortable.
Let tomorrow arrive without trying to drag it into today.
Let other grown people own their choices.
Let unanswered questions remain unanswered when there isn’t an answer yet.
Let life unfold without demanding that you personally supervise every inch of it.
I call that trusting God.
You may call it surrender.
Acceptance.
Release.
Reality.
Peace.
Whatever you call it, beloveds, maybe today we can stop confusing caring deeply with controlling everything.
You are allowed to care.
You are allowed to hope.
You are allowed to work.
You are allowed to fight for what matters.
You are allowed to believe.
You are allowed not to believe.
And you are allowed to reach the end of your responsibility and say:
