Have you ever wanted to be weak? Have you ever been so tired that you just wanted to let go? Of everything? College assignments. Emails from the supervisor. Carpooling the kids and their friends across town. Attending Bible study. Providing emotional stability to family members.
Have you ever just wanted to give up and sink to the floor in surrender? Let your shoulders sag. Mess up your do. Let tears carve rivers down your cheeks. Be weak.
My bedroom floor is where I found myself this past weekend. Granted, not by choice. What began as a relaxing Saturday with a friend turned into food poisoning and hours in the ER. No, those hours of extreme nausea on the floor were not by choice, but they forced me to be honest with myself. Two days later I still wouldn’t have all my energy back. I would wake up just long enough to realize I was still exhausted and fall back asleep—much to my annoyance. I am not a woman that likes to spend her days in bed watching Netflix. My ever-growing checklist needs to be checked off. I need to work out. I need to turn in an assignment. I need to do laundry. I need to check up on my friend. I need to clean my house. I need to prepare for Bible study. I need to wash my car. I need to cook for the week. I need to budget my finances. I need to do—there is no time in my schedule for slacking off. And yet, when I forced my body to return to work a day early, I heard God clearly say you’ve been running a hundred miles an hour all month. You need to rest.
And, He wasn’t wrong. I returned from a two-week mission trip just to head straight back to work and my other responsibilities without ever truly taking a breather. I battled fatigue, jet lag, and adverse reactions from my travel medications for over a week. I began to feel better just to catch what felt like the flu. I started recovering from that just to have an ovarian cyst burst amid another painful cycle. That passed just to catch food poisoning. My body had been warring all month, but my mind warred harder. Though my body was screaming for rest and relief my mind wrestled with feelings of insufficiency and frustration because I could not get back into my regular routine. The routine that allowed me to do my daily devotion, practice piano, and workout before clocking in at 8 am. The routine that allowed me to rush home, crank out an assignment, edit photos for a client, call my mom, say a quick prayer, and get in bed by 8:30 pm just to do it all over again. The routine that allowed me to be a strong, independent, Black woman.
I am not sure when we started clinging to this unrealistic idea that we need be the strong ones. And this pressure to withstand constant pressure has crept into the female psyche of most—if not every—ethnic group. But as a Black woman, I find this phrase thrown at me vicariously through non-ethnic coworkers, memes across the internet, and even from the mirror. Yet God was speaking a truth I could not easily comprehend. A verse from the book of Psalms came to memory:
“It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2 NKJV).
How many days had I forced myself to roll out of bed even though my mind was screaming for an extra hour of sleep? How many days had I stayed up late trying to check just one more item off my list? How often had I pushed aside my own trauma and issues to help a family member work through theirs? How long had I tried to be God? Holding on to burdens longer than I should and relying on my own strength instead of depending on Him? I had allowed society’s unrealistic standard to shape the way I thought and acted by making me believe I couldn’t allow myself to be weak.
The merciless hand of society was forcing me to live a lifestyle that was clearly harmful and yet that hand refused to let me rest. God’s hand is different. While He promises to strengthen and help us, He also promises to uphold us with His righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10). Society’s hand holds up a mirror of comparison to women that managed to persevere in our situation; society hurls judgment towards us in our lowest moments. God promises to be our strength when our own runs out. God asks us to depend on Him because He knows we cannot always depend on ourselves.
While I celebrate women empowerment and want to recognize the powerful women that have fought for their fellow sisters, the time has long passed for us to allow ourselves to sink into God’s restorative hands. We need to acknowledge that our strength is a reflection of God’s and that our independence is intertwined with dependence on Him. I can no longer be the strong, independent Black woman. I am instead learning to embrace the weaknesses that prompt me to be dependent on an ever-loving Father. When our souls are heavy and our bodies are broken down, we can turn to God because He promises to be strong for us.
Photo by Anna Shvets.