I Can’t Do This

There are certain situations in life that take us to the end of our strength. Be it trauma, or health issues, or responsibilities that consistently require our attention and deplete our energy.

We try and we try to stay on top of it with positive thoughts and self-empowerment, but it’s like trying to draw gallons of water from a well that only trickles a few drops each day.

We find ourselves with an unintended mantra of “I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough.”

We’ve made it to, or beyond, our breaking point and have nothing left to give. There is no ability to muster up anymore strength. We don’t know what to do next, but we also know we can’t just give up.

Or can we?

Is there a way we can give up and still be okay?

When I went through divorce it was the first real “I can’t do this” moment for me.

As the marriage first started to fail I read every article on healthy marriages and listened to every podcast on how to avoid divorce; but none of the tips or methods were working. After my ex-husband said he officially wanted divorce I spent hours every day praying that God would change his heart. I even spent time working on myself to be a better wife for when God brought him back. And still nothing worked; our marriage remained over.

After putting in so much effort and getting the same result, while simultaneously grieving and in pain over the situation, my hours-long prayers turned into a short, desperate, exhausted cry.

I had made it to the place where the only words I could utter were “I can’t do this”. I told God, “I can’t handle this. I’m not strong enough to carry the weight of this”.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but it turns out that “I can’t do this” was the best prayer I offered God for the duration of that hard season. But what was it about that prayer that was so effective, so life-changing?

Prayer has little to do with the words we say or the amount of time we put in; it has everything to do with the posture in which we approach God. In telling God that I couldn’t handle things, I was asking for help. I was admitting that He was God, and I am not. I had a shift in perspective and a humble heart ready for molding.

It was in that humility, that brokenness, that weakness, that God could begin His work. As long as I tried to create the outcome I wanted through my own efforts, as long as I prayed with a narrow perspective of what I thought was best, I held the situation with a closed fist.

Only when I released control of things could God take the reins again. And only when I stopped relying on my own strength could I rely on God’s endless strength.

For all of us, in that moment when we admit to God that we can’t do it, He swoops in and says “Yes! Finally! I’ve been waiting for you to come to that realization. Because you were not designed to get through life on your own abilities. You were never meant to live in a painful, broken world. Let me carry this weight for you.”

Not only is there a peace that washes over us in relying on God, but it also gives us space to grieve and heal.

One of the most helpful and beautiful ways God gives us strength is by giving us people who carry our burdens with us. This can come from our church, our family, our friends, therapists, or support groups.

Trigger Warning: mentions of self-harm ahead. I’ve been doing a book club with some friends, we’re reading through a book where the author tells her story of struggling with depression as a Christian. In the following section, she describes a period of time where she couldn’t handle the weight of depression and she was tempted to resort to self-harm as a means of coping:

“I wish I could tell you I resisted by leaning on healthy coping skills I’d learned over the years…but I didn’t. As the fog closed in around me, I white-knuckled, hanging on by sheer willpower. One night, I rifled through drawers in search of a blade; I held it in my hand for a long moment. I knew if I started cutting, it wouldn’t be just once. My heart rattled my ribs like the bars of a prison cell as I tucked the razor away. I sat on the floor of my shower shaking violently, head in my hands. I’d made it through. But it didn’t last. It couldn’t last, not when I was depending on strength that seemed to drain out of me more each day. Soon, I was self-harming again.” ( I Love Jesus But I Want to Die by Sarah J Robinson; page 82.)

Sarah goes on to say that it was a friend of hers who noticed something was off. The friend asked what was wrong, Sarah admitted her struggle, and the friend gently and compassionately responded while proceeding to help Sarah along in finding healthier ways to cope.

Sarah writes that her ability to resist the temptation to self-harm would never last because she “was depending on strength that seemed to drain out of [her] more each day”. This is what it looks like when we come to the end of our strength. We try to somehow create more strength from the same source of strength that is depleting from us.

Thankfully, Sarah did not hide her struggles from the friend. Oh she wanted to hide it, she says she was prepared for the judgmental or disappointed response she would receive. But she knew she could no longer rely on herself. She knew she had to find strength from elsewhere. And when she saw the friend respond so gently and carry the burden with her, she had a renewed peace and hope for healing.

I know it’s scary to admit our weakness and brokenness to trusted people in our lives. Vulnerability is not usually on our to-do lists. But people can’t help us unless they are aware that we need help.

Ask yourself this week: Who can I turn to as a source of comfort, encouragement, and strength in this hard season of life? What do I need to let go of and give God control?

I posed the question earlier if we can give up and still be okay. Yes, I believe we can. When we give up control and self-reliance, we can be more than okay.

-Stephanie Lauren Auman