When Hope Keeps Breaking and Exhaustion Runs Deep

Lord, I am so tired—not only in my body, but in the part of me that keeps hoping and then having to start over. You see every time I gathered myself back up, and every time the ground gave way again. I confess I do not know when this ends, and that not-knowing is its own weight I have been carrying alone, quietly, as though I had to.

This exhaustion is different from simple fatigue. It is the weariness that comes from interrupted hope, from believing that relief might be near only to find myself knocked down once more. Each cycle takes something from me—not just energy, but a piece of my confidence that things will change. I have carried this silently, as if endurance were a measure of my worth, as if I had to prove something through my ability to keep going.

But I cannot carry this alone anymore. So I bring it to you now—the exhaustion, the interrupted hope, the fear that relief is not coming. I bring the weight of not-knowing when this will end. I bring the bruises from every time I have gathered myself back up.

You see all of it. You see me. And that matters more than I have allowed myself to believe.

I hold onto your word: "He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength." I hold onto it even when I cannot feel it, even when my own strength seems entirely spent. I am asking you to hold me when I cannot hold on. I am asking you to be the strength I do not have.

Let it be enough today simply to be here before you, seen and known. Let that be enough. Let me rest in being witnessed by you, in knowing that my presence here matters, that I matter—not because of what I do or how long I endure, but because you see me.

Amen.