Last Post we figured out that God's love was not a reward for your performance. It was a gift before your performance even existed. We received that truth last post and then immediately found a way to put conditions back on it. We said okay God loves me unconditionally. BUT. But I still have to maintain it. But I still have to be consistent enough to keep it. But I still have to not mess up too badly or too often. But His grace has a limit and I have probably found it by now. That BUT is the fine print. And today we are tearing it out. I grew up in a world where love always had fine print. I think most of us did. The love in our homes had fine print. Behave and you are loved. Perform well and you are celebrated. Embarrass us and the warmth disappears. The love in our relationships had fine print. Be what I need and I stay. Stop meeting my needs and I leave. Even the love in some of our church experiences had fine print. Follow these rules and you belong here. Break them and you are on the outside looking in. So when someone tells us God loves us unconditionally our brain does not know what to do with that. Because every love we have ever experienced came with a contract. And we have been looking for the contract with God ever since. Reading the Bible trying to find the clause. Listening to sermons waiting for the catch. Confessing our sins frantically because surely this is the thing that finally tips the scales. Waiting for the moment God finally says okay that was too much. I am done with you. But that moment never comes. Not because you have not given Him enough reasons. Because His love does not work that way. Romans 8 Verses 38 and 39. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord...... Death. Life. Angels. Demons. The present. The future. Powers. Height. Depth. Anything else in all creation.

And I know that might sound regular to some of you. People cry in church all the time. But it is not regular for me. I am a gangster. 😂 Crying is genuinely not something my body does easily. I do not jump around. I do not shout. I do not take off running down the aisle. You will normally find me in middle with a notebook writing down everything I want to study later. That is just who I am. But yesterday I cried. And I did not pay attention to who was around me. I did not think about how I looked. I did not manage it or control it or wait until I got to the car. I just cried. And in that crying I finally stopped performing. I cried because I am exhausted. I cried because I have been everything for everyone for so long that I forgot what it feels like to just be Ashley. I cried because I thought I was doing right by homeschooling my children and some days it is driving me absolutely bananas. I cried because I have always been a good steward of money and I still had to move three times in one year just to protect my family. I cried because this is not exactly the vision I had for my life at this point. I cried because I am a good person who does great things and I still have unaddressed trauma sitting in places I have not been brave enough to look at yet. I cried because I am tired of being in control. And for the first time in a long time it felt so good to not be. So I need to tell you something today. I am an amazing kids Bible teacher. I am the one God gave a word for parents. I show up here consistently with tools and truth and fire and I mean every single word of it. And I still struggle. I still fall short. I still have hard days and hard seasons and things I have not figured out yet. And that is okay. As of yesterday I am officially assigned to a counselor at my church. And I am sharing that out loud on purpose. Because as long as I stay silent the enemy wins. And I refuse to let him win. So today I am speaking up. Against quiet depression that nobody talks about because it does not look dramatic enough to be real.

Day one we named the anger. Day two we went underneath it and named the specific hurt. Day three we talked about the mask and what it costs us to keep wearing it. And today we lay it down. Not fix it. Not resolve it. Not tie it up in a bow and pretend it is all better now. Just lay it down at His feet. I want to take you to a moment in scripture that I think most people rush past. Matthew 11:28. Jesus says -- Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. We quote that verse all the time. But I want you to sit in the word WEARY for a second. The Greek word there is kopiao. It means to work to the point of exhaustion. To labor until you have nothing left. To be so spent that continuing feels impossible. Jesus was not talking to people who were mildly tired. He was talking to people who were completely done. People who had been carrying something so heavy for so long that their whole body and soul felt the weight of it. People like you. People like me. And He did not say -get yourself together and then come. He did not say clean up the mess first and then come. He did not say figure out how to fix it and then come. He said COME. As you are. With the anger still there. With the hurt still there. With the questions still unanswered. With the mask finally off. Come. And I will give you rest. Laying it down does not mean the situation disappears. Your child may still be struggling tomorrow. The unanswered prayer may still be unanswered. The loss may still feel like a loss. The season may not be over yet. Laying it down does not change your circumstances overnight. But it changes YOU in the middle of them. Because when you are carrying something, when you are white knuckling a burden that was never yours to hold alone it consumes everything. Your energy. Your peace. Your capacity to be present. Your ability to hear God. Your joy. Your sleep. Your ability to parent from a full place instead of a depleted one. The weight of what you are carrying is costing you more than you realize.