It takes others to ascend…
We've named the weight. We've talked about busyness versus presence. This week we're getting into something a lot of people resist talking about, because it can feel like admitting weakness: the moment your hands get tired and you need someone else to hold them up.
You Were Never Meant to Hold This Alone
Most of us operate with an unspoken rule: handle it yourself. Don't be the one who needs help. Figure it out, push through, keep going no matter how tired you get.
That rule sounds like strength. It usually isn't. It's usually fear — fear that needing help means you're not enough, fear that someone seeing you struggle will think less of you.
Here's the cost: the person who refuses to let anyone hold their hands up eventually drops what they're holding. Not because they're weak — because everyone has a limit, and going it alone gets you there faster and harder.
And here's the quiet tragedy: most of the people around you would gladly hold your hands up if they knew your arms were shaking. They just never get the chance, because you never say anything until you've already collapsed.
3 Things to Know About Needing Help
Every strong person you admire has had someone holding them up
Strength that looks solo almost never is. Look closely enough at anyone's story and you'll find the people who held one side of it.Asking for help is not the failure — pretending you don't need it is
The moment you stop performing self-sufficiency is usually the moment real support becomes possible.Help often arrives before you think to ask for it — if you've let people close enough to see
Proximity matters. People can't hold up hands they never knew were tired.
The Question to Sit With
Who have I let close enough to hold my hands up when they get tired?
Practical Action
This week, identify one person — a friend, a family member, someone in your community — who could be that support for you. Reach out and tell them something true: where your hands are getting tired right now.
Prayer
"God — thank you for the people you've put around me to hold my hands up. Give me the courage to actually let them. Amen."
This Week on the Podcast
Episode 3 of HOLD THE LINE — "Hands That Got Tired" — is live now. We're in Exodus 17:8–13, the story of Moses, Aaron, and Hur, alongside Ernest Shackleton's legendary thirty-six-hour crossing of South Georgia Island, where three exhausted men survived because none of them pretended he didn't need the rope.
This week's resource is "Find Your Aaron and Hur," a short guide to identifying who's actually in your corner before you're at your limit.
Hit reply and tell me: who's actually holding your hands up right now — and have you told them what it means to you?
I read every response.
One step at a time.
— Alexx
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