She didn’t realize how heavy it had gotten.
She’d been holding it for so long that it just felt like… her. Like this was simply who she was now. A woman who carried a quiet anger, a low-grade grief, a door she refused to close because closing it meant admitting it was really over.
A Listening Heart
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Maybe you know that feeling, sis.
Holding on can look like loyalty. It can look like hope. But after a while — if we’re honest — it starts to look like something else. It starts to look like a way of staying connected to a pain we haven’t fully processed.
I taught on this recently — watch the full message below:
What you hold too tightly will eventually cost you what you value most — your peace, your presence, and your ability to receive what God has next.
Isaiah 43:18–19 — “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!”
What Holding On Actually Costs You
We rarely talk about the price tag of unforgiveness and unresolved grief. We talk about how hard it is to let go. But we don’t often sit with what holding on is actually taking from us — right now, in real time.
It costs you your presence. When you’re holding on to a past wound or a past version of a relationship, part of you is always somewhere else. Your body is here. Your heart is still in that conversation, that moment, that year.
It costs you your capacity to receive love. When your hands are full of what was, they can’t open to receive what is. New relationships, new joy, new grace — they all require open hands.
It costs you your peace. Hebrews 12:15 warns against a bitter root growing in us — because bitterness doesn’t stay contained. It seeps into everything: your sleep, your conversations, your ability to trust again.
Why We Hold On (And Why That’s Understandable)
Here’s what I want you to hear before we talk about letting go: holding on often makes complete emotional sense.
Letting go can feel like saying it didn’t matter. Like agreeing that what happened was acceptable. Like giving up on someone you genuinely loved.
None of that is true. But grief will tell you it is.
Letting go is not erasure. It is not betrayal of what you lost. It is the courageous act of trusting that God can redeem what was taken — and that your future is not diminished by your past.
How to Begin Releasing What You’ve Been Holding
Name it specifically. Vague grief is hard to release. What exactly are you holding? The hope of an apology? The relationship as it used to be? The version of yourself before the hurt? Get specific, and bring that specific thing to God.
Grieve it properly before you release it. Letting go comes after the pain — not instead of it. Give yourself permission to mourn what was lost. Then, from that honest place, open your hands and hand it over.
Repeat the release as many times as you need to. Letting go is rarely a single moment. It is a practice. Some days you’ll release it and the next morning it’s back in your hands. That’s okay. Bring it to the altar again. God never tires of receiving what you surrender to Him.
Isaiah 43 doesn’t say “once you’ve fully processed everything, I’ll do a new thing.” It says: See, I am doing a new thing — right now, even now, even here. You just have to look up from what you’re holding long enough to see it.
God is not waiting for you to be over it before He starts the new thing. But He is waiting for you to open your hands.
If this resonated with you, I’d love to continue the conversation in the Hidden Treasures Community — a safe, faith-filled space where women are doing the real work of healing together. Come join us.