Your nervous system was not designed to be aware of all of the violence in the world, and your spirit was not wired to carry global grief on an hourly scroll.
Being in community is hard for me.
Not just because I’m an introvert who needs alone time to recharge. It is that, but it’s also something more. It’s spiritually hard. Soul-level exhausting.
I walk into a room and feel everything. The tension. The pretending. The apathy. The mess under the surface.
It’s like I have a radar for suffering—and sometimes it won’t shut off.
I feel this low-grade grief that builds into frustration, not because I think I’m better than anyone, but because I care so much about what’s true, what’s holy, what’s real, and who’s hurting.
And on top of that, it’s hard to be in a room (or a church, or a group chat) and feel like I’m the only one who sees what’s broken.
I don’t want to fix everyone (but I kinda do). I just don’t know how not to feel it. That’s the problem. It’s the same online when I scroll past headlines, when I hear stories from across the world that I can’t possibly touch but somehow still carry. I scroll past spiritual platitudes and flinch. I see rumors being shared and feel panic. I watch political leaders spin truth, and feel righteous anger bubble up inside of me.
I know I’m not God, but I feel like I’m carrying pieces of His anger and heartache. And that weight? It’s crushing when I don’t know what to do with it.

For a while, I thought I only had two options:
• Withdraw. Just stop showing up. Hide in my cave of quiet and let the world do what it wants.
• Rage. Call it out. Push back. Get louder and more convicted until the weight lifts.
But neither option worked. Withdrawing gave me relief, but also loneliness. And raging gave me adrenaline, but not peace.
So I asked God: How do I live in community without falling apart inside?
And slowly, He revealed that I’m not meant to carry the weight. I’m meant to release it and trust the omnipotent One with it.
What I have always called “discernment” is real, I think. But when I’m absorbing what I’ve discerned, holding it, identifying with it, that’s just crushing.
Trying to do God’s job with a human nervous system is both futile and self-destructive. The ache may be valid, but it’s not an invitation to control or correct.

What it is is a signal to pray, to trust, and to give it back to the One who holds it all anyway.
And here’s the shift that changed everything: Whether I’m in a small circle of friends or staring at a breaking-news headline, I can’t be present with people if I’m preoccupied with their darkness. And I can’t reflect Christ if I’m constantly worried about what’s broken.
But I can bring what I see to Jesus.
• I can grieve it.
• I can name it.
• I can hand it back.
Truth is, He never said that I was here to fix the world. Even though I could have sworn that’s what He said.
I’m here to love people in a way that lets them imagine something better. And that applies just as much to my neighbor across the street as to the stranger across the ocean.
So if you’re someone who feels too much about the culture, the headlines, the classroom, the sanctuary…
You’re not crazy.
You’re not broken.
And you’re not wrong.

You’re just sensitive to what’s real, and that’s not a weakness. But you do need a way to live with that sensitivity without letting it turn into bitterness, burnout, or panic.
The reality is we weren’t made to carry the weight of the world. Not just emotionally, but existentially.
Back in the garden, what undid everything wasn’t rebellion in the loud, dramatic sense. It was the desire to know—to know the difference between good and evil. To have access to information that belonged to God alone.
And we’ve been unraveling ever since.
Adam and Eve weren’t content just to live in trust. They wanted to discern, to define, to know. And now? We’ve got a 24-hour stream of everything they never should’ve touched: Every disaster. Every controversy. Every failure. Every betrayal. Every lie.
Your nervous system was not designed to be aware of all of the violence in the world, and your spirit was not wired to carry global grief on an hourly scroll.
All this knowing is doing something to us. It’s giving us anger, ulcers, and resentment. It’s flooding our bodies with fear and filling our faith with fatalism.
And it’s making us suspicious of each other and making it hard to hope. We think we’re staying informed, but really, we’re just staying inflamed. And that’s not faithfulness, it’s spiritual overload.
So here’s what I’m practicing now:
• Spending more time thanking God than wondering what He’s doing or not doing.
• Noticing the world in passing, but constantly returning my gaze to the Creator.
• Focusing on the people I can actively love right now.
• Praying instead of spiraling.
• Believing that God sees even more than I do—and is infinitely better at being God than I am.
And doing that, I hope I can live in my community and in my world, without being crushed by the weight of what I was never meant to carry.
Do you ever feel crushed by the weight of the world?
How would it feel to put that weight off your shoulders and onto His?

I can get overwhelmed very quickly. Thank you for the reminder that his shoulders are meant to carry the world, not mine.
Wow!!! I needed this reminder. Wise words ❤️