Care But Don't Carry

I met Sara Wolfe through my women's wellness coaching certification program where she served as my mentor. I have gotten bits and pieces of her story through our coaching sessions together, but sitting down to record this episode I still did not know exactly what she was going to share. What unfolded was one of the most honest and layered conversations about faith, identity, loss, and coming home to God that I have ever had. Sara and I are not of the same religion — but we both believe in Jesus Christ. And I love that this podcast is a place where that is enough. If you are the person who always holds everything together for everyone else, this episode is for you.

In this episode:

• How Sara's family lost everything in 2008 and what her faith looked like in the middle of homelessness and food stamps

• The 25-year marriage that ended and the faith crisis that followed — and why she needed to wander before she could truly come home

• What it means to have a God consciousness all day long rather than just at scheduled prayer times

• The phrase that changed everything for her — I can care but I do not have to carry

• Why rest and stillness — not effort and striving — is where she finally found her joy again

Sara Wolfe is a co-author of the bestselling book Unstoppable: Stories of Great Resilience and Determination alongside her mentor Lisa Nichols. She is a mother of four grown children, a business coach who helps women grow and scale their businesses, and someone who has spent most of her life being the person everyone else leans on — the glue, the fixer, the one who holds it all together.

She has also been homeless. She has used food stamps in the grocery store while being recognized as her kids' mom. She has led in her church and then walked away from that church. She has raised her children in faith and then spent several years genuinely questioning whether she believed any of it. She has been through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows — and she came back. Not to the same faith she had before. To something deeper. Something she could finally call her own.

In 2008 the real estate market collapsed and Sara's family lost everything. The roof over their heads. The cars they drove. All of it gone. They found themselves homeless with four young children — kindergarten through third grade — navigating food stamps, shut-off water, and the particular shame that comes with being recognized as a leader in your community while quietly falling apart behind the scenes.

From the outside nobody would have known. That is what Sara said. They seemed successful. They seemed fine. But inside they were in survival mode.

What strikes me about how Sara describes that season is not the hardship — though it was very real — but the faith she carried through it. She leaned into God. She trusted He was going to provide food, shelter, a way through. And she turned even the hard moments into teaching opportunities for her kids. When the water got shut off she gathered her children around the bowls and dishes they had pulled out of the cupboard and asked them — before running water, how do you think the pilgrims got theirs? Her kids wanted to go to the neighbor's pool.

She made it holy. She made it a classroom. And God showed up.

But then something harder came. The marriage that Sara and her husband had built their entire life on — rooted in faith, centered on God, led with conviction — ended after twenty-five years. And the fallout from that was not just the grief of a marriage. It was a full identity crisis. A faith crisis. A questioning of everything she had believed.

She had been told what to believe as a child. She had been told what to believe in her marriage. She had been told what to believe as a leader in her church. And now at forty-five years old, alone for the first time, she found herself asking — but what do I actually believe? Who is Sara, apart from everything she has been told to be?

She started looking outside her faith for answers. She explored other spiritual teachings. She meditated instead of prayed. She called God her higher power instead of God. And she wandered for a season — genuinely unsure whether she wanted a relationship with Him at all.

And through all of it, God kept wooing her back. Gently. Persistently. Without demanding anything.

One of the most beautiful things Sara shared was the realization that even in her season of wandering God had never actually left. He was there. She was just choosing to do her own thing. To figure it out on her own. To not tune into the signal that had always been broadcasting.

She described keeping what she called a God consciousness throughout her day — not just praying in the morning or at night but having a continual conversation with Him. Bringing things to Him in real time. Asking Him to show her where the goodness was that she had not yet been able to see. Staying curious about what He might do rather than deciding in advance what was possible.

She also said something I want every woman reading this to hear: He is an unchanging God. He is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow. And when everything in your life is shifting and uncertain and confusing, He is the constant. The anchor. The one thing you can return to regardless of how far you have drifted.

Here is the phrase that stopped me completely in this conversation. Sara said she had spent most of her life being the person who cared for everyone — her children, her marriage, her church community, her business, her family. She was the glue. The one who held everything together and picked up all the pieces.

And the only person who was not being cared for was herself.

What she has learned — and is still learning — is that there is a profound difference between caring and carrying. She can love her children deeply and trust God with their spiritual journey without taking responsibility for their relationship with Him. She can love her partner and pray for him without appointing herself as his Holy Spirit. She can show up fully for the people she loves without collapsing under the weight of everything she has taken on that was never hers to carry.

I can care but I do not have to carry. Say that again slowly. Let it land.

That is not detachment. That is faith. That is trusting that God is big enough to handle the things you have been holding. And that the most loving thing you can do for the people around you is to put them in His hands.

Something Sara said that I keep coming back to is her conviction that the season of wandering — the questioning, the exploring, the stepping away from the faith she had always known — was not a detour. It was necessary. It was part of how she came to own her faith for the first time in her life.

She could not build on a foundation someone else had constructed for her. She needed to test things. To ask what do I actually believe? To discover for herself what aligned with her values and what did not. And every time she moved toward something that was not quite right — some spiritual teaching that had truth in it but not the fullness of Christ — she felt it. The incompleteness. The not quite enough.

And God kept wooing her back. Through a partner who wanted to explore church. Through a pastor whose Instagram she was already following. Through a church in Southern California where she stood in the worship service not singing a word — just rocking slightly, watching, waiting — and felt something begin to soften.

She did not go back to the same faith. She went back to one that was hers. And that made all the difference.

I asked Sara what she would say to women who are not finding joy right now. And her answer was not what I expected.

She said for a long time she was looking for joy in all the external places. Exercise. Community. Sleep. Productivity. All the things we reach for when we are running on empty. And none of them gave her back the spark she was looking for.

What finally did? Rest. Stillness. Knowing that God is God and she does not have to be.

Be still and know that I am God — Psalm 46:10. That is not a passive instruction. It is an invitation. Stop striving. Stop carrying. Stop trying to generate what only He can give. Open your posture, as Sara said — soften your heart, soften your armor, make yourself available to receive the goodness He has already placed in your life that you have been too busy to notice.

Joy does not come from doing more. It comes from being still enough to recognize what is already there.

I want to close with something Sara said near the end of our conversation that I will carry with me for a long time. She said to anyone who is wandering right now — questioning, confused, lonely, doubting — you are going to be okay. Those seasons of isolation and searching are some of the most refining and sharpening moments you will ever experience. Because you are learning who you are. You are discovering what your foundation is actually made of. And God will lead you back to Him as long as you keep your heart open.

He never leaves. He never forsakes. He just keeps wooing — gently, persistently, patiently — until you are ready to come home.

I want to close with something I shared near the end of our conversation that has stayed with me. In the Book of Mormon, I said Alma, but it was actually the prophet Nephi who speaks of Christ quoting Isaiah, saying —"I will not forget you; I have engraven you upon the palms of my hands." With nail prints. He knows what it cost. And He holds us there anyway.

Put down what you were never meant to carry. Rest in the stillness. Let Him be God.

If this episode spoke to you, please share it with someone who needs it today. And if you would like to be a guest on Becoming the Oak Rooted in Christ reach out to me at kendra@becomingtheoak.com.

Until next time — be still, believe, become.