#36: Release the Burden, Put Down the Mountain

Feeling stretched thin by roles, expectations, and the voice in your head that never stops? We go straight at the heart of Lent and talk about release—laying down the burdens we carry. 

We get practical and honest about the “overs” that quietly exhaust us:
over-functioning
over-committing
over-explaining
over-apologizing
over-performing

You’ll hear simple language you can use to say no without guilt and a fresh lens to discern whether a responsibility is God-assigned or self-assumed. Along the way, we hold up Matthew 11 like a compass, remembering that Jesus calls the weary and burdened, not the polished and impressive. His easy yoke is not a fairy tale; it’s a fitted way of carrying life that doesn’t crush your soul.

From vivid beach imagery to hawks riding thermals, we reimagine what it means to run with perseverance by traveling lighter. We talk about holding joy and heartache together. We close with two grounding questions to guide your week:
What are you exhausted from carrying?
What might it look like to lay it down?

If you’re longing to trade hurry for wholeness, and to align your yes with your actual calling, this conversation will meet you right where you are.

If this resonated, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs lighter shoulders, and leave a review to help more listeners find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And Lent Context

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Ciao and welcome to Life Out Loud. I am your host, Desiree Melfi Bozo. We are going to use this space to share experiences and help you find lasting, unshakeable, unwavering, unmassable with joy and gratitude. We're going to be throwing around encouragement a little bit like confetti and giving you support to live your very best life. Ciao friends. Welcome back to the Life Out Loud Podcast.

From Returning To Releasing

Hebrews 12 And Persecuted Audience

What We Carry And Why It Weighs

Throw It Off: The Beach Imagery

Not Managing Burdens, Releasing Them

Letting Go Of The Overs: Five Traps

Discern What God Assigned

Matthew 11: Come, Weary And Burdened

Easy Yoke Versus Self-Made Loads

Hawks, Mountains, And Miscarried Weight

Equipped For Trials, Not Alone

Holding Joy And Heartache Together

Release Precedes Rest

Two Questions For Surrender

Marriage, Rightness, And Laying It Down

Prayer, Encouragement, And Closing

SPEAKER_01 0:34

This is episode 36. I am your host, Desiree Melfi Bozzo, and we are in the second week of Lent. So last episode we talked about returning and this notion of Lent being a time to prepare our hearts to return back to the king, back to the throne. And this week we are going to dive into what we do when we get there. So I want to talk about this release. And I alluded to it last week as we talked through the returning, but now I want to talk about the actual letting go of the things that we carry. So I want to start in Hebrews 12, verse 1, just one verse. Good, great, nonetheless, actually. So therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out before us. I have a little note in my Bible, and it says, This is back from like five years ago, they saw only part in what you and I can look at and see fully. This is amazing. And if you know anything about Hebrews, we have to kind of set the context of what's happening here. So in Hebrews, when it was written, it was written to a people who were being persecuted for forsaking Judaism for Christ. They face these people were received this letter in the midst of facing a bitter, bitter opposition. And we have to read it in that context because it shows us that these people were going through such a hard time and they only saw a slice of what was happening. God willing, we will never face persecution in our lifetime for loving Jesus. These people were in the middle of it. And so when we read this, we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses. Let us throw up everything that hinders the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance, the race marked out before us. Those were like the ultimate words of encouragement for these people. Hebrews instructs us to throw off all that hinders and the sin that we all know so easily entangles us. Our lives as parents, as moms, as women requires discipline and it requires endurance. Those are things that are like must-haves for our lives. Yet, and there is so much that hinders us. We carry so much as humans because we live on this side of heaven. We carry around guilt. We carry around regrets. Sometimes the enemy has us believing shame. We carry around comparison. We carry around other people's words. Sometimes from lifetimes ago, years ago, decades ago, we still carry those words and we hear them in our minds, and sometimes we believe them and we let them become who we are. We think they're our identity and they're not. It was somebody else's brokenness. We carry around expectations of how our lives should go or who we should be by this point in time or how things should look or or or all kinds of expectations. We carry around responsibilities that aren't ours, obligations. I talked about that last episode. We can't walk freely, let alone run in any capacity, the race design for us, where we're carrying and gripping and holding on to everything as tight as we do. Sometimes is another real thing. We've been carrying things so long that we actually don't realize we're carrying them, and we don't realize how heavy our backpacks have actually gotten. We don't realize, oh man, I could have put that thing down. I could have let that thing go. Hebrew says throw it off, and I love that imagery. I love that imagery. And it this is, I don't know if this is a glimpse into my psyche or what, but when I hear those words, throw it off, like throw off everything that hinders, like all I all I can think about is the beach in Italy where our family lives. That's literally all I can think. That's the only place my mind goes. There's a spot every time we get there, and it's where the sidewalk and the pavement meets the sand, and you go from like this amazing warm pavement to like your feet just soaking in the sand. You know exactly what I'm talking about. And in the moment that happens and your feet hit the sand, I look at that beautiful ocean, and I want to literally throw off everything beyond before my bathing suit. I want to throw off the sandals and I want to throw off the hat and I want to throw off the um the uh cover-up and I want to throw down the bags and the towel, and I just want to run and dive my body into that ocean and just feel that warm water on me. And that's what I think of when I read these words in Hebrew that says, throw off all that hinders you. Like that's the kind of race that we're supposed to be running with perseverance. I love this imagery. And the coolest thing about Hebrews here is that he's not saying, like, hey, manage it. You know what? Why don't you organize it? Organize the things that hinder you. Make a list. Where am I type a list? People. Hi, I am too. He's not saying, go bail, go, you know, balance out your days and the things that hinder you. He's saying throw it off. Get rid of it, let it go. Channel channel your inner Elsa here, okay? Throw off the things that hinder. What does this look like real time for us? It means letting go of overfunctioning. How many of you out there are overfunctioning, doing all the things, being all the things, taking on all the roles for what? Then we wonder why we're tired. Overcommitting. Yep, I'll do that. Maybe the most powerful phrase in this season that you can say is thank you so much for thinking of me. I'm actually gonna pass on this opportunity. No. No, is like a beautiful, wonderful, freeing phrase. Maybe it's letting go of over-explaining. How many of you, in an attempt to over-communicate, end up over-explaining? You don't owe an explanation to anyone except God and maybe your spouse. We've gotten to this um this mindset, I think, where we have to over-explain everything. People don't need to know all the things, and you might be like me and be like, but if they don't know, then they might make up a story. People are gonna make up a story anyways. People are gonna talk anyways. Stop over-explaining, and that leads us into the next one. Stop over-apologizing. How many of you start sentences with, I'm so sorry, but oh, I'm sorry to what? I'm sorry for taking up space. Absolutely not. Stop over-apologizing. Let it go. And the last one I have written on my little list here is overperforming. How many times do we reach complete and utter burnout? Because we're so over-performing and doing all the things and being great at everything. Newsflash, we can't be all the things to all the people for all the roles at all the times. Lent invites us to ask the very real and very sacred question. Am I meant to be carrying this right now? And that requires us to get really quiet with God because not everything you're carrying. Here's the other piece, was assigned to you by God. How many times do we sign up for things, sign up to volunteer, sign up for a role, sign up for this, do this, do that, without actually taking it to the throne of grace and saying, hey, God, is this for me? Cool opportunity. Is this mine? I actually have one right now. I've been praying on it for two months. Two months I've been praying on it because man, I want to do it and I think I got a lot to give, but I don't quite know yet if it's for me. And I've been wrestling with it and trying to dig deep and trying to understand and trying to pray about it and figure it out, and I gotta give an answer soon. It's waiting, it's a cool opportunity, but I'm not entirely sure if it's for me to carry in this season right now. So, with that, Hebrews, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance, the race marked out for us. I want to take us back a little bit to Matthew. Matthew 11, 28 to 30. We all know this one. You've heard it. Uh a lot of times you've heard it. These are Jesus' own sacred words. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Those were Jesus' own words. Calling us to him. Come to me. It's funny here because he's calling the weary and the burdened. You know who he's not calling? Not calling the high performers, not calling the perfect ones. No perfectionism here. Not calling the impressive ones with the nice titles, not calling the one with the a bunch of commas and decimals in their bank account. Not calling the ones with the square footage or the great cars or any of that. He's calling the tired ones. Calling the weary ones. Also, let me just stop for a second. There's nothing wrong with any of those things I listed, and I enjoy them a lot. Okay, but and none of it matters because he's not calling on that. He's not calling on our success. He's calling on our weary and our burdened and our broken and our tired. He's calling us so we can receive his gift of rest. Verse 29 says, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. This means we have a responsibility and we have a calling on our life. Every single one of us, God ordained you and put you on this earth in this time for this generation with your calling, and nobody else on earth can fulfill it except you. But here's the difference one is a burden that we picked up and created, and the other one is a burden assigned to us by the King of King and the Lord of Lords. One of those burdens will crush us. The other burden will make us sore. When I was jotting down notes uh for this um podcast, because I have notes, because if I didn't, we'd all be out in left field. I have notes to keep me on the path. I looked out my window and I'm pretty sure they were hawks. We don't have like eagles here. In my mind, I want to pretend they were eagles. They were definitely hawks, probably scavenging the woods for some something uh unappetizing to my stomach, but uh they were soaring. They were way up there and they were just soaring. And I had to laugh, like, thanks, God, for the imagery, because that is quite majestic. Some of us are walking around carrying things that the Lord never ever asked us to carry. There's this um next to my sink at the in my kitchen. I have a cabinet, and on the inside of the cabinet, whatever, so I can see it while I'm doing dishes. It's quite cathartic and therapeutic. Uh, I have some quotes, and uh, one of them is they're pretty sure I got on Pinterest like 25 years ago, but uh it says, those mountains you are carrying, sweetheart, you were only supposed to climb them. And I'm wondering how many of us are carrying things that were never ever intended, never intended for us to be carrying. Things that we were only supposed to climb over, learn a lesson and move on from. And yet we carry it. We carry the responsibility, we carry the heartbreak, we carry the expectations, we carry the guilt, we carry the shit, like whatever the thing is. My dear, you were only supposed to climb over it. You weren't meant to take pieces of the mountain and put it in your backpack, and then we wonder why we talk why we're tired. We're not often tired because we're failing at life. Enemy wants us to think that because he can, if he can get us to think we're failing at life, well then we suck and we can't possibly get better because we're just failing at life. But and we're tired because we're carrying something never meant for us to carry. Lent is about releasing it. In the believer's Bible commentary about Matthew, um uh this section about his yoke is easy, his burden is light, it says, if Jesus had a sign outside his carpenter shop, it would have read, My yokes fit well. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. God isn't gonna give you something that he's never equipped you with. But how many times do we sign up for things on this side of heaven that we can't we're not equipped for, but we think it's ours to carry. Now, let me stop you. This isn't to say life doesn't have trials and heartache and heartbreak and devastation. Okay, we've all lived long enough to know that it does, but it means we don't have to bear them alone. When I was giving our uh my talk to moms around this message, um, one of the things that came up was uh my infertility journey. It popped in my head and it's worthy of noting. It's not on my notes because it's not something I revisit often. Uh the infertility journey is such a clear picture of what this means. This is holding heartache while holding joy for somebody else's pregnancy. It's being able to say, I am so heartbroken for myself, and I am so happy for you. Those are the things we face on this side of heaven. God equipped me for that journey. Some days I wish he wouldn't have equipped me, but he did. He equipped me for that journey. He knew I had a big mouth and I'd go give encouragement to other women dealing with it, going through it. The other uh God wink I got around this, which I thought was fantastic, uh, on what day is today? Today's Tuesday that I'm putting this out. This past weekend, Sunday night. Uh, we we um our EFAM with Elevation Church, and we went to the Elevation Worship concert, and Pastor Stevens message was literally on this the joy of Psalm 100 in the middle of holding the heartache and the heartbreak in what Psalm 13? Same dude wrote the same words. Sometimes we have to hold the joy and the heartache in the same exact time at the same exact time. Lent is the season where we get to release the things we're carrying. Lent is the season for this. So here's what it looks like. I have two questions for you, and I want I want to tell you what this looks like. So there's the rest that we're all seeking after. But the thing that precedes the rest is the release. We can't possibly get the rest that Jesus is talking about in Matthew 11 if we don't release it to him first. Release the burdens. Come to me when you're weary and burdened, and I'm going to give you the rest. Take my yoke, learn from me. I'm gentle and humble in heart. He's saying I'm a kind, good God for you, and you will find rest for your souls. His yoke is easy, his burden is light. Release precedes the rest. It's why before Resurrection Sunday ever happened, there was a surrender. And Jesus grieved it. We all know he cried literal, he sweat blood. He cried literal tears. He sweat blood. He was in so much angst. He said, God, I don't want to take drink this cup, but if I must, I will, because your will be done. Jesus knows exactly what we're going through because he had to fully surrender in order to rise on the third day. Before freedom always comes the release, my loves. So there's two questions I want to leave you with. The first one what are you exhausted from carrying? What are the things in your life that close your eyes and you can see them and you're like, I am exhausted from this? Maybe it's not literally a responsibility that you can kind of just hand over or give up, right? Maybe it's parenting, maybe it's marriage. You can't walk away from those things. But is there something that you're carrying that Jesus can help you carry? Is there something that you're carrying that you can get a little bit help of help on the journey? Second question, first one, what are you exhausted from carrying? The second one is what might it look like to lay it down? I want to talk about marriage for a second. Wasn't planning on this, but here we are. Um sometimes in marriage we enjoy being right about things. Very righteous in our rightness. I'm right. That's fine. You can be right, but do you also want to stay married? Because you can be right or be married. You can't having both makes for a kind of a toxic environment. So just, I don't know, that was food for thought. Popped in my head. I thought it might be helpful for someone else. What are you exhausted from carrying? What would it like? What would it be like to lay it down? I pray this week that if you lean into this, I pray that Jesus shows you what you're carrying and what you can release and what you can lay down. And more than that, more than laying down the things he never asked you to hold anyway, I pray that you have the courage to do so. Because it's in that actual laying it down, that's where the gold is, that's where the healing is. My loves, I hope this was helpful for you. I hope in the second week of Lent uh you are encouraged. I pray over you, I pray over your families, I pray over your week. Wherever you're at, whenever you're listening to this, I hope that it met you in a space where you found blessing. As always, come back next time. We're gonna throw more encouragement around my confetti. Uh, last time I said don't get it on your J's, whatever shoes you're wearing, maybe it's your uh you're Burk clogs, because we're now in Birkenstadt clog weather. Uh, don't get in on those, but if it does, it'll probably make them more delightful.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

And we will see you next time. Cheers. Thank you for joining me, Desiree Melfi Bozo, for this episode of Life Out Loud. I would love to hear from you. Leave me a comment, tell me what topics you want to talk about, and how you take your coffee. If you enjoyed what you heard, text a friend the link, share it on social media, or if you're interested in becoming a supporter, beep up over to my webpage, lifeoutloud.me, and sponsor a cup of coffee that keeps this podcast fueled. Until next time, sweet listeners.