The Weight of Our Stories

In October 2018, during my last year in California, just a few months before I left, I was barely hanging on. You could feel the change slowly coming to the state I grew up in.

That day, I set out with a simple intention—to find one heart-shaped rock for the women who followed my story. It may have sounded like a long shot, but I just knew I would find one. I’ve always had that quiet knowing inside me, the kind that doesn’t argue or explain itself. It just says, keep going, you’ll find it.

And I did.

My husband captured that moment on video, but what stayed with me wasn’t just the rock. It was what it represented. That kind of hope has always lived inside me. It feels less like wishing and more like something steady, something that doesn’t leave even when everything else feels uncertain. It’s the same hope I carried as a little girl, the same one my dad saw when he called me “Pollyanna.”

Over the years, I’ve seen that same hope in other women. Sometimes it’s easy to recognize, and other times it feels buried beneath everything life has placed on their shoulders. We learn to push through, to be strong, to quiet the softer parts of ourselves. But I don’t believe that part ever disappears. I think it waits.

Life has brought more than I ever expected. There were seasons where everything familiar was taken from me, where I had to start over in ways I never would have chosen. There were moments when I didn’t recognize my own life, when I felt like I was holding everything together just to make it through another day.

But even then, that same quiet knowing never left.

There were times I was told there was no way forward. Times when fear pressed in so heavily it felt like it could take over everything. And yet, something inside me kept reaching for God, kept holding on, even when I didn’t have the strength to do much else.

That’s the part I come back to.

Not every detail of what I’ve been through, but what carried me through it.

Since sharing my story, I’ve heard from so many women. Some are searching for answers, but more than that, they are searching for someone who understands the weight they are carrying. I understand that feeling. I know what it’s like to want someone to see you without having to explain everything.

This past year has felt heavy for so many. You can feel it in conversations, in the way people carry themselves, in the quiet stress that doesn’t always get spoken out loud. Sometimes that pressure shows up in ways we don’t expect. Words come out sharper than intended. Reactions feel bigger than the moment.

I understand that too.

When you’ve carried a lot for a long time, it doesn’t take much for something inside to get stirred. We all have places within us that are still tender. Sometimes they get touched without warning.

What I’ve come to understand is that we are all more fragile than we appear, even the strongest among us. And at the same time, there is something steady underneath all of it.

There is still hope.

Not loud or dramatic, but quiet and present. The kind that stays, even when everything else feels uncertain.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed right now, if it feels like too much, it’s okay to acknowledge that. It doesn’t take away from your strength. It doesn’t mean you’re failing.

There is still something within you that has carried you this far.

Look at everything you’ve already made it through.

You are still here.

And God has been there in every part of it, even in the places that felt the most uncertain.

You’re not alone in this.

I understand.

~Shannon Knight