God Will Meet You in Your Weakness

by Cara Putman

Embrace the grind.

Do it with passion or not at all.

Every day is a grind, and you have to go hard.

We’ve all heard phrases like that.

But we also know verses like Matthew 11:28-30: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Or how about Psalm 16:6: The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places?

There are days I can sing those words with certainty. And months where I feel like I have to grit them out from a place of knowing the Bible says them so they must be true, but not feeling them in my soul.

Add to that the voice in my head. You probably have one, too. You know the one. The one that tells you you’re all washed up and you shouldn’t even try? That voice has been an almost constant companion the last eighteen months when it comes to my writing. Maybe even longer. 

Imposter syndrome is something I talk about with my students often, but I don’t know that it’s something we talk about in the church. How can we when we’re children of the King? Can we admit when we don’t feel up to par? Especially when everyone else tells us that we should feel blessed or that we have what they want? When we know that God can work all things together for good?

I’ve been in a challenging season at work. There were some external things last year that were HARD. It sapped my creative energy. Zapped my ability to do much more than the bare necessities. (I now have Jungle Book playing through my mind!) I clung to the truth with determination even when I felt exhausted and drained.

The inability to write left me feeling more like an imposter as an author than I have for a long time. Comparison can be a terrible thing. It truly can sap joy, and when you need that joy to be your strength and reinforce hope, it’s a vicious cycle.

Maybe you can relate. There’s something near and dear to your heart. Something that you hesitate to share with others because if they say a harsh word, it could squelch the little spark that remains. The one you don’t know whether to fan to life or let the next breath of adversity puff out.

When life gets hard, it’s often our dreams and creativity that dry up. All my energy will pour into the immediate needs. Those spaces and places that are loudest. But at the end of the day, there’s little energy left for anything else. Then I’m left to wonder if I have any creativity left. Those are the moments when God reminds me that if He’s called me, He has also equipped me. Those can be some of the sweetest moments of creativity. In those moments of weakness and doubt, there’s more space for Him to show up.

That was never more real than over spring break when I joined some girlfriends who are also writers for a week on the North Carolina beach. I wrote. Walked. Watched a bit of college basketball. And wrote some more. In five days, I wrote 37,000 words, and I felt God’s smile as I created. It felt life-giving and so very good.

I remembered that I’m a writer … and …

I’m still not entirely sure what’s next. There are still many days where I’m tired. But I do know that when I write, I feel God smile. So I will continue to show up. To do what I feel He’s asking me to do. And I encourage you to do the same. He will meet you in your weakness too. 

Cara Putman is the award-winning author of 50 books. She loves to torture her characters with interpersonal conflict that isn’t resolved until the last pages of the books. Her latest novel, The Targeted, releases in May 2026.