Stop Trading Your Peace for Someone Else’s Pain

It only takes one call. 
One sentence.
One tear in their voice.
And in an instant, my peace is gone.
My heart carries my kids disappointments like it all belongs to me. 

Have you ever traded your peace for someone else’s pain?
Like your soul couldn’t settle until theirs did?
Maybe it was your child.
Maybe it was a close friend.
Maybe it was someone you have spent your whole life carrying, 

Their tears became your tension.
Their struggle became your storm.
And before you even realized it, your peace was completely dependent on their outcome.

That’s what fixer fatigue feels like.
It builds slowly, until their burden becomes the background noise of your day.
You carry it in silence, even while the world around you keeps moving.

Love will stretch you.
Care will cost you.
Faithfulness will pull on your heart in ways you never expected.
But when it starts to steal your peace, not just occasionally but constantly, that’s the invitation to step back and ask, Am I carrying what I was never meant to hold?

When you love people deeply, you feel their highs.
But you also live their lows.
Their heartbreak?
You are basically applying for a second heart just to carry the load.

Over time, we start to confuse responsibility with rescue.
Especially as parents.
We think if our child is hurting, it must be our job to carry it all.
To absorb their stress.
To preempt their disappointment and to run ahead of their storm and try to patch the sky before they even see the clouds. 

But we were never meant to be their cure.
We were meant to be their covering.
Their guide.
Their support.
We are not required to trade our peace in exchange for their process. 

There is something holy about a parent who can stand close without being consumed.
There is something healing about a friend who listens deeply without spiraling.
There is something unshakable about someone who says with their presence,
I am here.
I am not panicking.
And I trust that even in this God is still writing something good. 

Fixer fatigue shows up when you start believing that your peace cannot return until theirs does.
However, peace is not something you borrow from someone else’s healing.
Peace is something you carry in the middle of their hurt.

Do you feel their pain?
Absolutely.
But the peace is present because you have placed it in stronger hands.

Every parent wants to shield their child from every storm.
But sometimes the holiest act of love is to allow prayer to become the umbrella that covers your kids in storms you cannot stop.
To let them learn, even when it is hard to watch.
To trust that He sees what you cannot and that He is not pacing the floor the way you are.

Maybe the real miracle is not found in fixing the situation.
Maybe it is found in staying anchored and on your knees,
when every instinct tells you to rush in.
To love deeply does not mean losing yourself.
It means knowing when to stand still and let the One who created them do what only He can.