We Can’t Always Save Them

This week I had to have one of the hardest conversations of my life. I had to put a boundary in place that went against everything in my nature.

Because I am a fixer.

I see the pain, the hurt, the addictions, the post-traumas. And everything in me wants to reach out, bundle them up, hold them close, and take it all away. I don’t want them to have to face the lessons, or carry the scars, or walk through the long road of healing. I just want to protect them from it all.

But here’s the truth I keep learning over and over again. I alone cannot save them.

As much as I ache to, I can’t carry the weight of someone else’s story. I can’t erase what they’ve been through. I can’t force them to heal or choose freedom or take the next step.

This kind of stepping back can feel like tearing your own heart out. It feels unnatural, like you are abandoning someone you love. It feels like failure. But it is not failure. It is surrender.

And when we turn the tables, we see it differently. Could they save us? No. I don’t think they could.

It takes making a choice. It takes surrendering to the truth that we can’t do it without a fight. It takes dropping to our knees as we hit rock bottom. Sometimes it takes blow after blow before we finally realise we aren’t invincible.

And many of us have been there. Maybe that’s why we long so desperately to save others from the same fate. We remember what it felt like to break, and we don’t want anyone else to feel it.

But only God can save.

Only He can take the shattered pieces and breathe life into them again. Only He can step into the darkest places and bring light. Only He can turn wounds into stories of redemption.

And maybe, in time, He will show them what they’re made of. He will show them how brave they are. How capable they are of standing again. How their story, the very one that broke them, will one day become strength for someone else who is breaking too.

But to us fixers, letting go doesn’t mean walking away. We don’t just turn our backs and move on. We pray like a barrier around them. We call upon the Lord and trust Him with their lives while we cry the tears we know He will collect. We bury that mustard seed of faith deep in the soil of our heartbreak and watch it grow, big enough to sustain those around us as they walk their path.

And while we wait, we can have arms ready and open wide to take them into our embrace when the time is right. We can love them when they return, and remind them that grace never left.

We can’t always save them. And maybe we aren’t meant to.

Our job is to love them. To pray. To hold space. To keep believing that God is writing something sacred even when we can’t see it yet.

And when it breaks our hearts to let go, we can remember that His hands are stronger than ours. His timing is deeper. His love for them is greater.

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you” -Isaiah 46:4

He will carry them. And He will carry you too.

love, Sarah xx.

All I have to offer are my heart words, and I pray that’s enough.

If they reach even one weary soul, if they whisper comfort to someone standing in their own storm, then it’s worth every tear that went into writing them.

If you would like to support this space, it would mean the world to me. Every prayer, every share, every bit of encouragement helps keep these words flowing to the ones who need them most.

May these words find who they’re meant to.