To the Black Woman Who’s Holding It All Together

My mother died at 53. Her mother died at 66. Her mother’s mother died at 73. I created this space for the Black women who have witnessed only work and worry. The type of work that burns out the body, the type of worry that burdens the soul. I created this page, not to add days to my life, but to bring meaning to the days I have left, and to share that meaning with Black women everywhere.

For the Black women who believe better careers would fulfill us, only to climb corporate ladders breathless.

For the Black women who thought marital love would heal us, only to become mules for someone else’s wholeness.

For the Black women who gave up everything to give our children a better life, only to be left with an empty nest and adult children who never return to replenish it.

I write to remind you of the sacredness of taking care of yourself. The anointing of your no. The blessing of boundaries.

There’s a story that I encountered in the gospels that revolutionized my commitment to reminding Black women about the importance of sitting down and saying no. In Luke 10:38-42, Martha and Mary are hosting Jesus as he travels through town. Martha welcomed Jesus into her home and as she over-functions, as many Black women do, she notices her sister Mary who “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.” The text continues, “But Martha was distracted by her many tasks.” Her next move, tragically, isn’t to sit down too. Instead she pleads with Jesus, “Do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?” And Jesus answers her with unexpected tenderness. He tells her that Mary, in fact, “has chosen the better part.”

Here’s what stands out to me about Black women’s presence, power, and priorities.

Martha is the part of us conditioned to prove our worth through performance, especially in systems that expect our service but ignore our suffering.

Mary is the part of us that craves sacred stillness and contemplative presence, and the right to just be.

Mary is disrupting the domestic expectation of Black women: to serve others while starving ourselves.

She is refusing to be the mule.

Her stillness is protest.

Her listening is liberation.

But notice, Jesus doesn’t shame Martha for serving. He names what’s beneath her frustration: anxiety, distraction, and misplaced urgency. He says “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.” When I think about my mother, grandmother, and my great-grandmother and all the many things that worried them, I wonder if they’re also worrying you: internalized capitalism, the trauma of needing to be indispensable, generational expectations passed down through motherliness, and ministry that becomes motion without meaning.

I feel compelled to remind you, just as Jesus reminded Martha: there is a better part. It may not be the only part, but it is the most neglected.

I’m not here to condemn your service. I’m here to help you recalibrate it.

This is your permission to put it all down.

Just for a moment.

Just long enough to remember:

You are sacred.