Episode 25 - I'm Exhausted. Jesus, I need you help!

Exhaustion doesn't just make us tired—it often causes us to withdraw from the very people and places that once brought us joy.

In this heartfelt episode, Val Mitchell concludes her series on breaking free from exhaustion by exploring the life of Elijah. After experiencing one of the greatest victories of his ministry, Elijah found himself overwhelmed, isolated, and hiding in a cave. But God didn't leave him there.

Instead, God came looking for him and asked one powerful question:

"What are you doing here, Elijah?"

Through Elijah's story and her own personal testimony, Val shares how God met her at one of the lowest points in her life, reminding her that she didn't have to carry life's burdens alone.

In this episode, you'll discover:

•  Why exhaustion often leads to isolation 
•  How to recognize when you're carrying more than God intended 
•  Why God still pursues His children when they withdraw 
•  How one simple prayer—"Jesus, I need Your help."—can change everything 
•  How Jesus invites every weary heart to exchange heavy burdens for His peace 

If you've been hiding in your own "cave" because life feels overwhelming, this episode is a reminder that God knows where you are, He understands what you're carrying, and He's inviting you to come to Him for rest.

Scriptures

•  1 Kings 19:9–18 
•  Matthew 11:28–30 
•  1 Peter 5:7

Welcome to Valetha's Greatest Moments with God, a podcast for women who desire to hear God's voice, find healing, and grow closer to Him.

Each week, Val Mitchell shares personal stories, biblical insights, and powerful revelations from her own walk with God. Through real-life experiences and practical faith lessons, you'll discover how God speaks in everyday moments, guides us through difficult seasons, and invites us into a deeper relationship with Him.

Wh

Thank you for joining me for today's episode of Valetha's Greatest Moments with God.

If this message encouraged you, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who may need to hear it.

To continue the conversation, connect with me on Facebook at Val Mitchell, where I host weekly Let's Talk LIVE discussions and share additional encouragement throughout the week.

Remember, God is always speaking. Take time to listen, spend time in

Thank you for listening to Valetha's Greatest Moments with God.

If today's episode encouraged you, be sure to follow the podcast and share it with a friend.

Until next time,

Hear God's Voice.
Find Healing.
Build Intimacy and Trust.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Hello, everyone. How are you doing today? For the past three weeks, I had something special. I was doing talk about my new book that's going to be launching this Saturday called I Quit, How to Break Free From Exhaustion, right? Many of us carry so, so much. It makes us mentally, even physically tired, exhausted, where we can't go forward. Well, if you recall, the very first week we talked about how sleep does not fix your exhaustion that you're carrying. And we used a biblical reference from Martha. Martha showed us how she was always busy doing so much that eventually she just was carrying more than she could handle. The second week, we talked about sometimes when we carry things within us that we don't resolve. That can also be a factor that causes us to have exhaustion. We talked about Mary and how she had to deal with the death of her brother Lazarus. But yet she still tried to carry, and she got to a point where she just hit a wall and couldn't do anything anymore. And even when she got in Jesus' presence, she couldn't even go to Jesus. He had to have her sent for in order to pull her out of what she was going through. Last week, we talked about caring, exhaustion sometimes comes to the responsibilities that we have. We have work responsibilities and family obligations, where it just gets so much. And in Moses' story, we learned about how he had to have someone from the outside look at him and say, you're doing too much. No wonder you're exhausted all the time. No wonder your emotions, you're angry a lot. Look at what you're dealing with. And we learned from his life that in order for him to release his burdens, he had to delegate it. He had to give it out to people that can handle it and it clear him up where he can breathe a little bit better. Amen. Amen. Well, this is the final week that I will be going through things that we're talking about when it comes to breaking free from exhaustion. And I really, really hope that these have been some things that you have been able to learn from, find something that kind of relates to what you're dealing with. So you can say, oh my gosh, I am carrying too much. I am exhausted all the time. Wow, I didn't realize if I did this, I can break free from it and I can clear the path for something else. Amen. So who are we dealing with today? Today, we are going to talk about exhaustion from a point of looking at Elijah's life. And I wanted to actually read an excerpt from my book and talk a little bit more of what I dealt with. Because remember the reason I wrote this book, God came to me and said, I want you to share your journey about when you were exhausted, when you thought you had to be a superwoman. And we know what a superwoman is, right? Superwoman is where she feels, okay, I can take care of the kids. I can take care of the financial, family, household responsibilities. I can go to work and still work a full-time demanding job. I can be the one that people depend on, family and friends and whatever they need to try to fix it to. Mind you, I didn't take away anything that I had going on because, hey, I'm superwoman. I'm built for it, I can carry it. And I had got to a point where that started weighing on me. The toll was so heavy. And when I took it to God, God was like, What are you doing? So let me read an extra excerpt, excuse me, from my book, kind of talking about that. Hopefully, you can relate as well. So, right in the introduction where I got started, I wrote, Somewhere inside, you have begun to admit what many strong women try to hide, that you are tired in a way no amount of sleep seems to fix. Yet somehow you keep showing up. You continue carrying what needs to be carried while holding everything together. But deep down, you know a quiet truth, you rarely say out loud, you can't keep living like this. And if you're honest, you are exhausted. There comes a moment when a woman realizes something she has been afraid to omit for years. The strength she depended on is no longer enough. The pressure she has carried for so long has finally become too heavy. That moment is what I now call in this book called I Quit. So when I looked at the reason why I wrote the book, pretty much like I said, God wanted me to really talk about my journey, how I came to a point where I realized that the strength I had initially that I thought I had to be able to carry all those responsibilities and obligations, it got to a point where it was just too heavy, too much to bear, where I was crawling in the bed at night, crying sometimes, and then waking up in the morning with the same exhaustion, just didn't want to face that day. And then I got to a place where I just I didn't want to do it anymore. So when you look up the word exhaustion, it is pretty much coming to a point where you're living in a place where you poured out more than you're actually taking in. And it's a state of extreme physical and mental fatigue. That was the definition I found from Webster. Fatigue is just a lingering tiredness. It's a consistent tiredness that just doesn't go away with going on vacation, doesn't go away when you try to go to sleep at night because you're waking up still feeling that and still carrying that. Do you know that if you live with exhaustion for an extended period of time, it brings on isolation. It brings on discouragement, it can bring on fear. Fear of always trying to live up to what someone else is thinking that you're capable of doing, but you're struggling so hard to meet that because you're exhausted, because you're carrying more than what you should be carrying. So have you come to a point where you're feeling exhausted all the time. You know, how do you know? You notice because you you start withdrawing from people. You know, you you don't want to do things that you would normally do all the time. Even with those whom you love, you kind of become distant. If you're like me, I got to a point I didn't want to answer the phone. People were texting me all the time. I didn't want to return one text message. I was that tired and that drain where when I got home, I didn't want to deal with anybody or anything. I stopped going places, I stopped hanging out. When I, I'm very, very active in my church. And I got to a point where I was doing so much at the church on top of what I was doing. I was getting a little cranky. I was not easy to talk to. And it was even a point where I didn't even realize it till someone said, you know, you, I think you should just, you know, go home and get some rest because, you know, you're not your fun self. I think they were trying to say in a nice way, you're being a little mean. So I mentioned earlier, because you know, I always try to find someone in the Bible who has going something going on or been experiencing something that we can relate. Why do I go to the Bible? I tell you all the time, because the Bible gives us a person that's relatable, where we can say, oh my gosh, someone else has gone through what I went through or going through what I'm going through. But I love it because when you read their story, they always have something at the end that gives you a hint on how you yourself can get out of it. Amen. So I love going to the Bible every time I'm finding something that's relatable that I can deal with. So in this particular week, I wanted, like I said earlier at the beginning, I wanted to talk about Elijah. Elijah, if you know him, famous. He's famous for two, a lot of things, but he's famous for when he went to go in front of King, I think it's Abnar. And he went in front of him and his wife, uh Jezebel, and he said, God said he doesn't like the way you're living and the way you're treating the people and all the bad things you're doing. So therefore, I'm going to close up the waters from the heavens, and you won't see rain until I open my mouth and release it. And that city or that's that area region didn't see a drop of water for several years until Elijah went on the mountaintop and started praying. And we know they said, Oh, wow, I see a small cloud that's the size of a man's fist. And then rain came. The other thing that Elijah's famous for, which we're going to kind of focus on a little bit where I want to go, is he was also famous for showing the Israelites of the land that God is the true and living God. So if you recall, he challenged the prophets and the musicians and all of the false, false prophets and stuff. He put them to a challenge. He said, We are going to build an altar. You build an altar to your God, and I'm going to build an altar to my God, and I'm going to demonstrate that my God is the true and living God, is because he's going to bring fire on the altar, and your God is not going to do it. So you had this one little, so they said, let's, and they had all the people around them watching to see who had the real God. So they built the altar. Elijah built his altar. I think it was stone that he built it or wood. I can't remember. And then the false gods built their altar. Now, after they built their altar, they went through all of their seances and whatever they do to call on their God. They were even cutting themselves and doing all kinds of things to say, God, God, their God, the small G, you know, pour fire on his altar. So Elijah's laughing, cracking up. He built his altar. He put water on the altar, you know, just to really demonstrate this is going to be God doing it. So man can't build this fire. So he put water everywhere and he built up the altar. And then he got to the point and he prayed and said, God, bring down the fire. And God answered and called down the fire from heaven. So we know that's what Elijah's famous for. But because of that action, the queen, I don't want to call her queen because she's not officially called queen in the Bible, but Jezebel came down and she said, I'm going to kill this man. And so he went off running. And he went hid in the cave. Now, when you think about being a man of God, and you think about in the ministry and you're doing a lot of work. Now, Elijah was a powerful man because he had a beautiful one-on-one relationship with God. You have to have a one-on-one relationship with God if you pray to heaven and say, Lord, release the fires, and he does that, right? But it got stressful for him. It got strenuous. It was tough. And then plus he was scared because he had people. He had the Jezebel saying, I'm about to kill you. So he went into the cave. He went mainly to high. But then he went and he said, God, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm out here by myself. I'm the only one that's saying you're the one truly only God. Now, what Elijah didn't know is that God had already had other prophets kind of hidden away. So technically he wasn't the only one, but he didn't know that at the time. But he was tired. He was exhausted. He was it one, he was just not wanting to put up with battles anymore. And so he went and he just hid in a cave. And in verse one, 1 Kings 19, verses 9 and 10, I'm going to read. There he went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the Lord came to him. What are you doing here, Elijah? Verse 10 says, He replied, I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I'm the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too. The beauty of this story is what I want to pull out. Because as believers of God, we do go through good times, and we go through some crazy bad times as well. And when you get into those moments, that too can cause exhaustion, where you feel you're alone, you feel isolated, you're not your norm, and you're fatigued and tired, and you just want to go run and hide. But the beauty of the story is what I want to point out is when Elijah went in isolation, one, because he was fearful, but two, he was tired of the people mistreating God and their false idols, and he just didn't want to deal with it anymore.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

God came looking for him.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

While he was in the cave, God came and said, Elijah, what are you doing here? Now I have interpretation of why I feel God asked that question. Which happens to many of us. When we get to a point of exhaustion where we feel isolated and we're tired, and like the title of my book, I just quit. I don't want to do any of this anymore. Because we have a covenant with God, because we are daughters and king and sons, kings and queens, kings of our most king of kings, he notices when you slip away. He notices when you feel isolated. He notices when you're going through and you're struggling. But the one thing Elijah did not do, which a lot of us, even as believers, don't do, when we hit that low point, we do not turn back to God. We go high. We go find ourselves crawl. I am so guilty of it. Find ourselves go crawl somewhere and just say, I quit. I'm tired. I don't want to do it anymore.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Where God had to come looking for Elijah and said, Elijah, what are you doing here? Don't you know I'm with you?

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Don't you know I'll never leave you nor forsake you? Why are you hiding? What are you doing? Why you just didn't come to me? I personally, which I want to read right quick, my testimony of me going into my exhausting place and how the Lord came to me. It's in my book. So one night a friend invited me to church. While there, she encountered Jesus in a way I had never experienced before. She discovered that he wasn't just a distant figure. She heard about it as a kid, but truly a savior, full of love and compassion. He saw her for who she was and did something she didn't expect. He offered us help. If you didn't guess it by now, the woman I'm speaking about is me. I still remember the words I heard while I was on the altar. I know it's hard being a single mom. I understand the stressful nights and tireless days. I have come to help. So that was my story that I shared in the book. And it was pretty much where I got to a point where I really hit a brick wall. I was isolated. I was cranky all the time. I was in an I quit mode. I didn't want to deal with work anymore. I didn't want to deal with family obligations anymore. I just I was mentally just not there. And then I got that invitation from a friend. Hey, just come on and join me for church. Just come on in. What I didn't know that I know now, that invitation that she extended was God reaching out to me. Just like God went to Elijah and he heard the small voice saying, Elijah, while you're here. And even me, when I ended up at church, I agreed to go to church with her. I encountered God in a way I've never encountered him before. It was definitely a moment where he saw me where I was and he met me there. He came looking for me, and he spoke. And I learned for the first time that God wasn't some figure, because I was back then, I was used to just going to church and you attend the worship, you attend the uh service, you hear the pastor speak. That was a good motivating speak. I read a couple chapters in the Bible, but I never had an encounter with God. I never heard an audible voice. I didn't even know it was possible. I just thought, okay, I believe in him. I've seen him done some things in my life. I go worship him at church. You know, and that's that's who we serve. But to have him meet me at a time when I was broken, and to get such an encounter where God personally said to me on that altar, I see you, I understand your pain, and I come to help. That was powerful, and from that moment forward, God pulled the stressors off of me and helped me maneuver through what I was dealing with, where I was no longer exhausted. I had a renewed refreshness that I was able to learn how to trust God in good times and in crazy times. And that's just like the story in Elijah when God came to Elijah in that cave, and they God said, Why are you here? Elijah had an honest conversation with him. And he was telling him, I'm tired, I'm frustrated, I don't want to deal with it anymore. God, I quit. God was there with Elijah in the moment. And he showed him some things and he allowed him to really see he is still with me. And God told him, okay, if you really are done and you really want to quit, then I got someone else to continue the journey for me. And that's how we were introduced to Elijah, that kind of later became his successor.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

So I come on today to just encourage someone that may feel that they're at a point where I quit.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Remember, don't do the obvious, which many, like I'm guilty, many of us do. We run into a cave, like we go into isolation, we pull the covers on our head, we stop answering our phones, we don't text anymore. Loved ones say, hey, you want to come over? No, I don't want to do none of that. I'm I just want to be here with me. And then you got to remember, Matthew 11, verses 28 to 30. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Verse 29 says, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I'm gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. Why? Because God's yoke is easy, and his burden is light. So in my journey, what I learned is that a lot of the things that I was pulling on, the burdens I was adding to my plate were too heavy. I had to go to God, or He came to me. Thank you, Jesus. And it was like a transfer where I was able to give him my burdens, give cast all those things that I was dealing with. Well, God, you know I'm dealing with work issues. They don't, they just bothering me. I got all these projects, they won't stop calling me. I got to come home. I had two boys at the time. They both got two opposite activities in two opposite directions. So I got to get them. They still got to eat. Mind you, they got homework to check. And I'm, Lord, my mom called today. Do you know this is out? That is out. I got this cousin over here just acting crazy, and they calling me because they know I can deal with it. You know, I got all this da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And God responded to me, and he said, I understand. I know it's hard. I know because you're a single woman, you're carrying all that by yourself. And he told me I'd come to help. So a lot of that stuff he lifted off of me. And he said, Take my yoke. Taking his yoke became trust in him. Learn how to say no. That was hard for me. I'm quick to say yes. And it was hard for me to say no. When people come up, now I can say, if somebody come up to me, no. Sometimes you just got to practice how to say no. Amen. And then when we did the transfer, and I started, because it says, I will teach you, learn from me on what you should be doing, what you should be taking on, how you should be handling things. We won't know how to do those things unless we take it to them and allow his wisdom and guidance and truth, because he exposes everything. He may be like, no, you may not want to do that because they got ill intentions and they're just trying to use you for this. Or, hey, you got this over here. Do you know if you prioritize it one, two, three, and only do XYZ, you can get them all done. I mean, I went through that kind of transformation with like, oh, Jesus, that's a good idea. You know, yeah, your son has activities over here. Do you know he's friends with so-and-so? Maybe that mom can take them in that way. You only focus on one. I was like, really? So I was like, hey, mom, how you doing? Uh I know Cameron, I mean, not Cameron, that's my baby now. I know so-and-so has activities with your son. You mind if we swap and do cardpools and this? She's like, oh no, not at all. Matter of fact, I'll take them all the time. I was like, really? You know, so that was off my list. So it was, it was all falling into place. And it became a lighter load and a lesser load. And it was, it was something where I today I can sit, and anytime things get too heavy on my plate, I take that to the Lord. What's wisdom? What's guidance? Should I be doing this, Lord? Should I delegate it, Lord? What should I be doing? And we really do have those type of conversations. And it's it's made me a stronger person because of it. But the main thing is, I don't have those tireless nights anymore. So I encourage you, try God, trust God, take him at his word. Even 1 Peter 5 and 7 says, cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. He really does want to see you do better. Look at me as the voice coming to you that is seeking you out, just like my friend called me and said, Hey, you want to go to church on Sunday? Or when God went to Elijah and said, Elijah, why are you here? Use this moment for God reaching out to you, saying, My daughter, my son, why are you here?

SPEAKER_01 29:13

I understand what's going on. Let me help. Cast your cares on me because you're laboring and you're carrying heavy weight.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Cast them on me, and I will give you rest. Try God. You'll be surprised, you'll be amazed at what he can do for you. Amen. Amen. So I won't keep you long. I thank you for tuning in. If you count me on the replay, how are you doing? Just leave a mark. Let me know you are here. Ultimately, share this message. If you know someone that is going through exhaustion, that's experiencing fatigue, but especially if they found themselves in a cave. Let's get them out. Let's bring life back into that situation. Amen. So, those of you who do not know, this Saturday I will be officially launching my new book. I'm so excited. It is called I Quit, How to Break Free From Exhaustion and Learn to Trust God. Not a big read. It's not one of those real big, thick books. It's a quick read. You can probably get through it in probably a couple hours or so, but it kind of walks you through, like I said, my journey and gives some great tips. If you know me, I don't just tell, I also try to show you from what I learned from God how to get yourself out of it. So it will definitely walk you through that. So Saturday's live at 10 o'clock. I typically do a let's talk session on a specific topic. I hope you join me. But in the meantime, I'm glad you watched. Again, share this message with someone you think that will benefit from it. I love you. And until next time, see you later. See you Saturday. Bye bye.