The Day I Couldn't Be Strong

For years, I thought strength meant carrying more.

More responsibility. More pressure. More expectations. More weight.

I became the person everyone depended on. The one who figured it out. The one who could handle it. The one who didn't need help.

Or at least that's what I told myself.

In this episode, I'm sharing two stories from my marriage that completely changed how I think about leadership, relationships, and what it really means to be strong. One starts with a bed that wasn't made "correctly." The other starts with a spoon sitting on a kitchen counter.

Neither story is really about a bed.

And neither story is really about a spoon.

They're about learning to see the heart behind the action, receiving love when it doesn't arrive exactly the way we expect it to, and discovering that strength isn't always found in carrying more.

Sometimes strength is allowing yourself to be loved.

Sometimes it's letting someone help.

Sometimes it's choosing gratitude over being right.

In this episode, we'll talk about:

• The hidden danger of being the person who can handle everything
• Why high-capacity women often struggle to receive help
• The leadership lesson hidden in an imperfectly made bed
• How a spoon on the counter became one of my favorite marriage stories
• What I've learned about grace, partnership, and being truly seen
• Why the strongest people aren't always the ones carrying the most

Rooted Reflection

What small act of love have you stopped seeing because you've become focused on what's imperfect?

Because sometimes the things that matter most aren't the grand gestures.

Sometimes they're the little winks from God sitting on a folded paper towel next to a coffee pot.

Live life rooted. 🌱

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

The day I couldn't be strong anymore, well, for most of my life, I thought strength looked like carrying more, more responsibility, more pressure, more expectations, more weight. And if you're a woman who's built anything at all: a family, a business, a career, a ministry, a life, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm Meredith Teasan, and this is the Rooted Leadership Podcast. For me, people start describing you as strong, dependable, capable, resilient. And eventually you start believing strength means never needing anything from anyone else. At least I believed that for years, until marriage taught me something leadership never could. The strongest lesson of my life came from a spoon sitting on the kitchen counter and a bed not made with hospital corners. We'll get to that. You see, I've always been a capable person. That's not arrogance, that's just reality. I've had to be. When you grow up the way that I did, you learn how to figure things out, you adapt, you move forward, you solve problems, you carry your weight. And that's a good thing until it isn't. Because every strength has a shadow side. And the shadow side of competence is believing you don't need anyone. You're superwoman. Well, not long after Chad and I got married, I remember I came home one afternoon and I walked into our bedroom. The bed was made. Now, I know most people, especially ladies, that's not much of a story. To me, that is the story. Because I believe in making the bed. However, I was taught to make the bed with hospital corners, everything perfectly tucked in, everything straight, everything right. The problem was the bed wasn't made correctly, at least not according to me. And because I am exactly who I am, I immediately started preparing to remake that bed. I mean, I started stripping it, and my mother happened to be there. And I remember asking her to help me redo it, and she looked at me like I was crazy. Then she asked this question: What's wrong with the bed, Meredith? I laughed. Um, because obviously there was something wrong with it. I mean, the corners weren't right, the blanket was scattered in the wrong directions. Don't even get me started on the pillows. And then she said something that hit me in the chest. She said, just because it's not up to your standards doesn't mean the thought and the heart weren't behind it. Ugh. Instantly, I knew she was right. My husband didn't make that bed because he cared about perfection. He made the bed because he cared about me. And I was about to erase that entire gift because it wasn't wrapped up the way I would have wrapped it. I think a lot of women do this. Not just in marriage, in leadership, in friendships, in life. We become so focused on what wasn't done right, we completely miss what was done with love. Then there was the spoon. Honestly, this is maybe my favorite story in our marriage because it took me years to understand why it mattered. Let me set the stage. Every morning, Chad makes coffee, and every morning he likes his with cream and sugar. And I drink mine black the way God intended. However, he has to stir his coffee so he would stir it, take his spoon, and place it on a perfectly folded paper towel right next to the coffee pot so no drips would be on the counter. Very thoughtful. And then throughout the day, as he would refill his coffee, he'd use the spoon. Then when he was done, he would rinse his mug and put it in the dishwasher. But not the spoon. Never the spoon. The spoon sat on the counter every single day. Now, if you've been married for any amount of time, you know exactly what happened next. The spoon became a thing. Not because it was important, because marriage has a way of turning the little thing, the smallest of things, into symbols. And every morning I'd walk in, I'd see the spoon and think, really? The mug made it? The spoon couldn't travel another two feet? Hundreds of conversations. And I do mean hundreds about the spoon. Then a few years later, I happened to have one of those weeks. The kind where your shoulders and neck hurt, the kind of week that follows you home, the kind of week where you're carrying pressure from every single direction, and it just keeps coming. I was exhausted, not physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and Chad knew it. I asked him to pick me up from work. And the whole drive home, he just kept looking over at me, not saying much, just seeing me, seeing the weight that I was carrying. And when we got home, we walked through the laundry room towards the kitchen. He was a couple of steps ahead of me. And even though I couldn't see it, I saw him suddenly twitch and freeze. And then I watched recognition spread over him because around the corner, waiting faithfully at its post, was the spoon. And before I knew it, he was leaping into action. You can't make this up. I remember he grabbed the spoon, literally leapt over the kitchen island, ripped open the dishwasher, threw the spoon in, slammed the dishwasher shut, leaned against the counter, grinning like he had just won a gold medal. And then silence. And we both burst out laughing. The kind of laughing that catches you off guard, the kind that releases everything you've been carrying. Because suddenly it wasn't about the spoon. It never was. It was about being known. It was about being loved. It was about someone seeing my exhaustion before I had words for it. About someone understanding me deeply enough to know exactly what would make me smile, but better yet, what would make me laugh. Not because the spoon mattered, because I mattered. Today, when I see that spoon, I smile and I love seeing it sit on the counter because I no longer see something left undone. I see 20 plus years of partnership. I see someone who has walked through every season of life with me. I see someone who wouldn't let me walk home alone the first night we met, and who hasn't let me walk through life alone since. The spoon reminds me of something I've spent years learning. Strength is not carrying yourself or everything all alone. Strength is allowing yourself to be loved. It's letting people help you, it's letting people see you. And strength is letting people show up imperfectly and receiving it anyways. Before we go, let me ask you something. What's your spoon? What small act of love have you stopped seeing because you've become so focused on what's imperfect about it? What person in your life keeps showing up for you, but not exactly the way you would do it? And have you become so committed to your standard that you're missing their heart? Because leadership taught me how to help people, but marriage taught me how to let people help me. And honestly, that was the harder lesson. The bed wasn't perfect, the spoon wasn't in the dishwasher, the man was loving me the entire time. God even said it's not good for man to carry the work alone. And so he created woman. Don't shrink and don't settle, but go be the woman another woman needs to see. And until next time, remember to live life rooted.