Accepting Your Limits

The Hidden Struggle

I need to admit something. It’s not a sin, not really. More like a quiet, persistent lie I told myself for decades. I hid my limits. Not the big, dramatic ones – the kind that make headlines – but the small, daily ones that whisper I cannot do this alone anymore. I hid them like a child hiding a bruised knee, afraid the world would see the weakness.

For years, I carried the weight of being strong. As a nun, I learned to find strength in stillness, in service, in the quiet endurance of the daily round. Then, at fifty, I left the convent, married Thomas, and carried the weight of being a wife, a partner, a keeper of a home. Thomas was a man of great strength, a builder, a man who fixed things with his hands. I thought I had to be like him. I thought being strong meant never needing help, never showing fatigue, never admitting the simple fact that my body, after all these years, was no longer the same as it was at thirty.

I hid it in the garden. Oh, the garden. My sanctuary, my prayer book written in soil and bloom. For twenty years, I tended it alone. I’d rise before dawn, before Thomas was even awake, to weed the roses, prune the lavender, pull the stubborn weeds from between the stones. I’d feel the ache in my knees, the stiffness in my shoulders, the way my breath came a little short climbing the small hill to the back gate. But I’d push through. Just a little more, I’d tell myself. You can do this. You always have. I’d refuse my neighbor, Agnes, when she’d offer to help with the heavy bags of compost. No, no, I’m fine, Agnes. It’s just a little work. I’d lie to myself that the sharp pain in my hip after bending to plant tulips was just a temporary thing, a sign I needed to stretch more, not a signal that my body was saying enough.

Why was it so hard to face? I wonder sometimes. Was it the echo of the vows I took? Obedience, poverty, chastity – but also, deep down, the unspoken vow to be enough? Was it Thomas’s quiet strength, a mirror I felt I had to live up to? Or was it simply the fear that if I admitted I couldn’t do it all, I’d be less of a person? Less worthy of the love and respect I’d been given? I thought showing weakness was a failure of faith, a lack of trust in the grace that was supposed to sustain me. I thought the sacred was found only in the doing, not in the resting.

The Fall That Changed Everything

The moment of honesty wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a grand epiphany under a lightning storm. It was a Tuesday, the air thick with the scent of rain on hot earth. I was kneeling, trying to pull a stubborn weed from the rose bed, my fingers digging into the damp, cool soil. My hip, that old familiar ache, flared sharp and sudden. I tried to push up, but my leg wouldn’t hold. One moment I was on my knees, the next, I was flat on my back in the dirt, the scent of wet earth filling my nose, the sky a blurry, grey dome above me.

I lay there. Not moving. Not screaming. Just… lying. The shock of the fall, the suddenness of it, the sheer ordinary way I’d been brought down. No dramatic collapse, just a simple, humiliating stumble. And then, the silence. The quiet of the garden, the birdsong, the distant hum of a car on the road. And the realization, clear as a bell: I can’t get up. Not by myself.

That was the moment. Not the pain, but the utter, terrifying truth of my inability. I couldn’t call for help. I couldn’t even roll over. I was utterly, completely dependent on someone else’s presence, someone else’s strength. The lie I’d been telling myself – I am strong – lay shattered in the dirt beside me, as broken as my pride.

Agnes, bless her, had been walking her dog down the street. She saw me. She didn’t hesitate. She knelt beside me, her hand warm and steady on my arm. “Oh, Gertrude,” she said, her voice soft. “Just hold on now. I’ve got you.” She helped me up, her arm firm around my waist, her strength a gentle counterpoint to my own. She didn’t say, I told you so. She didn’t make me feel small. She simply saw me, and helped me up.

The Unfolding Grace

What changed? Not everything. I still tend my garden. But I do it differently. I don’t try to do it all at once. I plant a few rows, then sit on the bench for a while, watching the bees. I ask Agnes to help with the heavy bags of mulch. I say, “Agnes, could you give me a hand with this?” And she does. And the world doesn’t end. In fact, it feels… lighter. There’s a kind of grace in that. Not the grace of perfect strength, but the grace of real connection.

I stopped hiding the ache. I stopped pretending the stiffness wasn’t there. I started listening to my body, not as an enemy, but as a teacher. When my knee twinges after walking to the mailbox, I sit down. I don’t push through the pain to prove I can. I simply acknowledge it: This is my body today. It needs rest. I wonder sometimes if the nuns in the convent, who spent their lives in stillness, understood this deeper truth: that the sacred isn’t found only in the vigorous act of service, but also in the quiet acceptance of our own human limits. That the most profound act of faith might be to say, I cannot do this alone, and to accept the hand that reaches out.

I stopped measuring my worth by what I did, and started measuring it by the quality of my presence. When I sit with Agnes over tea, not rushing to tidy the kitchen, I am more fully there. When I watch the light shift across the wall in the morning, not rushing to start the day, I am more fully here. The limits aren’t walls; they are the very boundaries that define the space where grace can enter. They are the edges of the garden where the wildflowers grow, not the fence that keeps them out.

Living Within the Lines

So, what does this mean for the rest of us, walking this path? It means learning to see the hidden limits not as failures, but as invitations. It means asking, What is the smallest thing I need to ask for today? It might be a cup of tea, a hand to hold, a moment of quiet. It might be admitting to a friend, I’m struggling with this, instead of pretending you’re fine.

It means understanding that accepting limits isn’t giving up; it’s making space for something deeper. It’s making space for the kindness of others. It’s making space for the quiet moments that are so easily missed when we’re rushing to prove we can do it all. It’s making space for the sacred in the ordinary, not just the extraordinary.

I used to think the sacred was in the grand gestures, the big acts of service, the perfect garden. Now I see it in the quiet surrender of asking for help. I see it in the way Agnes’s hand felt on my arm that day – not a burden, but a blessing. I see it in the way my body finally says, Enough. Rest now. And I see it in the way the light comes through the window, warm and steady, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air, a reminder that even in stillness, there is movement, there is life.

There’s a kind of grace in that. Not the grace of a perfect life, but the grace of a real one. A life where the limits are known, accepted, and woven into the fabric of the day, not hidden away. A life where the garden is still tended, but the gardener is finally allowed to sit and breathe.

I wonder sometimes if Thomas, who carried the weight of the world for so long, ever felt this same quiet relief? Did he ever learn to say, I need help? I hope so. I hope he, too, found the grace in the letting go.

The Simple Truth

The hardest part wasn’t the fall. It was the lie I’d been telling myself for so long. The lie that said I had to be strong all the time. The lie that said my worth was tied to my ability to do everything.

The truth is simpler, and far more beautiful: My worth is not in what I do, but in who I am, right here, right now, with all my limits, all my aches, all my need for a helping hand. It’s in the quiet moment of accepting that I cannot do it all, and choosing to let the light in anyway.

So, I’ll keep tending my garden. I’ll keep writing at dawn. I’ll keep asking Agnes for help with the compost. And I’ll keep wondering, What if I stopped hiding my limits? What if I just let them be? What if I found the sacred not in the perfect bloom, but in the quiet acceptance of the soil, the rain, the gentle hand reaching out?

There’s a kind of grace in that.

— Gertrude Carroll, still wondering

— Roger Jackson, finally at peace with the man in the mirror