How to Release Control and Trust God: A Rhythm of Rest for Weary Women

Blog by the Unhurried Living Team

There is a particular kind of tired that has nothing to do with your calendar. You can learn how to release control and trust God not by trying harder, but by returning to the ancient rhythm Jesus himself modeled — releasing what you were never meant to carry, resting in the One who has already proven himself faithful, and remaining rooted in the True Vine. This is not a productivity strategy. It is an invitation into a different way of being.

The women who feel this most acutely are often the ones giving the most. Ministry leaders, mothers, caregivers, coaches — women who have learned to keep going because what else do you do? But sooner or later, the weight of an unchecked grip finds a way to make itself known. Yvette Henry, writer, speaker, and author of Release, Rest, Remain, knows that threshold personally. Her story — and the 30-day devotional that grew from it — offers a credible, practiced way through.

What Does It Actually Mean to Let Go of Control?

In 2021, the passing of Yvette Henry's sister-in-law at age 35 did something she hadn't expected. It didn't just bring grief. It unlocked a deeper, older grief she had spent years managing by simply moving forward. Standing at her kitchen sink after the services were done and the house was finally quiet again, she knew she could no longer ignore what was inside her. Her husband graciously made room for her to attend a three-week Christian therapy intensive — a silence and solitude experience on Fox Island where she surrendered her phone and spent her days with her Bible, nature, and unhurried time with God.

It was there, in that stillness, that she fell into John 15. The image of a branch remaining in the vine — not striving, not producing, just staying — reordered something in her. She realized how much of her energy had gone toward checking boxes, managing outcomes, and quietly trying to hold everyone together. What she heard in that passage was not a reprimand. It was relief: I don't need you to do anything but remain in me.

Releasing control, as Yvette describes it, is not passive resignation. It is the physical act of loosening your grip — on outcomes, on other people's understanding, on the standards you have quietly set for everyone around you. She uses a simple image: when your hand is clenched, it cannot receive anything. When it opens, there is room for what is actually yours to carry. A tightly held fist is not a restful position. Release is what makes rest physiologically possible.

One small step: Take one thing you are currently gripping — a relationship, an outcome, a standard you are holding someone else to — and write it down. Then write this beside it: This is not mine to carry. You do not have to feel it yet. Just name it.

If you sense that the weight you are carrying goes deeper than a single decision, working with one of our trained spiritual directors may be one of the most honest next steps you can take. 

How Do You Learn to Rest When You Still Don't Fully Trust?

Yvette's word for this is receipts. She means it practically: the act of remembering, in specific and unhurried detail, the moments where God showed up in ways that had nothing to do with your effort. For Yvette, one of those moments came from what she calls one of the most irresponsible decisions of her life — quitting her teaching job mid-maternity leave with no financial plan, no transition, and a husband whose entrepreneurial income hadn't yet established real stability. By any reasonable measure, it was a mistake made in the flesh. And yet: rent was paid, the mortgage held, the family remained.

That is a receipt. It is not a theology. It is a specific, dateable, undeniable moment when God provided for something she could not have managed on her own. She keeps them. She returns to them. And she argues that this practice of remembering is what makes rest spiritually possible — not because the present circumstances feel safe, but because the track record says he has never failed you yet.

Alan Fadling, co-founder of Unhurried Living, names the same instinct in a different register. He points to Isaiah 30:15 — In quietness and trust is your strength — as a verse that functions for him the way Yvette's centering prayer functions for her: a place to land when the momentum of anxiety starts to pull. The anchor is not a feeling. It is a settled confidence drawn from memory and scripture.

This is the connection between release and rest. You cannot fully rest in someone you do not trust. And trust, for most of us, is not built by deciding to believe more — it is rebuilt by remembering what has already been true. Keeping receipts, as Yvette calls it, is simply the ancient practice of remembering by another name.

One small step: Think of one season you were not sure you would survive — and where you are standing now. Write it down or say it aloud. That is a receipt. That is the beginning of rest.

The weekly Pause & Center email is a small, unhurried place to practice this kind of remembering each week. Sign up to receive it and let it become a regular returning point.

What Does It Look Like to Actually Stay Rooted?

Remaining, as Yvette describes it, is not a destination you arrive at. It is a rhythm you return to — sometimes daily, sometimes hourly — because life keeps handing you new things to pick back up. She is candid about this: after three years of living with the release-rest-remain rhythm, she still catches herself gripping. The devotional is not a three-step system with a clean period at the end. It is, as she puts it, a comma, comma, comma — a rhythm that keeps going because life keeps going.

What makes remaining possible in the ordinary is what Yvette calls attention stewardship. She describes the morning phone scroll — alarm sounds, phone comes up, fifteen minutes of news or social media before your feet have touched the floor — as one of the most corrosive habits for a rooted life. Not because social media is inherently harmful, but because attention is currency, and it is being spent before the day has begun. Her own rhythm, imperfect by her own admission, is to walk first, listen to worship music, sit with her devotional, and let the phone wait. By the time the morning is done, the window for reflexive scrolling has often closed on its own.

She also speaks about the particular gift of embodied prayer. Her father prayed on his knees. She had drifted from that posture. When she returned to it recently, something shifted — not in the content of her prayers, but in her capacity to be present for them. Posture, pace, and practice are not incidental to the inner life. They shape it. Jesus often withdrew to lonely places to pray — a detail the Gospels toss in almost as an aside, but one that Yvette and Alan both return to. He was not withdrawn because he had nothing to do. He was rooted because he withdrew.

One small step: Before you reach for your phone tomorrow morning, spend five minutes in silence — seated, or on your knees, or on a short walk. You do not need an agenda. You just need to arrive before the noise does.

Striving vs. Abiding: Two Ways of Living

Unhurried Living is a fully distributed, globally reaching ministry — but its message lands most personally in the specific, ordinary places where women are trying to hold everything together: the kitchen sink, the minivan, the school pickup line, the late-night spiral. Wherever you are reading this, you are not too far from the invitation. The rhythm of release, rest, and remain is not a retreat experience reserved for those who can take three weeks away — though Yvette would tell you: if you can, go. It is a practice available in any morning, any ordinary moment, any open hand.

Your Grip Was Never Meant to Hold All of This

Yvette Henry did not write Release, Rest, Remain because she figured this out. She wrote it because she is still learning it — and because she believes the women listening need permission to begin. The fruit that lasts, Jesus said in John 15, does not grow from effort. It grows from proximity. Learning how to release control and trust God is not one more thing to add to the list. It is the thing that makes the list bearable. To receive a weekly, unhurried space for exactly this kind of practice, sign up for our emails — a short, grounding note each week to help you release, rest, and return. If you're ready to go deeper, explore the PACE cohort — Unhurried Living's 21-month certificate training in spiritual leadership and soul care.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What does it mean to release control and trust God? A: Releasing control means loosening your grip on outcomes, people, and expectations you were never designed to manage alone. In John 15, Jesus invites followers to abide in him rather than strive for fruit through effort — the branch does not produce; it stays connected to the Vine. Releasing is not passive; it is the active, repeated choice to open your hands and trust the Gardener with what is in them.

Q: What does John 15 teach about abiding in Jesus? A: John 15 uses the image of a vine and its branches to describe the relationship between Jesus and his followers. A branch that remains attached to the vine bears fruit naturally — not through striving, but through connection. The passage directly addresses the pressure to produce and perform, calling believers into a posture of remaining rather than achieving.

Q: How can I find spiritual rest when I feel too busy or guilty to stop? A: Spiritual rest often begins not with better time management but with honest permission-giving — acknowledging your own limitations and naming the things you are carrying that are not yours to carry. Practical starting points include journaling to externalize what is inside your head, moving your body to interrupt the mental loop, and remembering specific moments of God's past faithfulness as a foundation for present trust.

Q: What is the meaning of Isaiah 30:15 — "In quietness and trust is your strength"? A: This verse from Isaiah reframes where strength actually comes from. In the context of Isaiah 30, Israel was tempted to find safety through political alliances and frantic activity. God's answer was quietness and trust — not passivity, but a settled, rooted confidence that comes from dependence on him rather than on self-generated effort. For many people, it functions as a return point when anxiety begins to build momentum.

Q: Why is silence and solitude important for spiritual growth? A: The Gospels note repeatedly that Jesus withdrew to lonely places to pray — in the middle of ministry seasons, after miracles, before major decisions. Silence and solitude are not luxuries reserved for those with space in their schedules. They are the practices that make attentiveness to God possible, helping to quiet the noise long enough to hear, to remember, and to remain.