You are the one they call. The one who steps in before anyone asks. The one who holds it all together at work, at home, at church, in the family, while everyone else seems comfortable just sitting.
You did not plan to carry this much. You simply kept stepping in. And somewhere along the way, the weight stopped feeling like strength.
This is not another book about rest.
Martha, Martha: Called to Carry It. But Not Like This. is a redemption of one of Scripture's most misunderstood women and an honest conversation about the invisible weight that high-capacity women pick up and never put down.
For centuries, Martha has been preached as a cautionary tale. The distracted woman. The one who needed to sit down and be more like her sister Mary. But look closely at what Jesus actually said to her and what He didn't say. He did not rebuke her work. He did not tell her to stop serving. He saw something heavier beneath the surface: responsibility that had multiplied beyond what anyone asked of her, a deep sense of fairness that had curdled into resentment, and the crushing belief that everything depended on her.
He called her name twice. Not in frustration. In compassion.
Martha, Martha.
If you have ever looked around a room and thought, Why am I the only one doing anything? You already know Martha. If you have ever reached your limit and gone straight to God, not with a prayer but with a complaint, you already know this moment. If you have ever been told, after everything you poured into something, that no one asked you to do all that, you know exactly how much those words can sting.
This book is for you.
Dr. Tameka Jackson writes as a woman who has lived the Martha story as an oldest sibling, a twenty-year educator, a minister, a leader, and the one everyone calls. She does not write to shame the Martha woman or shrink her. She writes to free her.
Because the world needs Martha women. Builders. Leaders. Organizers. The ones who make everything work.
But even the strongest Martha was never meant to carry everything.
You were never the problem. Not everything was yours to carry.
