Let Jesus Carry the Burdens with Tasha Layton
The Power of Rock Bottom
When Tasha Layton, Christian singer and songwriter, chatted with Family Life Radio, she shared some of the challenges she faces when she hears from fans about her songs.
Tasha finds the responses she gets can at times be overwhelming. People have written her heartbreaking stories, and she carried the weight of that. She worried about the individuals when she would drift off to sleep at night.
Talking to her counselor and learning to release these heavy burdens to Jesus has really helped Tasha. Now she can celebrate what He is doing and how He is using the songs in people’s lives, instead of getting hung up on the heaviness of their burdens.
Some of the things people have shared with Tasha along the way have been extremely impactful. A man told her, “Your song is helping me deal with the murder of my son.”
Another told her, “You met my daughter who was at a festival last year. She passed away with cancer, and I’ve been listening to your song to get through this.”
A lady in Pennsylvania, who had been a trafficking victim, shared that she wanted to take her own life. While she was driving, she heard one of Tasha’s songs on the radio and pulled her car over to the side of the road. She ended up calling someone because the Lord spoke to her through the song.
Another man lost his wife of fifty years. He drove hours to one of Tasha’s concerts to ask her to sign the funeral program because they sang one of her songs at the service.
It’s stories like these that compel Tasha to get out of bed on the hard days.
“I just get out of bed a little quicker,” Tasha explained, “when I think about those stories. Now I get excited when we put out a new song.”
“I feel excited to hear the stories because I am no longer carrying the weight of responsibility. I let Jesus shoulder that.”
Matthew 11:28-30 says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (ESV).
God is meeting people in their circumstances with Tasha’s songs, and that’s so exciting to her. She knows how God meets her through the challenges of life. Through pain and loss, Tasha feels especially close to God.
“Never underestimate the power of someone’s rock bottom.”
“Don’t take that from them. Don’t try to get them out of that moment because it is in those depths that God meets us in a most special way,” Tasha explained. “God is there in a way only He can be.”
“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5 ESV).
“It is just His presence,” Tasha said. “God doesn’t have to say anything. He doesn’t have to do anything. He doesn’t have to change anything.”
“Just sensing His presence in the moment, knowing He will never leave me is just what I need.”
Besides the Bible, one of Tasha’s favorite books is The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence. In the book, Brother Lawrence, who worked in a monastery in the 1600’s, describes how you may sense God’s presence by being in constant conversation with Him throughout your daily activities and mundane duties. Tasha practices God’s presence by talking to Him all through the day as she works and raises her family. It is in this constant relationship she communes with her heavenly Father about all things that make up her life.
“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11 ESV).
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