For a long time, hustle felt like a virtue.
It looked like discipline.
It sounded like purpose.
It felt like doing the right thing.
Until my body interrupted the story.
My doctor looked at me and said my cortisol levels were high.
That was it.
No long explanation. No dramatic warning.
Just a quiet sentence that somehow felt like a report card.
It wasn’t just physical; it was spiritual.
Because in that moment, I realised something I had not said out loud before.
I knew how to keep going,
but struggled to rest.
And I don’t mean the kind of rest that comes after exhaustion.
I mean the kind that keeps you whole.
I started paying attention after that.
To my body.
To my emotions.
To the quiet ways I had been overriding both.
And slowly, I began to understand that wholeness is not one thing.
It is not just physical health.
It is not just emotional stability.
It is not just spiritual discipline.
It is all of it, held together.
There is a scripture that came back to me during that season:
There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God. — Epistle to the Hebrews 4:9
Remains.
Not something I had to strive for.
Not something waiting on the other side of more effort.
Something that was already available.
That changed how I began to think about rest.
Rest was not laziness.
It was not a break from responsibility.
It was a way of returning to God.
A way of letting my life come back into alignment.
So I quietly began to reclaim rhythm,
Through small, intentional choices.
An hour where I was not working.
Not planning.
Not trying to get ahead.
Just being.
At first, it felt unfamiliar.
Almost like I was doing something wrong.
But over time, it began to feel necessary.
Like something my body had been asking for long before I listened.
If you have been moving without stopping,
pushing without pausing,
holding everything together without noticing what it is doing to you,
This might be your gentle reminder.
Rest is not the absence of work.
It is the presence of God.
So for the next few days, try to give yourself one true hour of rest.
No guilt.
No work.
No explanation.
And in that space, listen.
You might find that God has been waiting there.
I’m praying your heart finds rest in the choices you make,
Gently, without guilt.
Nkiruka.