A Poem and reflection about the greatest gift we could ever receive but maybe wish we didn't need, and struggle to accept.

An honest, vulnerable, and raw spoken word on battling lies and fear, and overcoming them by encountering and trusting the voice of Truth.

The work of rest:

I’m exhausted from work I’ve put in to accomplish a sense of success.

Achieving things I’ve hoped and dreamed yet

the one thing I can’t seem to conceive is, rest.

Peace, calm, serenity, often allude me because of this perfectionistic plague consuming me.

On the outside everything looks it’s thriving, but on the inside I’m just surviving,

hanging by a thread, going from one thing to the next,

if I’m not busy with my job, I’m busy with my thoughts, tryna find things to figure out, grasping at straws, tryna find something wrong, but I’m really grasping at the air,

can’t grab a hold of anything but anxiety, can’t control my life anymore and honestly

I don’t need to but this the only way I’ve known so I cling to this fear that says

I’m not enough, haven’t done enough, and won’t amount to much...

unless I try harder, unless I do better, unless I scramble to find all the missing pieces to this puzzle I’m not even in charge of completing,

it’s like I’m looking for a phone that ain’t lost, only to realize it was in my hand the whole time,

maybe I’m actually fine.

Maybe I’m more than fine, maybe I’m enough, maybe I can just be, and everything will happen naturally, because Everything I need to be who God made me to be is already in me. And maybe this man who I thought I was supposed to be, trying to be perfect, and have it all together, isn’t who I’m supposed to be.

Maybe all this tension is fighting for my attention because my name’s already mentioned in the Book of Life.

Funny cuz my name actually means Rest. I’ve done more wrestling than resting. But as I wrote this The reflection of the sun on the waterfall I was sitting at had created the image of a rainbow, the sign of a promise from God, a reminder that the reflection of His image in this son, created a Noah. And that was His work, not mine.

The paradox is that my work is to rest, not to be the best.

When this gets put to the test,

I’m reminded as I’m writing this,

to refer to the tattoo on my chest that says: “Yahweh Tsidkenu” The Lord is my righteousness.