Take a Break: Hamilton, Sabbath, and the Resistance of Rest

The empire wants you exhausted. Because exhausted people don't resist, they can only survive.

This week, we're talking about rest as resistance. Not self-care. Not work-life balance. But Sabbath as protest against a system that defines your worth by your productivity.

We explore:

• How Sabbath was woven into creation itself, and became an act of defiance under Pharaoh
• Why Jesus withdrew constantly, even with only three years to accomplish the most urgent mission in history
• What trauma does to your nervous system, and why some of us can't rest even when we desperately need to
• Elijah's breakdown and God's response: rest first, then work
• What white Christians need to grieve before we can move into repair
• Three starting points for practicing Sabbath as resistance

Before we can do the repair work coming in February, March, and April, we have to stop long enough to tend to what's broken in us.

Rest isn't retreat. Rest is how we stay in this for the long haul.

Resources:

• Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance
• Trauma and grief resources 
• Journal Gently - an 8-week guided journaling experience for women who are ready to listen to what still hurts without fixing or forcing anything. (Kari Bartkus, Love Does That)
• Flamingo Trauma Recovery - Faith integrated mental health education and therapy access for the underserved. Healing trauma from childhood, transition, and harmful religious doctrine
• Kristen Humiston, MSW, APSW: Courageous Healing Therapy (WI residents) or Kristen Joy Coaching
• Kristen A. Brock (me!) Trauma-Informed Coaching
• The Body Keeps the Score: Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.
• My Grandmother's Hands: Resmaa Menakem
• Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World. Serena Jones
• Othered: Finding Belonging with the God who Pursues the Hurt, Harmed & Marginalized: Jenai Auman
• Translating Your Past: Finding Meaning in Family Ancestry, Genetic Clues and Generational Trauma: Michelle Van Loon

For women who stayed small and called it faithfulness : a reading list to start finding your way back. Get it here!

If this episode was meaningful for you, the best way to help others find the show is to:

• Text this episode to a friend who might need it
• Leave a 5-star rating and review
• Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes
• Wrestling with faith and justice and not sure where to start?
• Grab my free theological reading list, Beyond Faith as Usual, HERE!

Here’s to a faith that tells the truth, refuses silence in the face of harm, and follows Jesus all the way into healing and justice.

RESOURCES:

www.kristenannette.com

Holy Disruption: Reclaiming a Justice-Rooted Faith course info and interest list

Justice Coaching options!

"Find your justice mindset" quiz!

Transcript

Episode 3: Take a Break: Hamilton, Sabbath, and the Resistance of Rest

Welcome back to Jesus, Justice, and Mercy.

I have to admit that this week has been a lot. Last week, we talked about holy risk. About Esther's preparation, Jesus' strategic defiance, and Bonhoeffer's theological resistance. We looked at the six practices that form us into people who can respond faithfully when the cost is real and the time is now.

And I want you to gently know that if you listened to that episode and thought, "Great, one more thing I need to do," then you might have missed it.

Because here's what's true: We can't sustain this work if we're running on fumes.

This isn't about adding another rule to follow. This isn't legalism dressed up as spirituality. This isn't about earning God's approval through perfect Sabbath-keeping or guilting yourself for not resting "right."

This is about survival and resistance. This is about refusing to let the empire wear us down to nothing.

I know. I can hear the objections already because this week it feels as if it is impossible to stop: " people are suffering. Children are being separated from their families. Rights are being stripped away. People are being murdered. How can we rest when the crisis is relentless?"

And you're right. It IS relentless. Which is exactly my point.

In Episode 1, I named the devastating pace of it all—how we barely have time to process one atrocity before the next one arrives. How we're grieving violence in one place while lies are being amplified in another. How there's no space to catch our breath.

And that relentlessness? It's not an accident. It's a feature, not a bug.

When we're exhausted, we can't think clearly. When we're overwhelmed, we're easier to manipulate. When we're burned out, we give up.

The empire—whether it's Pharaoh's Egypt, Rome, or the system we're living under right now—the empire WANTS us exhausted. Because exhausted people don't resist. We can only survive.

So here's what I'd love you to hear today: Rest is not retreat. Rest is resistance.

If you've seen Hamilton—and by the way, if you haven't, watch it, it's absolutely worth every minute— but you may remember Eliza singing "Take a Break" to Alexander. She's begging him to stop, to come upstate with her, to rest. And what does he do? He keeps working. He keeps writing. He keeps pushing. And we know how that story ends.

Lin-Manuel Miranda understood something we can forget: relentless work will destroy us if we let it. Even revolutionary work requires rest. Especially revolutionary work.

And if that sounds too soft, too passive, too comfortable for this moment—stay with me. Because what we're about to explore is anything but comfortable.

We're going to talk about Sabbath as protest, building on what I talked about last week. Rest as repair. Lament as the fuel that sustains justice work for the long haul. And grief, healing, and reconciliation as the necessary foundation for everything that comes next.

Because here's the truth that white Christians especially need to hear: we cannot do repair work on behalf of others if we haven't first stopped long enough to tend to what's broken in ourselves.

we cannot honor Black wisdom in February if we haven't grieved what was done to make that wisdom necessary.

We cannot rebuild in March if we're collapsing from exhaustion by the end of January.

This isn't optional. This is essential.

So let's dive in.

Section 1: Sabbath as Resistance - The Original Command

We need to go back to where Sabbath actually begins. Not as a nice idea about self-care or work-life balance. But as something woven into the fabric of creation itself.

Genesis 2:2-3: "And on the sixth day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation."

All the work is mentioned three times. And then. God rested. Not because the work exhausted the Creator of the universe. But because rest matters. It's foundational. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, set it apart.

This isn't an afterthought. From the very beginning, rest was part of the design.

And then, generations later, when God gives the Ten Commandments to people freshly freed from slavery in Egypt, rest becomes something more: an act of defiance.

Exodus 20: "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy."

Let’s understand the context.

These commandments are given to people who spent generations under Pharaoh's brutal demands for output. Brick quotas. Relentless labor. Bodies used up and thrown away.

Worth was measured by your output. Rest was for the powerful. If you stopped working, you were worthless—or worse, you were punished.

And into that trauma, God speaks a different reality: Stop.

Not when the work is done. Not when you've earned it. Not when you're caught up.

Just stop.

Every seven days, you stop. Rich and poor. Free and enslaved. Even your animals stop.

This wasn't self-care advice. This was a theological revolution.

Walter Brueggemann, in his book, Sabbath as Resistance, puts it this way: Sabbath is a refusal to let Pharaoh—or any system—define your humanity by what you produce.

The empire runs on endless consumption and production. America runs on that. It needs you tired, distracted, too overwhelmed to organize or resist.

But Sabbath says: My worth is not determined by my output. I belong to God, not to the system. And one day a week, I stop participating in the machinery that tries to convince me otherwise.

As I mentioned last week, this is why Sabbath keeping was such a distinctive marker of Jewish identity under Roman occupation—a weekly declaration that Caesar did not own them.

It was resistance then. It's resistance now.

We’re living in our own version of that empire right now. A culture that glorifies hustle. That treats fatigue like a badge of honor. That tells you your value is tied to your performance, your influence, your platform, your achievements.

You are not defined by what you produce. You are beloved—whether you accomplish anything today or not.

Section 2: Jesus Withdrew—And So Must We

If we needed any more proof that rest isn't weakness, we, as always, have Jesus.

The man with the most urgent mission in human history—and only three years of active ministry to accomplish it. The one who came to bring liberation, to heal the sick, to proclaim good news to the poor.

And what does He do? Constantly? He withdraws.

Mark 1:35: "In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed."
Mark 6:46: After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray.

Luke 5:16: "But he would withdraw to deserted places and pray."

Not once. Not occasionally. Regularly and intentionally.

Even when people were still sick and when crowds were pressing in. Even when the disciples were saying, "Everyone is looking for you!"

Jesus stopped.

Because He knew something we keep forgetting no matter how often we see this phrase on a sticker: You cannot pour from an empty cup.

And specifically, today, you cannot sustain a movement on burnout.

This wasn't avoidance. Jesus wasn't being selfish or disconnected from the urgency around Him.

This was wisdom. It was how He sustained the work.

And here's what we can sit with: If Jesus—fully God and fully human—needed to withdraw, to rest, to pray in silence, what makes us think we can keep going without stopping?

The answer is: We can't.

And truly this is where it can get messy for many of us. Because knowing we need rest and actually being able to rest are two very different things.

Section 3: When Your Body Won't Let You Rest—The Trauma Connection

Before we go further, I want to give you a heads up: we're about to talk about trauma, nervous system dysregulation, and some of the ways our bodies hold what we've been through. If that feels heavy or activating for you right now, that's okay. You can pause and come back to this when you're ready. Or skip ahead to the next section. Take care of yourself.

I want to name something that doesn't get said nearly enough in Christian spaces: Some of us can't rest because our nervous systems won't let us.

My lived experience of adopting my two younger boys from the foster system, began this work I do outside of justice work—trauma-informed care, understanding how our bodies carry what our minds try to forget. And I need to say this clearly because too many Christians have been told that if they just had more faith, or prayed harder, or trusted God more, they'd be able to rest and heal.

That's not how trauma works.

When you've lived through chronic stress, abuse, neglect, systemic oppression, or any kind of ongoing threat to your safety or dignity, your nervous system gets trained to stay alert. It's called hypervigilance, and it's not a choice—it's a survival mechanism.

Your body learned that letting your guard down wasn't safe. That rest meant vulnerability. That stopping meant danger.

And even when the immediate threat is gone, your body remembers. Your nervous system is still scanning for danger. Still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Still convinced that if you stop, something terrible will happen.

When your nervous system gets stuck in this state - when it can't shift out of high alert mode even when you're safe - that's what we call dysregulation. It's like your internal alarm system is broken, stuck in the "on" position, unable to recalibrate to what's actually happening around you.

With rest, this can show up as:

• The inability to sit still
• Constant doing (because being busy feels safer than being still)
• Difficulty sleeping even when you're exhausted
• Feeling guilty when you rest
• A sense that you always need to be "on" or "ready."

And here's what makes this particularly insidious for those of us doing justice work: The world actually IS on fire right now. There actually ARE real threats. There actually IS harm happening.

So your nervous system's alarm bells aren't wrong—they're just stuck in overdrive.

This is where it can get personal. Because rest, for those carrying trauma, isn't just about saying no to relentless hustle. It's about learning—slowly, gently, often with professional help—how to signal safety to a body that's forgotten what safety feels like. About recognizing that you can't heal what you won't acknowledge, and you can't move forward if you're still running from what's behind you.

And here's the part that connects to everything we've been talking about: We cannot do justice work from a dysregulated nervous system. We'll either burn out or we'll cause harm.

When we're operating from a place of chronic stress, we lose nuance. We become reactive instead of responsive. we see threats everywhere—even in people who are trying to help. We become rigid, defensive, unable to listen.

This isn't a moral failure. This is physiology.

But it does mean that tending to our own nervous system, our own trauma, our own need for repair—that's not selfish. That's essential.

Not just for you. For everyone around you.

Because the goal isn't just to survive this moment. It's to sustain faithful resistance for the long haul.

And we can't do that if your body is constantly in fight, flight, or freeze.

If this section is resonating with you and you're realizing you need more support than a podcast episode can provide, I've put together some resources in the show notes—trauma-informed therapists, somatic practices, books that have helped me. Please know: You don't have to figure this out alone.

Section 4: Elijah in the Cave—When God Says "Rest First"

Let's look at what this actually looks like in Scripture. Because if anyone had reason to keep pushing through, it was Elijah.

1 Kings 19. Elijah has just had the most dramatic spiritual victory of his life—calling down fire from heaven on Mount Carmel, defeating the prophets of Baal, proving God's power in front of the entire nation.

And then Jezebel threatens his life.

And Elijah—this mighty prophet, a man of God—runs. He goes a day's journey into the wilderness, sits down under a tree, and says, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life."

He's done. He's exhausted. He's ready to give up. If you've ever felt depressed, burned out, or like you just can't do this anymore, you're in good company. This is what it looked like for one of the greatest prophets in Scripture.

And what does God do?

God doesn't rebuke him. God doesn't tell him to pull himself together or have more faith.

God lets him sleep.

Twice, an angel wakes Elijah up, gives him food and water, and tells him to rest. "Get up and eat; otherwise, the journey will be too much for you." My version uses the word cake, and in this season cake and sleep sound like perfection.

Notice: God doesn't lecture Elijah about his lack of faith. God doesn't immediately send him back to work. God doesn't minimize his exhaustion or his despair.

God tends to his body first.

And only after Elijah has rested, eaten, and had forty days to travel does God meet him in the cave and ask, "What are you doing here?"

And even then—even when Elijah pours out his grief and fear and sense of isolation—God doesn't rush him.

God lets him lament. God lets him name what's broken. God lets him say, "I have been very zealous for the Lord... and I alone am left."

God's response isn't, "Stop complaining." It's, "Go, stand on the mountain, for the Lord is about to pass by."

The earthquake comes. The fire comes. The wind comes.

But God isn't in any of those.

God is in the still, small voice. The whisper. The silence.

The thing Elijah could only hear because he had finally stopped running.

This is what we miss when we glorify constant productivity and activism: God often speaks in the stopping.

Not in the noise. Not in the urgency. Not in the relentless push to do more, be more, fix more.

In the stillness. In the rest. In the space we create when we finally stop long enough to listen.

And here's what else we see in this story: God doesn't send Elijah back to work alone. God gives him Elisha—a companion, a partner, someone to share the burden.

Because sustainable resistance is never solo.

It's communal, supported and shared.

This doesn't always happen just because we want it to. This passage speaks to me deeply. I never want to slow down because I'm convinced everything will crumble if I do. I don't ask for help because I'm afraid of someone letting me down or people thinking that I can't handle it all.

But here's what that tells me: I trust in myself more than I trust in God.

And the second thing it tells me is that in all my running and cleaning and parenting and organizing, I've left little time for God to carry me. Little time for me to listen to His direction.

I am still a work in progress. I have a friend who is teaching me how to slow down—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. You'll hear some of her wisdom when I interview her next month.

This last week, I paused to join a group of Christ followers for an hour of prayer and lament. And let me tell you, this is hard. Even as I sat there, I felt my body tensing up, holding on, tuning out—resisting the very rest I know I need.

So I get it. I know what it's like to know you need rest and still struggle to receive it. To understand this theologically and still fight it practically.

Which is why what comes next matters so much.

Section 5: What White Christians Need to Grieve

Now we're getting to the heart of why this episode is so important—not just for this week, but for everything that's coming.

Because here's the truth: You cannot move into the work that's coming if you haven't grieved what was done to make it necessary.

And white Christians—we are MASTERS at bypassing grief.

We want reconciliation without lament. We want repair without acknowledging what was broken. We want to move forward without sitting with what we've inherited.

But that's not how healing works. That's not how the Psalms work. That's not how God works.

The Psalms don't skip grief—they go THROUGH it. They name the anger, the betrayal, the devastation. They sit in the ash heap. They cry out to God with raw, unfiltered honesty.

I remember the first time this dawned on me. That God was okay with my grief. That it wasn't sinful or a lack of trust or honestly, wrong. It was making myself fully open and honest with God about where my heart is, even though He already knew. The acknowledgement changed everything and helped me let it go.

And only then—after the lament has been fully voiced—does hope emerge.

So what do white Christians need to grieve right now?

Let me name a few things you might need to grieve:

You might need to grieve the church we thought we had.

The one that we believed stood for truth and justice and the least of these (not truth, justice, and the American way). The one we thought would resist authoritarianism, would protect the vulnerable, would refuse to bless violence in Jesus' name.

That church—for many of us—doesn't exist. Maybe it never did. And we need to grieve that.

You might need to grieve the theology we inherited.

The theology that prioritized order over justice. That told enslaved people to submit to their masters. That blessed segregation and white supremacy, while using scripture to justify unspeakable violence.

White people—especially white men—benefit from this theology, even when they didn't create it or ask for it.

And the same theological system elevates male authority while crushing women. It calls women's submission "biblical" while ignoring—or enabling—their abuse. It gives men opportunities for forgiveness and restoration while ostracizing and shaming women for the same sins, or even for being victims. It silences women's voices, dismisses their gifts, and tells them their value is tied to their obedience to men.

So many women are grieving what the church did to them. The ways it protected abusive men. The ways it blamed victims. The ways it used God's name to keep women small, silent, and subservient.

We all need to grieve what this theology cost—and who it cost.

We need to grieve the complicity we didn't choose but participated in.

The systems we've been part of. The harm done in our name. The ways we've been silent when we should have spoken, even today. The times we chose comfort over confrontation, peace over justice, belonging over truth.

This isn't about guilt. Guilt keeps you stuck. Guilt is self-focused, and honestly, it's a waste of time.

This is about grief. Grief moves you forward. And grief, properly tended, becomes fuel for repair.

Lastly, we need to grieve what was done to our Black brothers and sisters, to Indigenous peoples, to Japanese Americans, to every community targeted by race-based atrocities—and what continues to be done so blatantly today.

The violence. The erasure. The stolen land and stolen wealth. The destroyed communities. The generational trauma. The genocide that was called "manifest destiny." The internment camps. The lynchings. The ongoing harm that gets rationalized, minimized, or ignored.

And we need to sit with this: Much of that harm was done by people who looked like us, claimed the same faith we claim, and used the same Bible we read to justify unspeakable evil.

That's not comfortable. That's not easy. But it's true.

And if we can't sit with that truth long enough to grieve it—all of it, not just the parts that feel manageable—we have no business talking about reconciliation.

Because here's what I've learned doing trauma work: we cannot heal what we will not acknowledge. And we cannot repair what we refuse to grieve.

White Christians often want to skip this part. We want to go straight to "What do we do now?" We want action steps. We want to fix it. We want everything to be ok and be allies with people who have been harmed.

But there are no shortcuts through lament.

And honestly? If your first response to being told you need to grieve is defensiveness—"I didn't do those things," "Why should I feel bad about something I didn't do?" "It wasn't as bad as you're trying to make it." "There were a lot of good people back then." “I didn’t vote for this!”—that's exactly why you need to sit in this longer.

Because this isn't about individual guilt. It's about corporate lament. It's about recognizing that we've inherited something broken, and before we can repair it, we have to name it. Feel it. Grieve it.

This is how we prepare for February—for listening to Black wisdom without centering ourselves. For learning without demanding that our discomfort be managed. For receiving without needing to be thanked for finally paying attention.

We grieve first. We lament. We sit in the ash heap and acknowledge what was lost, what was stolen, what was destroyed.

And then—only then—can we begin the work of repair.

Section 6: A Personal Word—Still Learning to Stop

I need to be honest with you here. This episode isn't theoretical for me.

For years, I've pushed through. I've told myself that rest was for people who had the luxury of stopping, and I didn't. I had work to do. People depending on me. Kids who needed my hypervigilance. A calling that couldn't wait.

And I blame myself. I took on kids with trauma as a single parent. I decided three dogs was a good idea. I need to work three jobs to pay the bills.

But my body has kept score.

It wasn't a crash (who has time for that), but the subtle signs of exhaustion. A brain that can't remember something. A headache because I forgot to drink water. Emotionally eating homemade cookies for dinner instead of taking care of my health. A nervous system so dysregulated that I can't sleep even when I'm exhausted, can't sit still even when I desperately need to rest.

I've thought I was being faithful. I've thought pushing through was what obedience looked like.

But what I've actually been doing is running—from my own pain, my own trauma, my own need to grieve what I've lost and what I've witnessed.

And here's the truth: I still haven't completely learned this lesson.

It shows up differently now—not in one dramatic breakdown, but in the chronic ways my body refuses to let me rest. In the tension, I feel just as I'm about to let go. In the way I can know all of this intellectually and still struggle to practice it consistently.

And this is where rest and grief intersect in ways I'm still learning.

If I can be vulnerable here, I want to share how this showed up for me. I lost a younger brother to cancer when he was just 35. It was hard and painful and yet I am still thankful for the time we got with him before he died. But I didn't grieve, not in the way most people do. Grief looks different for everyone, but my mind said, "Kristen, just keep moving, there is nothing you can do about this now." It took decades to learn how to grieve this loss. And pushing it down did me no favors.

This is still my tendency. Ignore things I believe I can't control.

The voices that tell me rest is selfish, that everything will crumble if I stop, that my worth is tied to what I accomplish—those voices are persistent.

What I'm learning, imperfectly and slowly, is this: God has never asked me to be fearless. God never asked me to move along and ignore emotions because what could I do anyway. God has asked me to follow.

And sometimes following looks like stopping.

Like admitting I don't have it all figured out.

Like acknowledging that I still trust in myself more than I trust in God when I refuse to rest.

Like recognizing that in all my running and doing and organizing, I leave little time for God to carry me. Little time to listen to His direction. Little time to heal.

So I'm not preaching at you from a place of having this mastered. I'm speaking from the middle of learning what it means to rest as resistance. To grieve as preparation for repair. To tend to my own trauma so I don't inflict it on others.

This work is ongoing and often two steps forward, one step back.

But here's what I know now that I didn't know then: Sabbath isn't something you do. It's something you receive.

And the practice of stopping—regularly, intentionally, even when (especially when) it feels impossible—that's how we stay in this work for the long haul.

Section 7: Three Starting Points for Practicing Sabbath as Resistance

So let's get practical. Because I know some of you are thinking, "Okay, I hear you. But HOW? How do I actually practice Sabbath when everything feels urgent?"

I'm not going to give you formal practices. Instead, I want to offer three starting points—three ways you might begin building rest into your life as an act of resistance.

Starting Point 1: Pick One Day, One Hour, or Even One Breath

Again, you don't have to observe a full 24-hour Sabbath right away. And honestly, that's not even the goal - this isn't about legalistic rule-keeping or earning God's approval through perfect Sabbath observance. If that feels impossible right now, start smaller.

Pick one hour each week where you stop. No phone. No tasks. No trying to fix anything.

Just be.

Read. Sit outside. Take a walk. Light a candle and sit in silence. Let yourself do absolutely nothing useful. And as I say that out loud, I hear the voices in my head telling me why I can't.

When the guilt comes—because it will—recognize it as the empire's voice telling you that your worth is tied to being useful.

And then, gently, tell that voice: "Not today. Today I belong to God, not to the empire's demands."

For some of you, even an hour feels impossible. Start with one intentional breath. Seriously.

Inhale: "I am beloved." Exhale: "I am enough."

Do that three times. Daily. That's Sabbath practice too.

Starting Point 2: Practice Communal Lament

Sabbath isn't just individual—it's communal. And right now, we need spaces where we can grieve together without having to perform strength or certainty.

There's something beautiful about the Jewish traditions surrounding Sabbath that we often miss as Christians. The lighting of candles. The blessing over bread and wine. The gathering of family and community. The intentional stopping together, not in isolation.

Sabbath was never meant to be something you do alone in your room. It's a communal practice—a shared refusal to let the empire set the pace. A collective declaration that we belong to God and to each other, not to endless productivity.

Find or create a space where lament is welcome. Maybe that's a small group. Maybe that's one trusted friend. Maybe that's a virtual gathering where you can show up as you actually are—tired, grieving, uncertain.

And practice saying the hard truths out loud:

• "I'm scared."
• "I'm exhausted."
• "I don't know how to keep doing this."
• "I'm grieving what the church has become."

Don't rush to fix it. Don't spiritualize it away. Just let it be named.

Because when we grieve alone, it can become despair and lead us into a hole that is really tough to get out of. But when we grieve together, it becomes lament. And biblical lament—always moves toward hope. Not a cheap hope. Not toxic positivity. But the kind of hope that's been through the fire and comes out refined.

Starting Point 3: Tend to Your Nervous System

This one's specific to those carrying trauma—which, let's be honest, is probably most of us at this point.

And I know some of you just got anxious hearing "tend to your nervous system." We live in a Western culture that has taught us to disconnect from our bodies - to live in our heads, to think our way through everything, to ignore what our bodies are trying to tell us. I know this well. Thinking I can outthink any challenge.

But here's the thing: your body is where your trauma lives. It's where your stress lives. And you can't think your way out of a dysregulated nervous system any more than you can think your way out of a fever.

So learning to pay attention to your body - to what it needs, to what helps it feel safe - that's not New Age nonsense. That's reconnecting with the reality that God created you as an embodied being, not just a brain on a stick.

Learn what helps your nervous system feel safe. This might look like:

• Somatic practices - and don't let that word freak you out. It's just deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, grounding exercises like taking off your shoes and letting your feet feel the grass (or floor for those of you in colder climates!)
• Movement (walking, stretching, dancing in your kitchen)
• Connection (reaching out to safe people, not isolating even when that feels safer)
• Therapy or spiritual direction with someone trained in trauma-informed care
• Boundaries (saying no to what depletes you, even when it feels selfish)

Your nervous system isn't the enemy. It's trying to protect you. But it needs help recalibrating what safety actually looks like.

And here's the thing: This work takes time. You didn't get dysregulated overnight, and you won't regulate overnight either.

Be patient with yourself. Be gentle. Recognize that every small step toward rest, every moment of lament, every boundary you set—that's resistance.

That's you refusing to let the empire determine your worth, your pace, or your limits.

That's you trusting that God's rhythm is better than the grind.

Closing: Rest So You Can Repair

Here's where we land: we cannot do the repair work that's coming if we don't rest now.

I know I said this earlier, but it bears repeating because it's the foundation for everything ahead:

Next month, we move into Re-Member—listening to Black wisdom without centering ourselves.

In March, Re-Build—repair as Christian witness and accountability.

In April, Re-Imagine—what the church could be if we followed Jesus instead of protecting empire.

None of that is possible when we're running on empty.

And we can't imagine new futures when we're too exhausted to see past tomorrow.

So this week, this month, this season—rest as resistance.

Not because the work isn't urgent. But because sustainable justice requires sustained people.

Not because you've earned it. But because you're beloved—whether you accomplish anything today or not.

Here's your invitation: Practice one thing this week. Just one.

One hour of Sabbath. One communal lament. One grounding breath.

And notice what happens when you stop long enough to let God meet you in the stillness.

Because the still, small voice is still speaking. But you have to stop long enough to hear it.

Next week, we step into Black History Month with Episode 4. We're going to start our Re-Member journey by learning from Black theologians—not as guests we interview, but as teachers whose work we sit with and listen to.

We're going to talk about why white Christians need to sit down and listen without comment. Why Black theology isn't a nice addition to our faith—it's essential to understanding the Jesus we claim to follow. And why this work begins with us getting out of the center of the story.

But before we can do that work well, we have to do this work first.

We rest. We grieve. We repair what's broken in us so we don't break others in the work.

Thanks for being here.

Jesus. Justice. No apologies.