Author’s Note

Sometimes I sit in the car long after the engine has gone quiet—the house just steps away—and realize almost an hour has passed. I’m not praying. I’m not planning. I’m just… there. Exhausted. Hungry.

Hungry for something real. Hungry for substance. I catch glimpses—in a lyric that carries truth without polish, in a moment of quiet not yet filled with purpose—but too often it slips away. The noise returns. The ache rises: there must be more.

I have spent my life listening for God in the stories we tell, the art we make, the spaces where beauty, breath, and Spirit meet. I’ve seen what happens when faith becomes performance—and I’ve seen what awakens when presence becomes practice.

This is the work that draws me now: to make room where silence feeds, where truth holds weight, where the heart can meet God without hurry.

I want the living God—not a branded version, not a certainty explained to exhaustion, but the Presence whose nearness still trembles the soul. I want to sit at His table again. To eat what truly feeds. To stop mistaking fullness for being fed.

When the words ran thin, I went quiet. Or maybe, if I’m honest, I was quieted—by grief, by longing, by the realization that effort alone cannot sustain a soul. And yet, even there, something kept pulsing: hunger.

Amos spoke of a famine “not of bread or water, but of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11). I think we are living in that kind of famine. But even famine can be holy, because hunger means life is still stirring. Hunger is mercy. It is how the soul tells the truth about what still matters.

This book was born of that mercy—out of a desire to recover a faith that feels like breath again. It is for those who love God but are learning to love Him differently—more slowly, more honestly, without the performance of having it all together. It is for those who have known both ache and wonder, who still believe grace can gather what striving scattered.

You won’t find quick answers here. You will find story and Scripture, silence and breath—enough space to listen again for what holds. Enough quiet to remember that blessed are the hungry, for they shall be filled.

I write not as one who has mastered the meal, but as one learning to eat again—slowly, honestly, without pretense. Learning that grace does not rush, and that God still sets tables in the wilderness.

May these words help you pause. To breathe. To feel the ache and not despise it. To know that hunger is not your failure—it is your invitation. The pulse of a life still open, still reaching, still being led home.

With love,
Mims (Elle)

Part I — Hungry for Rest

The God Who Called Rest Holy

“And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.” — Genesis 2 : 3

“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength.” — Isaiah 30:15

__________________________________________________

Before hunger finds its words, it begins in the body.
This is where holiness stops hurrying and grace begins to breathe again.
Before we hunger for revelation, clarity, or purpose, we must learn to hunger for rest.

Not the kind that numbs or distracts, but the kind that restores rhythm to the soul—
the kind that reminds us that being is not lesser than doing,
and that rest was never meant to be a reward;
it was meant to be a foundation.

After six days of unfolding beauty—light from darkness, water from sky, form from void—
God did something startling.
He stopped.
He looked at all that had been made and called it good.
But when He looked upon His own stillness, He called it holy.

It is the first time the word holy appears in Scripture—
not to describe the heavens, not even humanity, but rest.

The God who never slumbers nor sleeps—
who holds galaxies in orbit and breathes stars into being—
chose to sanctify stopping.
He blessed the pause, the breath,
the unhurried space where nothing more needed to be done.

If the sleepless God called rest holy,
then our restlessness is not proof of devotion;
it is evidence that we have forgotten how to be human.

We were made in the image of a God who works, yes—
but also of a God who rests.
That means rest is not an afterthought; it is part of bearing His likeness.
It is not the absence of faithfulness, but its truest expression:
I trust You to hold what I cannot.

The world tells us we are what we produce—
that rest is weakness, stillness is failure, stopping is falling behind.
But in the kingdom of God, stillness is not regression; it is return.
Return to Presence.
Return to breath.
Return to the One who never asked exhaustion to prove love.

This is where hunger begins—beneath the noise,
in the slow remembering that our limits are not flaws but invitations.
It is the mercy that interrupts our motion
and reminds us that righteousness begins with remembering what is true.

Rest is the soil where every other hunger grows.
Without it, even holy desire sours into striving.
With it, every ache becomes prayer.

This first movement is not a call to do less;
it is an invitation to live differently—
to let justice begin with rest that restores,
mercy gather what has frayed,
grace empower what has grown weary,
and righteousness realign you with the breath that began it all.

Here, in the stillness, we remember:
we are dust—beloved dust—held by divine breath.
And the God who breathed us to life still calls rest holy.

Place of Practice — Returning to Breath

(Hunger: Release | Invitation: Stop)

Find a quiet place. Let your body be still before your thoughts try to fix what is not broken.

Read slowly:

“He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul.” — Psalm 23 : 2–3

Take three slow breaths.
Inhale as if receiving mercy.
Exhale as if releasing control.

Whisper:

“Rest is holy, and I am safe to stop.”

Sit for a while in that unremarkable miracle—
the world still turning,
the God who never sleeps still holding it all,
including you.

Chapter 1 — The Tired We Don’t Talk About

“It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for He gives to His beloved sleep.” — Psalm 127 : 2

There is a kind of tired that no amount of sleep can touch—
the kind that settles behind the eyes,
where words and worries blur into one dull ache.
The kind that smiles when asked, “How are you?”
and answers, “Fine,” because the truth feels too heavy to name.

This is the tired we don’t talk about—
the soul fatigue that builds quietly beneath competence and care.
It wears the face of responsibility.
It sounds like faithfulness.
It hides behind ministry, motherhood, leadership, service.
And somewhere in the middle of doing all the right things,
we forget that God never asked us to be everywhere at once.

Our bodies keep score even when our spirits pretend not to.
The heart races at stoplights.
The chest tightens when the inbox pings.
The Sabbath comes and goes,
but our restlessness refuses to lie down.
We can stop moving and still not know stillness.

The psalmist says God “gives His beloved sleep,”
yet we treat sleep like luxury and rest like weakness.
We pride ourselves on endurance—
holding it all together, saving face while our souls fray at the edges.
We call it devotion.
Underneath, it’s depletion disguised as discipline.

Some of us learned early that love must be earned through usefulness.
That worth requires output.
That presence alone could never be enough.
So we perform—even before God.
We pray to impress the heavens,
serve until joy burns out,
and call it obedience.
But true obedience begins in surrender, not exhaustion.

Jesus slept through storms.
He withdrew to lonely places.
He left crowds waiting.
He chose limits without apology.
His rest was not negligence; it was trust.
The Son lived the rhythm of One who knew
the Father would not let the world unravel while He slept.

We, too, are invited to that rhythm—
the slow cadence of being kept.
We are not the keepers of the world; we are the kept.
And that one truth, if remembered,
can unravel decades of striving.

There is no holiness in burnout.
No prize for running past your capacity.
The Spirit does not anoint depletion;
He breathes upon surrender.
He hovers over chaos until rest can form.

To confess exhaustion is not failure; it is faith.
It admits we cannot sustain what only God can hold.
It opens the door to mercy
and grants permission to stop pretending strength.

You are not weak because you are weary.
You are weary because you have carried
what was never yours to keep.
And the invitation, as old as creation, still stands:

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden,
and I will give you rest.”

This is not metaphor; it is medicine.
The rest of God is not escape from the world—
it is a way to live differently within it.
It refuses to confuse presence with performance,
faithfulness with frenzy,
purpose with pressure.

When you finally stop—really stop—
you may find the world keeps turning without your push.
You may feel grief or guilt
as silence exposes how much of your doing
was built on fear of not being enough.
But if you stay in the stillness, something shifts.
What felt like failure becomes invitation.
What felt like emptiness becomes space for breath.

God is not waiting for your perfection.
He is waiting for your pause—
your willingness to sit still long enough
for His mercy to catch up to you.
Before rest becomes rhythm, it begins as surrender.
Before Sabbath becomes practice, it must become permission.

The body knows when it’s time.
So does the soul.
The ache you feel is not laziness; it is longing.
It is the beginning of repentance—
the kind that returns you not to guilt, but to grace.

Place of Practice — Listening to the Body

(Hunger: Surrender | Invitation: Be Kept)

Sit without multitasking. No agenda. No timer.
Place a hand over your heart and notice its rhythm.
Let your breathing slow until your body starts to believe you are safe.

Ask:

Where am I carrying what is not mine to hold?
What have I called “faithfulness” that is only fear of stopping?

Whisper:

“I am not the keeper of the world. I am the kept.”

Let the words linger.
Stay until your shoulders drop.
Stay until the silence begins to sound like mercy.