Rest Isn't the Reward. It's the Design. | Unforced | Britney Carrasco

This is yet again another Sunday though that Chad is asking me to preach

on something he didn't want to preach on. I know what that's what I said I was

like this is the second time he asked me to preach on rest and I am not good at

it. So we're gonna roll with this this morning. We've been going through our

unforced rhythms for the last five weeks I think now and I really think I

maybe the last person that Chad should have asked to teach about rest and about

Sabbath and Chad a couple weeks ago he spoke on grief and he liked joke that

like he's terrible at sitting with other people's grief and that was a

really hard sermon for him to write and he like laughed it off as like I'm in

any a gram seven and you know all the any a gram sevens in the room they took

the test and they high-fived themselves because they won and he did it on stage

I was like all right yeah that's right. I on the other hand am a any of

gram two wing three and you will see a lot of that today that the two is the

helper the one that earns love through doing things for others and often times

through suppressing their own needs and I have heard women in like post

evangelical spaces and deconstruction spaces be like that church tried to put

me in this box of the quintessential biblical woman and blah blah blah and

then I bloomed out of it and I was actually in any a gram four or six or

whatever and I'm like I love that for you I actually am a two and I'm like the

two is to the number two so what I do sometimes is tied and subconsciously

tied it's like my perception of how loved I am and so this is sort of a hard

sermon for me to talk through and write this week it's something that I'm deeply

aware of and honestly it just made all this immensely difficult for me the idea

of Sabbath and rest often just stays that an idea and I described it to Amanda in

the back she's a teacher and she agreed that teachers have the same they do the

same thing that people in health care do and I'm a nurse we have the same

mentality sometimes and in health care it's it's like it there's this calling to

help and a calling to do and in that in the calling it sort of makes you stick

through even though the pay doesn't match the cost of living or it makes you

stick through even though it is like draining like mentally and physically and

spiritually and it just kicks you down and sometimes beats you up sort of

literally and then suppressing your own needs to meet

others becomes like this trophy and and just when you're about ready to throw

in the towel you get this like glimpse of hope of like this is why I chose to do

this because this life was saved because this kid I made a difference in their

life and and then you just like forget it's an amnesia you forget all the other

like toxic pieces of it and so that toxic cycle just keeps on continuing so

you just resolve that it's worth it and the systems that we are in are designed

as like this grind culture they're designed to to make you earn your worth

and your belovedness and I've always thought that if you could just give me

a to-do list of how to rest I dominated okay like my wing three would come out

and I would do it well I would have it planned out on my calendar I would check

it off I would write it down just so I could check it off okay but then the

problem comes is I know myself and I would add a prerequisite and I would have

to get my three non-negotiables for that day done in order to reward myself with

this rest and then if I do and I take that rest then I might have to earn that

time back by staying a couple hours late to finish the things that I didn't get

done on my to-do list anybody else or is that just me yeah okay okay so I'm not

just I'm not just preaching to myself this morning because I was writing this

and I was like oh my god I hope other people feel this way or else I'm just

alone and this is this is not an unforced rhythm that is forcing another

thing that I can and will fail at and I asked Vin my husband like can you help

me think of a specific story of like me not resting he's like your life okay

that's fair that's fair I'll give you that I couldn't narrow it down either in

fact I like jokingly was like the only thing I could think of was like we

recently went and saw spider-man and then we got home we were like looking at

our aura app and looking at our heart rates and my heart rate looked like I

was sleeping and I was engaged the whole time it was like in the 50s and 60s and

his was like a little bit higher like he was like anticipating what was gonna

happen I was just like was that rest I don't know so trying to define what

rest even is and what that looks like in the day-to-day it's just really hard

this is just the forced rhythm that I live in and based on your reaction I

think I'm not the only one but it's just like this mentality of if I don't do it

who will and then I just feel this sense of ownership because it has to get done

you know so in an attempt to honor the heart of this series because Chad did

send me like a list of things I like not to stick by but like reminders of

like it needs to be enforced and how to like stay into the heart of this series

right I want to look at this differently than what I've looked at it in the past

and five weeks ago I think we have to start back in the beginning of the series

Chad talked about naming this series unforced and I want to remind you where

that word comes from because it isn't just branding for the series it's really

the entire point and so in Matthew 11 verses 28 through 30 it says are you

Matthew 11:28–30

tired worn out burned out on religion come to me get away with me and you'll

recover your life.

I'll show you how to take a real rest.

Walk with me and work with me.

Watch how I do it.

Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.

Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.

Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

Those are three words that my brain just doesn't know what to do with, and it sounded really

good during the series.

It really has.

I really like the ideas.

I've tried the practices unforced, not scheduled, not optimized, not white-nuckling

it through it, rhythms, not a task, not a box, not a streak.

I'm going to break on day four and then just throw in the trash because I broke it.

Grace.

And I want to say this carefully because I understand some people are coming from backgrounds

where grace was something that you only received after you sufficiently were sorry for whatever.

Grace means it is already yours before the effort, not because of it, unforced rhythms

of grace.

And then look at who the invitation is addressed to.

It said, are you tired?

Are you worn out?

Burned out on religion?

That's the guest list.

That's the whole guest list.

If you came in here already behind and already feeling depleted and already planning all the

things you need to do to prep for Monday or Tuesday depending on if you're off tomorrow,

then this verse is talking to you specifically.

You didn't even have to qualify.

You don't have to be good at rest.

And I'm going to say that over and over and over and over and over again today, okay?

Daniel, what is that thing that he says the TLDR?

What does that stand for?

I don't even know.

Yep.

There you go.

Too long.

Didn't read.

You don't have to be good at rest.

We walk away with anything today.

Okay.

I'm going to put some caveats on.

I'm going to put some actual pieces on it.

I'm going to give you a little bit of history.

All the things.

But you don't have to be good at rest.

And I'm saying that as much to you as I am to me, okay?

God rested first and in Genesis 2 by the seventh day, God had finished the work he had

been doing.

So on the seventh day, he rested from all of his work.

And then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, he rested from

all the work of creating that he had done.

And the word rest in here means manua, and that is not just the absence of work.

It's like a state of tranquility and celebration and fulfillment, a place made for something,

not just emptied of something.

And here's what I want you to sit in today is that God is not tired.

Genesis is not describing a God that overdid it on Thursday and needed to rest on Friday.

He just needed a minute.

That's not how that works.

God's rest was at the completion of creation.

Rest is the last thing built and it's built on purpose.

It isn't the recovery from creation.

It's part of it.

And then there's the detail that I love because humans actually show up on day six, which

means the first full day of a human being's existence was the day off.

We rested before we worked, before even Adam did one single thing.

They bore the image of God.

And the first thing that image did was stop.

Rest is not the reward at the end of the design.

Rest is the design.

You don't have to be good at rest.

You were made in the image of someone who did it first, who created it intentionally

in the design of your humanity.

And there are two different places in the Bible where the Sabbath is an actual command.

So we're going to talk about those because the first one in the Ten Commandments and Exodus

20, it says, "Rest because God rested."

And that's what we just talked about, creation, design, identity.

It is who you are designed to be, to have rest.

Deuteronomy 5 says something else entirely.

And I want us to read the whole thing, which my husband made the slides, and he was like,

"This is a really long slide."

And I was like, "Yeah, I know."

But we're going to not leave out the best parts.

These days, you shall labor and do all your work.

But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.

On it, you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male

or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey, or any of your animals, nor any foreigner

residing in your town so that your male and female servants may rest as you do.

Remember that you were slaves in Egypt.

And that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched

arm.

Look who is on that list, the kids, the workers, the animals, the immigrant.

This is not a self-care tip.

This is a labor law.

It's an economic command.

And it runs downward, and that's the part that I want you to see, because it reaches

the people whose work makes somebody else's rest possible.

And then it reaches past the household entirely to the foreigner in town who has no family

there and no property and nobody obligated to advocate for him.

So that your male and female servants may rest as you do, as you do, the same rest.

Not lesser, not a lesser version for people with less power, which means that rest doesn't

have to look like an expensive retreat or the vacation that we're saving up for.

So if it's accessible to everyone, let's dig in more.

Because the reason that is given is memory.

You were slaves.

You know what it is to have a body that only counts for what it produces.

So do not build that for anyone else.

That's God at the center of this command, not a God issuing a rule about Saturdays.

It is a God who keeps showing up on the side of people whose labor is being taken from

them and who wrote a rhythm into the law specifically so that people who got free wouldn't turn

around and rebuild the same machine with themselves at the top.

Which means that rest that stops with me isn't Sabbath yet.

Zach Lambert, when we did the Better Ways to Read the Bible series, he talked about how

taking a Bible that's being used as a weapon to condemn and exclude and handing it back

to people as something that heals.

And the Sabbath is a textbook case of that.

We took a liberation, one with teeth, one that actually costs a household something,

and shrink it to a private rule about our own Sunday afternoon.

One more line item that we can be behind on and fail at, because I don't know who else

is going to go home and meal prep today.

Tricia Hersey and her book, "Rest is Resistance," which I'm obsessed with this book, it's amazing.

She is making a version of the same argument from inside a different history from the lens

of African-American history.

In "Rest is Resistance," she writes as the descendant of people whose labor was stolen

outright.

And I want to stay here for a minute because it would be very easy for me to quote a black

woman on rest and then move straight along to my calendar and my version of rest.

There were generations of people in this country who were not permitted to stop, whose bodies

were valued at exactly what they could produce, and not one thing more.

For whom rest was not a spiritual practice or a self-care tip, it was contraband.

Stopping could get you hurt, and the church was in on it.

There was preached at enslaved people to keep them working, slaves obey your earthly masters.

That verse got a lot of pulpit time.

The same book that says to remember that you were slaves and the Lord your God brought

you out was handed over with that part kept quiet.

So when Hersey in "Rest is Resistance," says when she says that rest is resistance,

she's not just being clever.

She is saying that what was taken is worth taking back, that a body permitted to stop

is a body that has quit being a unit of production.

She says that we've been bamboozled, that we live in a culture without a pause button,

that the knowing that our bodies came with as infants when we cried out and recognized

our own physical needs has been taken from us and swapped out for disconnection, and

a lot of the time just disconnection with self.

And that is not a modern remix of Sabbath.

His Deuteronomy told again, on behalf of people who had been enslaved in Egypt, the

same God on the same side.

And now I want to be careful here.

And I'd rather say this out loud than skate past it, because my tiredness is not that.

Nobody owns my body, and I can leave.

Whatever I'm carrying, it is not what she is writing about, and I'm not going to borrow

that weight to make my point land today.

But I think the historical context of rest and Sabbath and the weight of that is worth

sitting with.

And there's an underlying lie, and it's measured on a different scale, but it's the same lie,

that a person is only worth what they can produce.

And here's the thing about Pharaoh's economy.

It didn't end.

It incorporated.

It learned to offer benefits packages.

And it got extremely good at calling itself a calling.

The whole "if I don't do it, who will?"

I think I've said that sentence for so many years, that it's almost like a devotion.

And it isn't.

It's the most profitable sentence I know.

Because a system that runs on depletion never has to force people like me, I'll just volunteer.

And here's what I keep missing.

This was never something I was supposed to fix one tired person at a time.

Deuteronomy doesn't say "rest harder."

It doesn't say "manager calendar better."

It writes "rest into the law."

For the kids, for the workers, for the animals, for the immigrant who has nobody.

Because the people who had been worked to the bone were never supposed to turn around and

build that for someone else.

So rest here isn't a private achievement, it's an arrangement.

It lives in schedules, it lives in policies, it lives in laws.

It lives in who gets a day off and who doesn't and who decides that.

And whose voices are represented as policy makers and lawmakers that are protecting the

more vulnerable and what it looks like to value rest.

Which means that Sabbath isn't finished when I finally sit down.

It isn't finished until it reaches the person with the least power in the room.

So you don't have to be good at rest.

And it's also important to understand the history and the context of that.

That it isn't Sabbath until it's Sabbath for everyone.

That it's not exclusionary.

And another important piece, and I'm going to try to say this carefully because I want

to name what exhaustion costs.

I'm not trying to scare you into resting.

I don't think that that would be the wisest approach in a sermon that's like talking about

unforced rhythms, right?

but I do want us to be aware of the toll that it takes on the body, just exhaustion

itself and Chad has talked about some of this and some of the previous sermons in

the series. Brene Brown has a list of guide posts in her the gifts of imperfection

and one of them contrasts these two connected ideas. It's cultivating play

and rest and she lines that up with letting go of exhaustion as a status

symbol and productivity as self-worth. So cultivating play and rest looks like

letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol, productivity as self-worth. We do

this. In health care it is like practically a competitive sport. I haven't

sat down since 6 a.m. I haven't eaten. I stayed two hours past my shift. We hand

each other our depletion like it's proof that we care. And how many other jobs in

the room sort of do that too? Yes. Yes. I haven't taken care of myself or met any

of my own needs today but I did X, Y, and Z and so I am productive and I am

valued and I am a good mom and I am a good nurse and I am a good teacher. Chad

recently shared what the research on sleep loss says and it surprised me but

what sleep deprivation takes from a person isn't primarily happiness. It's

the capacity to be moved. Tired people don't hurt more. They delight less and

like none of you in here stepped into the profession or the role of motherhood or

fatherhood or theahood or whatever you know like you never you didn't step

into those roles with the intention to just like burn out. Like it was with a

good heart and yet we just set our own needs aside to meet every other. Tired

people don't hurt more. They delight less so you like lose out on the reason

you're even doing those things for those people that you love. We spent a whole

week on this series about like noticing and awareness and awe on the practice

of actually seeing the thing in front of you that we don't have to invite God

into the room. God is already here. We're like changing our awareness right and it

turns out that the first casualty of a life without rest is the equipment that

helps you rest. Which means an exhausted nervous system cannot tell the

difference between a sunset and a stoplight.

And that's not a character flaw. Nobody in here is spiritually deficient for

being tired. That is just what depletion does to the body. And I found myself

recently when people ask me how things are going answering that I'm tired. But

I'm not just sleepy. I'm tired. I'm worn out.

So when we say I don't have time to rest and there's too much that matters the

cost of that trade is the ability to be moved by the things that matter. Including

the people that we're doing it all for. You don't have to be good at rest. But I

do think it's important that we recognize the cost of that exhaustion. That grind

has been quietly taking away your capacity for all and wonder as a payment.

And now I read that and I wrote that and I was like okay so then it's my

responsibility to get back the capacity for on wonder. I can do this and no okay.

So I'm gonna flip that a little bit because I do think it's important to

understand the history and the context and then the cost. But I don't want it to

turn into like guilt into okay I then I have to do X Y and Z so that I can feel

rest and so that I gain back that capacity for on wonder yes I did it.

That's not how it works. So I'm gonna compare this to something okay. A heart

beat. It's not a skill okay. Bear with me. Because everything I've said so far I

actually believe and I still don't do it. Because somewhere in me rest became one

more competency and it's a competency that I'm underperforming on. One more area

where I am apparently bad at something. Brian Zond has a framework that I found

in one of his sub-stack articles that I can't shake. He said life is rhythm,

breath, heartbeat, seasons, tides. When your body falls out of rhythm you're sick.

If the rhythm doesn't get restored you die that's biology. And he reads Sabbath

the exact same way the daily prayers the seasonal feasts and above all weekly

Sabbath all of which are built to establish a holy rhythm in people. But

here's the line that got me. He says a heartbeat isn't a skill. You don't get

better at your heartbeat. You don't practice it and improve. You either fall

out of rhythm or you get restored to it. And the restoring isn't something that

you achieve. It's something that happens to you. And if we're talking medically

like literally through defibrillation or a cardioversion or other medical means

like you're not the one fixing your heart rate, your heartbeat, right? So all of my

anxiety about being bad at rest, about failing the practice, about the fact that

I'd absolutely turn it into a checklist with a prerequisite and a reward is

anxiety about a category error. Rest was never a skill I was going to master. I

don't have to get good at it. I just have to keep coming back to the rhythm, which

means failing at rest this week doesn't disqualify me from it. It just

means that the next beat is coming. Mark 227, the verse that Chad started us

with in week one, is the one that this whole series just keeps on circling back

to.

This Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Jesus isn't loosening a rule here.

He's claiming to be the one that sets the rhythm.

He's saying this whole thing was built for you.

You were never built to feed it.

You don't have to be good at rest.

You can fall back into a rhythm that was made for you.

So let's go back to something that I said in the beginning.

I tied it jokingly to my Enneagram number,

but I think it resonated with some people.

The degree to which I believe I'm loved is sometimes

tied to what I do for people and what I can accomplish.

Brian Wrecker writes about fear-based faith,

and he says something that stuck with me.

If you grew up believing God was watching for your failure,

your nervous system learned that stopping is dangerous.

That's not a character flaw either.

That's an old story your body still believes,

running quietly underneath the theology

that you've since changed your mind about.

It takes about a year is what he said in his book

to deconstruct a belief.

Your body takes considerably longer.

It's like your mind's not meeting your body,

and so your body, you have this visceral memory of.

And so I want to say this out loud and mostly to myself.

But at Jesus' baptism, before he has healed one person,

before a single sermon, before miracles and crowds,

before the cross, the voice from heaven says, beloved.

This is my son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.

And well pleased with what?

He hasn't done the ministry yet.

That's the point.

The belovedness comes first.

It isn't the performance review at the end.

It's the ground he stood on the whole time.

Cole Arthur Riley in her book This Here Flesh

said, "Our dignity may involve our doing,

"but it is foremost in our very being,

"our tears and emotions, our bodies lying in the grass,

"our scabs healing."

And if that is true, it means that our belovedness

is the ground.

It's not the goal.

It's the ground that we're standing on.

It's where we're starting from.

It's not the goal that we're aiming for.

Then rest isn't something that I owe or something that I earn.

Rest attaches to belovedness and not obligation.

Rest is the act of believing that about yourself

before you maybe feel it.

Which is why I think it is so hard for all of our teachers

and nurses and parents and pastors and reformers

and achievers and everybody in here who has quietly built a life

where being needed is how they know that they're loved.

Stopping doesn't feel restful in that.

It actually feels like exposure.

If I'm not doing, then what am I?

It feels like what Taryn said, another itchy tag on your shirt

just reminding you that you're not enough.

Beloved.

That's it.

That's the answer.

And it's infuriatingly short.

And I've been trying to make it longer for you.

But you don't have to be good at rest.

You were beloved before you were useful.

So this doesn't have to be a skill you get good at.

But now I want to name the thing that is going to happen

if you actually try this.

Because I'd rather tell you now than you think

that you're failing and you did it wrong.

Rest is probably going to feel like nothing is happening.

It's going to feel like you're falling behind.

The thing you stepped away from is just

going to end without you.

This was a nice idea for people with different lives.

Maybe it isn't meant for me.

Brian Zond has a reflection on Holy Saturday

that I found in another one of his substacks.

We know Friday.

We know Sunday.

We've got songs for both.

But Saturday is also in the gospel.

Paul lists it.

And he says he was buried like it counts.

And what happened that day?

Nothing.

Jesus was dead and in a tomb and nothing happened.

For the disciples, Saturday was probably worse than Friday.

Friday, you're in shock.

Saturday, the shock wears off.

Hopelessness moves in.

And you still have to feed people and clean and get

through a day where God is obviously not doing anything.

You still have to keep going.

So when you stop and the Sunday comes, it didn't come

because anybody worked for it.

The disciples didn't rest correctly,

and therefore they were honored with resurrection.

It came while everyone who loved him

was doing absolutely nothing.

So if you try this and you stop this week

and you feel useless and you're like nothing is happening,

when you're sitting there, that's not failure.

That's holy Saturday.

And you don't have to be good at rest.

It might feel like nothing.

And that isn't a verdict on how well you rested

or about the outcome or what comes next

or how good you were at rest.

And so this is when I had to leave you with a practice

for this week.

And I really actually struggled with this one

because I needed it to be something

that I couldn't mess up, right?

But that was the rule that you can't fail it.

If you create a practice that you can fail at,

then it's a scoreboard.

It's not enforced, right?

And in week one, Chad mentioned a study on clergy

who practiced Sabbath and how it didn't find the measurable

health benefits that everybody assumed it would.

So I think that's an important thing to mention here.

Because if Sabbath only mattered because it

made you healthier and calmer and sharper

and more productive on Monday, then it

would just be a recovery wearing a religious outfit.

It would be Pharaoh's economy with a devotional attached.

You'd still be resting in order to produce something.

And that's the exact cycle that we're trying to get out of here.

And I know what I did to you a few minutes ago.

I told you what exhaustion costs, your delight,

your capacity to be moved, all that.

And I'm not gonna turn it into a sales pitch of like,

you have to earn that back, okay?

I'm not gonna stand up here and promise

that practicing the Sabbath is going to fix your anxiety

or your depression or your burnout or your marriage.

It might not fix anything.

And that's allowed.

We do it because of what it is,

not because of what it produces.

This is not transactional.

So the same as the week's prior,

one small practice that I wanna leave you with.

And again, it had to be a goal

that failing it would be weird

because if you can't fail it,

then it is in the scoreboard.

So, and I'm gonna be honest with you,

I actually was going to do like schedule two hours

out on your calendar.

And then like that became the joke of the sermon

because I wouldn't be able to make it stick.

I would literally like be like, okay,

well, I'm gonna move it to this day

because there's too many meetings on that day.

And let me get all of these things

done on my checklist first.

And then I can do this,

oh, but then if I do this for two hours,

then I might just stay two hours

so that I can get this other stuff done.

And then I can see my night shift.

And I probably would have like reason through a way

to like make myself more productive.

So I really took that in mind when I was creating this, okay?

Tricia Hersey, like even,

she had like this long list in here

of different ways that rest could look.

And she said long baths and tea rituals and walks

and dancing and not answering that email right away.

And it's a beautiful list,

but I found it completely overwhelming

because I read it like a menu

of 11 more things that I'm not currently doing well.

So I was like, okay, so how do I find this

so that it doesn't just like leave you already feeling defeated

when you leave here today?

And two words in her list in here just stopped me.

Rejecting urgency.

So here's the practice.

And it's not a mood, it's not a feeling

and it isn't a menu.

I want you to pick one boundary this week.

Not a feeling, a boundary.

A time that you stop.

And not necessarily, unless you can, that's great,

two hours of uninterrupted successful peace,

but a line.

At 8.30, I'm gonna close my laptop.

After dinner, I'm not gonna take the call.

Saturday morning, the group text can wait

until I've had my coffee.

Set a boundary.

You don't have to feel restful in it.

You don't have to enjoy it.

You don't have to be good at it, okay?

I am going to add two caveats.

So there are two rules to this.

And they're like semi, just like, I know myself, okay?

And some of you guys like made similar responses to me

in this, so this might be helpful to have these two rules, okay?

Number one, no prerequisites.

You don't get to clean the house first.

You don't get the inbox down first.

The boundary is not something that you unlock, okay?

It's not something that you earn.

It's just setting a boundary.

And then two, don't earn it back.

And this is like really hard for me, okay?

No making up the time.

No staying late Thursday to repay Tuesday.

That's not rest, that's a loan.

Set a boundary.

There's one guy that I work with

who's been here a couple times now,

but he is so good at setting boundaries

in such like a kind way that it's impressive.

And like, I actually just look up to him in that.

It's so respectful in the way he does it.

I'm like, dang, that is like so beautiful

because I just keep saying yes to everything.

One boundary, not a feeling, a boundary,

a time that you stop.

And then when you keep it badly,

when you close your laptop at 8.30

and then you lie there and you're running

through your two list anyways,

and then you draw the line,

you draw that boundary and you step over it twice,

keep it badly, keep it anyways.

That's the rhythm starting.

A heartbeat that skips isn't a heartbeat that failed,

it's a heart that's still going.

A heartbeat is not a skill, it's just that rhythm, right?

So here's what I wanna leave you with

for a few of the voices that we've talked about this morning.

You don't achieve rest, you return to its rhythm.

You don't earn rest, you are freed for it.

And you don't perform for rest.

You were beloved before it.

Sabbath isn't limited to a day of the week.

We live in an established Sabbath.

So let it invade the routine

that you're going back to tomorrow or Tuesday.

Not just the vacation that you're saving up for.

Let it interrupt your schedule

and give you reason to pause.

Even if it is just one boundary.

Go rest well, not so that you'll be more useful after,

not so that you'll finally feel like the version of yourself

you keep meaning to be.

Just rest because you were made in the image of a creator

who rested first.

And the rest was a place that was made for you

before you did anything to deserve it.

You don't have to be good at rest.

You just have to be held.

Arsenal family, I love you guys so much.

Go love well and love yourself well this week, okay?

Set one boundary and it's okay if you don't do it well.

Go love well, it's who you're made to be.

Love you Arsenal.

(audience applauding)