Bring Stillness to My Striving

Christ on the Cross

I really, really hate when people write in books. I always have. It feels invasive. Like graffiti on a gravestone or carving your initials into the bark of a tree. I grew up being taught to revere books—especially religious ones. So even now, when I see someone underlining whole paragraphs or jotting down notes in pen right in the margins, a bit of me clenches.

I use clear Post-it notes. Neat. Reversible. Reverent. A way of tucking my thoughts beside the text without daring to alter the integrity of the page.

However—here’s the confession—I take a much more evangelical approach when it comes to Scripture. I love a chunky study Bible with wide margins, cross-references, commentary, footnotes and theological rabbit holes. I love margin room—space for scribbled thoughts, Greek transliterations, questions, exclamation marks, prayers, laments, aha-moments. There’s something beautiful about a Bible that’s lived in. Something humble about knowing you don’t just read the Word—it reads you. Again and again.

And—I confess this too—that scribbling has made its way into my Office books. Pages of Vigils, Matins, Noonday, Vespers and Compline now hold not just the liturgy of the Church, but the liturgy of my life. The recurring refrains I add in the margins, the little crosses I’ve drawn beside verses that have stopped me mid-prayer, and the single line I’ve written more than any other:

Christ on the Cross – bring stillness to my striving.

It’s not in the printed text. It’s mine. Or maybe more truthfully, it’s Christ’s. I first wrote it beside Psalm 126, sometime last year during the Noonday Office. I was sat at the back of the church on my own, the sun streaming through the stained glass, and I’d arrived flustered—late and panicked and doing too many things and doing none of them well. I couldn’t even sit down properly. I knelt awkwardly. Half-heartedly. Rushed the opening prayer.

And then I stopped.

The room was still. The crucifix on the altar was still.

And I found myself repeating, over and over again, under my breath:
Christ on the Cross – bring stillness to my striving.
I wasn’t trying to sound holy. It just came. And it’s never really left.

It’s become the line I say when I settle into Noonday Prayer. It’s the prayer before the prayer. The pause before the psalm. It anchors me. Not by fixing the chaos or offering me some transcendent spiritual clarity—but by pointing me toward the crucified Christ who did not run from stillness.

We often imagine stillness as serene. Meditative. Calm. But the stillness of the Cross is not peaceful. It’s aching. Breathless. A stillness not of choice, but of surrender. A stillness that holds pain and salvation at the same time.

And yet—this stillness is the moment of our redemption.

I often forget that. I often live as though everything depends on me. That the Gospel needs my energy, my performance, my well-crafted thought, my well-timed post, my relentless empathy, my follow-up emails, my perfect combination of theological clarity and pastoral warmth. Ministry becomes performance. Prayer becomes pressure. Even rest becomes something to earn.

I think that’s why this line—this prayer—keeps repeating itself in me.

Christ on the Cross – bring stillness to my striving.

Because if Christ—God-with-us, Love-made-flesh—was most fully Himself, most completely salvific, not in movement but in surrender, then perhaps I don’t need to be afraid of being still. Perhaps I don’t need to feel guilty for stepping back. Perhaps I don’t need to keep proving my worth. Perhaps I am most myself not when I strive, but when I stop.

And I’ll be honest: I’m not good at stopping. I live with an unshakeable urgency most of the time. Some of that’s just the shape of life in ministry. Some of it is autistic intensity, and some of it is trauma logic—if I just keep moving, maybe nothing can catch me. If I keep producing, maybe I’m safe.

But the Cross does not strive.

The Cross receives.

It receives the nails. It receives the insults. It receives the thief beside Him. It receives the forsakenness, the mystery, the silence. And out of that surrender comes life.

Every day, we are told to keep going. To keep fighting. To keep building our brand, our influence, our output, our impact. Even in the Church. Maybe especially in the Church.

But Noonday Prayer cuts across that. Like the veil torn in two. It’s the hour of crucifixion. The hour where the sun beats down and the sky goes dark. The middle of the day when we remember that everything changed not through striving, but through stillness.

So I whisper it again:

Christ on the Cross – bring stillness to my striving.

And I let it slow me down.

I let it still my hands.

I let it settle in my bones like a psalm I haven’t yet memorised.

And I wonder—what would it look like to live from this stillness? Not just to visit it at noon, but to let it shape the rest of the day?

What would it mean to be a Christian not known for our busyness, our relevance, or our productivity—but for our surrender?

What would it mean to trust that the stillness of Christ is enough?

Maybe I’ll write that in the margin next.