Dr. Tan Tek Seng

Daily Reflection

November 13, 2025

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Matthew 11:28

When we feel tired, broken, and approaching the end of our lives, Jesus invites us to lay our burdens at His feet and receive a peace that the world cannot give.

Mary is a nurse working at a New York City hospital. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, she was on the verge of a mental breakdown. For months, she worked 14-hour days, surrounded by illness, death, and fear. Every day, she held the hands of critically ill patients—because their families couldn't be by their side. Every night after get off work, she would sit alone in her car crying before driving home, her mind suffocating under the weight of endless pain.

One evening, she was sitting in her car, turned on the radio, and heard a pastor reading from the Gospel of Matthew: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” At that moment, she prayed softly with tears in her eyes: “Jesus, I really can’t go on anymore, please give me rest.”

In that brief prayer, she felt a change—not in her circumstances, but in her heart. She later said, “The hospital is still chaotic, and patients are still dying, but I am no longer carrying all of this alone. I feel that He is with me.”

From then on, she would pray quietly before going to work every day, finding renewed strength in faith to care for others. Her colleagues noticed an extraordinary peace emanating from her, transcending the storms around her.

Matthew 11:28 reminds us that Jesus is a compassionate shepherd who understands our weariness. Even today, He invites us—when life's burdens weigh us down, when our hearts are weary—to come before Him. We don't need to be perfect; simply bring our pain, and we can find true rest in Him—a rest that no achievement, wealth, or earthly comfort can provide.

"A resting mind is a creative mind." — John Muir