Step after step I take, my boat shoes on unfamiliar territory as they cross over rocks, branches, and logs turned into stairs. I’m surrounded by changing leaves, cool air, and deep quiet. It’s morning but most of nature is still asleep.

“This is not my world!” my mind screams at me. My world is one of calendars, constant planning, always full inboxes, meetings that never seem to end, ridiculously long lists of details I have to remember to keep up with, headaches, early mornings that come too quickly and long nights that help me catch up on everything. I type all of this on an iPhone that never goes dark.

No, the undisturbed quiet of this new morning is not where I belong and yet, there in the stillness of it all, I hear a small voice. It’s the voice that often breaks through the chaos of the day to day- though, if I’m honest, not nearly enough.

It’s a voice that beckons me to find peace, a voice that calls me to remember the rest promised if I would just slow down and trust that the one who has called remains faithful.

As I stumble up a hill, the sounds of birds coming awake filling the refreshing cool atmosphere of peace, I realize that my boat shoes do not belong in the woods. This is not where I spend my time: this is not my world.

And yet, the voice that speaks through the beauty of the morning continues to whisper in the midst, beckoning and reminding: “no, it’s mine.”