I come back and smell the trees.
I snuggle into my couch.
I reach for my morning rituals.
The rhythms are familiar, they come easy and I welcome them.
What felt heavy before has become lighter.
I’m ready.
I am here to convince you that adventure, wandering, and essentially vacation is good- similar to how a Sabbath is good. I’m not talking about indulging gluttony and escapism. I am talking about good healthy, time set aside, a different place picked out, kinda trip. Now, we are all on different financial spectrums, so I use the word vacation with much allowance for variation. Perhaps, it’s one night camping a couple hours away, with all meals packed up and a tent. Perhaps it’s a trip to a national park with your family. Maybe it’s Disney with all inclusive everything. Let’s use it loosely and be kind to all different capacities and dreams.
Vacation, in doses, enhances our consistency and commitment to daily life. It somehow gifts us new energy. We watch different sunsets and sunrises and we are granted new perspective. We jump in lakes, we visit new coffee shops, we are inspired by another’s culture. We have time to stop at the lavender farm or the peach stand on the side of the road. We have somewhere to be, but no where to be. And somehow that wandering curiosity is very healing to our human weariness.
Humans are not intended to grind endlessly. How kind of the the Lord to plant a rest day in every week, knowing that our capacity is only so large. He gave the Israelites celebrations and festivals and intended them to march into the promised land, a land full of milk and honey. A beautiful land to explore and harvest. The Lord asks us to steward our lives, and that includes nourishing them. It means trusting the Lord enough with our work, our financial situation and our relationships to take a time out and invest in our bodies and our minds. For all the folks out there thinking they need to be a martyr and that vacation is a sin or is frivolous, I was once you and have become a changed woman. All I had to do was go on vacation with a grave determination to rest. Alas, I have been humbled, and I’m quite grateful for it!
So there. Go on vacation.
