We just returned from a week of camping in Northern Michigan. I love the trees in the campground where we stay. Walking among them, listening to the wind rustling their leaves, standing aghast at the blue sky to which they point, is worship.
Two years ago I wrote this blog post about our trip to Interlochen, Michigan, where we have gone camping for the past six summers. My parents took me camping here when I was a child and now 
we take our kids. It’s a Sabbath tradition that I adore. This is the one week of the year when I truly unplug, look up, and consider the beauty of the world in which we live. Trees like this just help me breathe better.
On our drive home from Interlochen, I read “Instructions for an Evening of Your Life” by Sarah Bessey. Even though Sarah advises her readers to find a body of water to sit by, this post resonated with me after my week of camping in the trees. Bessey writes:
Become acquainted with the silence in your own soul, you might be surprised by the sound of you. Sometimes you might rise up in gratitude and thanksgiving, other times the pain you’re finally allowing yourself to feel might be overwhelming, sometimes your soul feels like worship and sometimes this feels like encountering a stranger – do I know you? Then sometimes it might simply feel like a good friend you haven’t seen in far too long and you’ll think to yourself, why don’t I do this more often?
We all need moments, vacations, sabbath time, to get reacquainted with the silence in our soul and the sound of ourselves–the more often the better. Otherwise, the beauty of the world and the beauty that is “me” will go unappreciated and unnoticed.
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