The Voice in My Head

When I returned from vacation, friends asked the familiar question.

"Did you have a good time?"

I did. The scenery was spectacular. The family time was precious. The days seemed to unfold instead of racing by.

But what has stayed with me is something else.

I realized that what I had really been vacationing from was not my life routines. It was the insistent voice in my own head.

You may know the one.

It sounds a bit like an old-fashioned schoolmarm, ruler in hand, forever reminding me what still needs to be done. Finish this. Call that person. Answer that email. Don't waste time. Keep moving.

The strange thing is that the voice has served me well. It has helped me accomplish things. It has kept me responsible and productive. I suspect much of what I have been able to do over the years is because that voice kept urging me forward.

But while I was away, the voice went on vacation too, and without the voice, I noticed the beauty around me without immediately thinking about what came next. I lingered over conversations. I watched the light change in the evening sky. I laughed more easily and slept more peacefully. Time felt less like something to manage and more like something to experience.

Coming home, my schoolmarm met me at the airport, and I found myself wondering if there is a better way to approach my everyday life.

Mary Oliver ends one of her best-loved poems with a question that has echoed in my mind for years: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

That question is not an invitation to abandon responsibility. It is an invitation to remember that life is more than a checklist. More than deadlines. More than the constant pressure to prove our worth by what we accomplish.

As Christians, we believe our lives are a gift before they are a task. Jesus certainly called people to serve, to love, and to sacrifice. But He also invited them to rest, to notice the lilies of the field, to become like little children, and to remain in His love. His invitation was never simply to do more. It was to be yoked side-by-side with Him, allowing His strength to carry what we cannot.

The loudest voice in my life is not always the truest one. The voice that forever urges me on may help me get things done, but it is not the voice that gives life its deepest meaning.

I came home to four weeks of daily radiation treatments. There is no vacation from that reality. Some mornings it is still the schoolmarm that gets me out of bed and into the car. But on my better days, I leave home with a different companion. I imagine Christ walking beside me, making the same journey, reminding me that I never enter the treatment room alone.

Perhaps that is the better way I was looking for. Not a life without responsibilities, but a life where the loudest voice is no longer the one demanding more of me. Instead, it is the quiet voice of God reminding me that before I accomplish anything, before I cross another task off the list, before I face another treatment, I am already loved.

That is a voice worth coming home to.