Get Outside to Find Calm

No matter the season, taking a few moments to be outside can change our perspective, as Nichole Suvar shares.

Elisa

Get Outside to Find Calm

By Nichole Suvar

When our kids were in elementary school, we started daily evening walks after dinner. In the summer, when the sun set later, we’d take longer walks and call them “adventure walks.” Adventure walks are like any regular walk, you just put “adventure” in front of it to make it more appealing. We’d give the kids things to look for, like a yellow bird, a particular type of flower, or a funky-looking bug. It helped us all focus our minds on wonder and creation and less on the stress that the day brought us.

While summer is ideal for adventure walks, we even implemented these walks whenever we’d get a decent snowfall. We would bundle up and make it our goal to hike through the drifts to the local Dollar General, a half mile down the road.

Once, after a particularly blustery snowstorm, we all hustled through the doors, much to the surprise of the lone worker who was left to operate the store. No one was out in that blizzard except us. We bought a loaf of bread and candy for the kids. As she rang up our purchases, the cashier had to think we were out of our minds. We all stood there facing the cashier with smiles on our faces. The joy of the gift of snow that God gave us made us smile despite our frozen toes and the melting snow dripping off our chins.

When you intentionally build time into your day to spend it outside, you are not only allowing your body a chance to benefit from sunshine, fresh air, and open skies. You also give your soul an opportunity to remember the One who holds it all in his hands. If you slow down enough to notice, you will see God’s fingerprints in everything.

Recently, our eleven-year-old vehicle started driving funny. The dashboard lit up, and our different online searches pointed to repairs outside my husband and son’s time and tools. We took it to the repair shop and waited for the phone call.

The cost was higher than we anticipated, and through a lump in my throat, I told the repairman we would need to call him back. We had a decision before us, and we had to choose which of the repairs to pay for (since we didn’t have the funds to pay for all of them) or if we should cut our losses and put the money toward a new car instead of sinking money into an old one. The news left me feeling heavy and a bit out of sorts.

As the evening progressed and routines played out, I felt angsty and melancholy. I couldn’t point to anything in particular. The only thing really weighing on my mind was the car decisions we had to make.

The sun was setting, and it was a calm evening, so I forced myself to stop what I was doing, set a timer for five minutes, and go outside and sit and listen and notice what was happening around me.

The clouds quietly drifted by, the mourning dove in the nearby tree cooed its song, and bees were buzzing on nearby plants. I felt a gentle prompting from the Creator when Matthew 6:26 came to mind, “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

The answer to our car repairs wasn’t in the sound of the birds chirping or on the evening breeze, but was a reminder that God sees and cares about our car plight and it’s not too big of a problem for him. Either he’s provided the funds for us already, or he will create a way for them to come right when we need them.

I went to bed that night still unsure of which direction we should go—fix the old and search for the new—but I could fall asleep knowing that he was already holding the plan together and that the decision could wait until tomorrow. Being outside didn’t fix my problem, but it helped remind me to take it to the One who can.

Adapted from I Don't Have to Hold It All Together by Nichole Suvar, Copyright 2026, Moody Publishers.

Nichole J. Suvar is a writer, speaker, and intentional living coach on a mission to help overwhelmed women embrace God’s design for mental wellness. She is the author of I Don't Have to Hold It All Together. She partners with several nonprofit organizations, locally and nationwide, to promote mental wellness and faith through meaningful conversations. She and her husband, Paul, live in Indiana with their three teens. You can find Nichole trying in vain to keep the cupboards stocked for her always-hungry teens, hiking a new trail and soaking in the quiet with her husband, or savoring cheddar cheese with pickles like a gourmet meal. Connect with her at LiveWithIntent.org.