STOP.

I sat in class, one of my best friends sitting right beside me. My Bible was opened in my lap, my notebook on top of it, my pen nearly spilling onto the floor. I had already gone through several days of classes and still hadn't found the best way to juggle my Bible, notebook, and pen. Not to mention my highlighter. It kept on falling onto the floor, time after time, making me have to reach after it and risk sending everything else on my lap tumbling.

"Sometime's it just seems like our lives are going fast paced," my camp teacher's voice was saying. "Like we don't have enough time, and there's just too much to do. We fit in our Bible reading, maybe even memorize a Bible verse every morning. Pray a little. And then we're off in the whirlwind of life, which sometimes seems too busy for our own good."

Tell me about it, I thought, scribbling furiously in my notebook to write down points about what he was saying:

Sometimes life's too busy.

I glanced over at my friend's notes. She was so intent on the teacher that she hadn't written anything for this class except the title of it and the teacher, and of course the date. She was that kind of person--very practical. I glanced back up at the teacher as he went on talking, blonde mustache wiggling as he spoke.

"If that sounds like your life," he went on, "I would encouraged you to do one thing."

I leaned forward slightly, wondering what he was going to say.

"STOP."

I frowned. Stop?

"Take a little pause. Meditate on what God has done for you. Thank Him for everything that He's giving you. Think of others and the trials that they're going through. Just stop."

As I packed my books into my bag, kids rushing around me to get out of the building and to the next class, the teacher's words followed me.  Take a little pause. Just stop.

*most of this is fictional, though I wove a little bit of truth into it