You ever have one of those mornings where you wake up and just know that the day is going to hit different?

This morning, I cracked my eyes open before my alarm even had a chance to earn its keep—more times than I can count on one hand this week, if I’m being honest. But instead of the usual groggy scroll through my phone, I woke up to something beautiful.

From somewhere deep in my mind—just soft enough to feel like a whisper—Christian worship songs were playing on a loop. It was like my soul hit “repeat” on a soundtrack only I could hear. There wasn’t a single note playing in the house, but the lyrics landed right when I needed them most. Quiet. Steady. Comforting.

Fast forward a couple of hours, and I’m behind the wheel of my John Deere, brush hogging the pasture on our family land in Nacogdoches, Texas. The sun was high, but not yet brutal. The breeze—warm but not smothering—felt like spring perfection. And when that sunlight hit just right through the branches of our old oak, lighting up the grass like something out of a storybook… I had to stop. I snapped the photo you see here from the driver’s seat. I think it speaks louder than anything I could write.

But what really hit me out there—between the rows and the rumble of the engine—was the sense of legacy. My family has been on this land for generations. And in that moment, I could almost see them: great-grandparents with sleeves rolled up, mowing this same patch of ground; moms and aunts tending a garden just off to the side; kids posing for family photos under that same big oak, squinting into the sun and laughing because every family’s got a clown who can’t take anything seriously.

I pictured others stretched out in the grass, cloud-gazing, pointing out shapes and making up stories. And then there were the ones just being—doing a whole lot of nothing. And honestly? That might be the most sacred act of all.

This land has heard our laughter and our prayers. It’s seen every kind of day—joyful, hard, quiet, chaotic. And today, as I carved neat lines into the pasture and soaked in the light and the legacy, I felt completely surrounded. Not just by nature, but by love. By memory. By faith.

So yeah, I woke up early today. But maybe it wasn’t the music or the sunrise that stirred me. Maybe it was the land itself, calling me home for a moment like this.

Welcome to a slice of life in Nacogdoches. Ain’t nothing else like it.