christianity – walkwithme413

A new song brushes by on Pandora this week, and the first line wrecks me, a perfect mirror of the pain and frustration marking the past month.

Tired and I am angry at the nature of it all
Fighting just to find myself a breath

After scrapping all year to heal from last summer’s injury, I was ready to try again to perhaps be the first woman to hike the 115 tallest mountains in the Northeast in one continuous footpath. At least give it a try.

I was feeling pretty good, actually, most of the year.

I’m able to get back on the trails that I love, covertly start a second Grid (shh).

I spend time with the littles, joy at my son’s engagement, teach the sweetest bunch of middle school boys on the planet.

All along, in the back of my mind, is The Hike. A metaphor for overcoming: injury and age and the steady drip of the world.

Then.

It starts as an ache in my shoulder, travels down the muscles of my back. A nagging there-ness that begins to shout the moment I put on a pack.

Sparing no attention to rehab my wretched hip, I had neglected other places that were bent on rebellion. The pain is constant, a reminder that the time to leave is short and I can’t leave, I won’t, until it does.

Not this time, I tell myself, and try everything available to excise the growing knot hellbent on shipwrecking my plans. Chiro, deep tissue massage, reps with rubber bands, a tennis ball.

I go back to the stories that have always brought me hope.

Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:9-11)

How. Much. More.

And yet – though I know it can’t be true – it seems that all I get are snakes and stones.

I love the forest. It is a place where I can be, silent, away. Away from other weighty pains, where it’s okay to be alone.

Can I trust, at home, my own tired soul? Not good with empty time, I fear I could be a danger to myself.

And then, just when it seems my shoulder starts to calm – bread! fish! – I cannot even. Attention drawn away from its constant demands, my hip reverts back to its old treacherous ways. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t just so darn sad.

Can these dry bones live?

I wonder and worry. Will these compound setbacks be a dark night of the soul, leading me to oceans of deeper trust – or will they send me spiraling?

I realize I have a say in the matter, and who wants to willingly spiral when it’s surrender that is necessary?

So I try. Remember all the fish, all the bread from seasons past.

Number present blessings. Pray and cry and pray some more. Banish those doubts and disappointments to the empty tomb and roll back the stone.

God’s plans are rarely linear.

I do wish He were predictable. So much of the last decade has been anything but.

But what I can count on, what is as unmistakably as granite solid as the mountains I crave, is Himself. His presence, provision, and care.

So I wait here in limbo, knowing that his howmuchmoreness will one day win.

What will this summer hold?

Ah, Sovereign Lord, you alone know.

It’s been a while since I’ve had the time or inclination to write, but today, as a wintery mix falls and my car sits idle in the driveway with its check engine light on, again, it feels like a need.

The haste with which Christmas came and went felt cruel. Though it happens every year, it seemed particularly thus this time.

The hopes and fears of all the years: they are a weight I can’t shake, a long list of assaults that sap my faith.

Frequent injuries that linger long. Brain fog. Mice in the walls. A Judas car. Loneliness. The pounds that creep back on.

The very socks I pull on this morning. His socks, the one who left too soon, who loved this season, his family, life itself.

The elastic crackles as I pull, and I realize there are some things that just go, no matter how hard you want to hold them tight.

Maybe I need to look up, not down.

There was another list I started to keep this season, inspired by something I read on the Bible app earlier this month. Apparently, there are more than 700 different names for Christ in the Bible, and author Robert Morgan writes that “each one meets the various needs in our own lives… (and) discloses the many layers of his relationship with us.”

I start to count.