Now What?

I walked back and forth in the woods for I don't know how long, but no where near as long as I thought. I'm intelligent enough to know that it was stupid to keep wandering around in the dark with inadequate light, but not smart enough to plan ahead to avoid all of that. The question I now had on my mind was "Now what?" It wasn't super cold, it was only supposed to get down to the mid 60's that night, but I wasn't equipped to spend the night outside, I had so wisely left my pack, containing the gear that would have gotten me through the night, in the hammock that I now couldn't find. Fortunately, I was intelligent enough to grab my phone and take it with me, and so I decided to call my friend.

"Hey, I need you to come and get me. I can't find my hammock." Part of me was laughing internally, and I would have loved to see his face when he answered the phone. He told me it would be a few minutes, and I told him I'd take my time heading out. I made my way back to the main trail, and my first thought was, "Well this is shot." but then I caught myself, and corrected myself by realizing, "No, this is part of it." Had this been the previous year, I would have said let's just scrap it and forget the whole thing, but this was a new year, and a new me, and I saw the situation as part of what God was trying to say.

When I hung up the phone, all of my nervous tension vanished; I felt myself relax as peace took over. I began walking down the hill I had climbed twice that night, I really need to consider terrain more carefully for these quests, and when I got to the lake, I decided to take the long way around.

I've hiked this trail countless times, but never in the dark. The sky was a little overcast, but the moon gave enough light to see, and I know the path well, so I put my flashlight in my pocket and switched off my head lamp, walking beside the water in the dark. It was awesome. Hiking a familiar trail in an unfamiliar setting gave me a deeper sense of vulnerability than I have had. Again, don't try this at home, at any point I could have twisted my ankle on a root, fallen and hit my head on a tree, and then landed face down in the water, unconscious.

I got to the edge of the parking lot and waited. It took my friend longer to get there than I had expected, and more cars drove by than I was expecting to see. When he finally got there, I got in the passenger seat, and began to drive back to his house....


Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11

TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!