He will not let your foot slip – He who watches over you will not sleep. – Psalm 121:3
To celebrate our fortieth anniversary nine years ago, DH and I took a two-week camping trip through the Northeast. Starting with the Finger Lakes region in New York, we drove through the Adirondacks, the Green Mountains in Vermont, the White Mountains in New Hampshire, and then up the coast of Maine to Acadia National Park.
When we weren’t on the road, I’d planned for our vacation to be a time of resting and recharging.
I should have known better than to think Dean would be content to sit around relaxing. Every day he was anxious to be out the door as soon as breakfast was over. We put 450 exploring miles on our truck and I don’t know how many on our feet.
The first trail we hiked was the ¾-mile Gorge Trail in New York’s Taughannock State Park – a level, gravel-topped track that ran parallel to the Taughannock Creek and led to the 215-foot waterfall of the same name.
“I can do this!” I thought as I stepped along, stopping to read every placard along the trail, feeling proud of myself because I was really pretty much out of shape.
The next trek was up the one-mile paved road to the summit of Mount Defiance in Ticonderoga, New York. We’d spent the day exploring the fort, and all I could think of was getting back to the camper and propping up my aching feet. But when we got to the road to the summit, the gates were closed.
“I can do this!” I told Dean when he said we’d have to walk. Somehow I got my second wind. And third . . . and fourth . . . it took 36 minutes to reach the summit – 25 walking minutes and 11 stopping minutes for me to catch my breath. There were places where we ascended a foot with each step. But the view at the top was worth every gasp.
When we reached Acadia National Park in Maine, 120 miles of trails ranging in difficulty from “very easy” to “strenuous” wound through Mount Desert (pronounced “dessert”) Island. The walking wasn’t easy. The coastline is rocky, the mountains granite, and the trails comprised of roots and rocks to step over, between, on (and trip on) – and boulders to climb.
The Ship Harbor Trail was rated easy. Right. We stopped on the way back to the campground to buy a box of Epsom salts.
“I need hiking shoes,” I told Dean while my feet were soaking. “These sneakers are for walking nut hiking.”
The Beech Mountain Trail, the last one we hiked, looked easy at first – soft, smooth, brown forest floor. Then we came to a marker. The left trail was .4 mile; the right was .7 mile. Since we were pressed for time, I chose the shorter trail.
But shorter doesn’t mean easier or quicker. The smooth forest floor soon changed to roots, rocks, and boulders.
“I can do this!” I said, when still another boulder presented itself. Envisioning the view from the top kept me stepping along, as well as Dean’s hand sometimes dragging me along. “I’ve come this far . . .”
It took us 50 minutes to reach the summit and 30 minutes to walk the .7 mile trail down off the mountain.
All the trails we hiked weren’t so challenging. There were sections that wound through pine trees along a soft forest floor, where I didn’t need Dean’s hand for balance or support – or to drag me over the places I didn’t think I could traverse.
The trails of life are the same: they range in difficulty from very easy to strenuous to “I don’t think I can make it!”
But we can make it. It just takes a vision of the view from the top, a hand to help us along, and lots of “second winds.”
Birch Mountain, Acadia National Park, Sept. 26, 2013
Thank you, Lord, for Your guiding hand that gives me balance, support, strength – and pulls me through the tough places when I don’t think I could take one more step. Amen.
Read and reflect on Psalm 121.
From God, Me & a Cup of Tea: 101 devotional readings to savor during your time with God, © 2017 Michele Huey.
Then there was her older brother, Brent, a senior at the time. He decided the previous year to go out for football, changing his sport from baseball.
Michele Huey 