On the journey together

The path stretches ahead, long and winding. Slow and gently rolling at times. At other times it twists and turns, climbs and drops, doubles back on itself and even has knots tied in the path that I must traverse to reach my Savior.

I once thought it was an easy path. One that all I had to do was take a long road through a meandering countryside where the weather was perfect, the sun was shining, there were big white fluffy clouds in the sky, and there were plenty of other travelers along the way.

I was wrong.

Trials and tribulations. That’s what we’re promised. Nothings fair, the road’s not wide and smooth, the path isn’t free of rocks and kinks, the weather isn’t all sunshine and pretty clouds at the perfect temperature. The weather comes in spurts of blizzards and hurricanes interspersed with sunshine. The path is narrow and hard to see at times. Sometimes I can stand up and walk, sometimes I crawl. I have to dodge branches and brambles. Sometimes I must wiggle through knots in the path that are pulled so tight I don’t think I’ll be able to get through them. And the few other travelers along the way are hard to find among the shadowy figures that line the sides of the path, telling me they’re going to the same destination I am but I know from the direction they’re walking that they’re on a different path even though they can’t tell it.

Alone, I continue my journey. In one hand I cling to the map that is the Word of God, with the other I reach toward Heaven begging my savior to take me by the hand and lead me where He wants me to go. The path is difficult at times but it’s manageable. But oh how I wish I had someone to share the journey with, someone to help me study the Map, to figure out the harder areas of the path.

Then I round a bend in the trail… And there standing on the path is another traveler. One that isn’t just off the trail but right in the middle of it. I can clearly see this traveler. There are no shadows to obscure my view. And what I see gives me joy, gives me hope. This traveler has the same Map of life that I do. This traveler is standing with one had stretched toward the Lord as I have. And I know.

Here is a fellow traveler.

We’re headed to the same destination.

I didn’t expect to see anyone else on my path. I’d long since given up hope of finding another. But here was an unexpected gift in this rocky path I’m traveling.

The other traveler holds a hand out to me. For the moment I forget the mountain, forget the twists and turns in the path. I reach out and link hands with this traveler. I didn’t foresee this other traveler joining me on my journey but I’m glad they did. I expected to continue my journey alone but now I’m not.

And right there on the path the Lord created a miracle for me. He gave me a gift I never thought to be given. Without warning, without much time passing He forever linked my heart and my fellow travelers together. He joined us as man and wife.

This isn’t just a fellow traveler. This is now my husband. The surprise of the gift I’ve been given, the magnitude of it takes some adjusting. I thought I would be forever alone on this path and the Lord provided not only a fellow traveler but someone that is now a part of who I am.

Together, hand in hand we continue our journey. The twists and turns are made easier, the road a little less bumpy simply because I no longer travel alone. I know the way hasn’t gotten any easier but it feels as if it has simply because I no longer have to face it alone.

Onward we go, traveling down the path, making our way through the brambles and the storms. As we walk we talk of life and Christ, of our journey, of where we’ve been and where we’re going.

Steadily we keep going. Encouraging each other.

I’m going along just fine, stumbling here and there, taking the weather and the twists as they come. The aloneness that once bothered me is now a distant memory. My husband, my companion, the other half of me is here to share in all the ups and downs of the paths. He shares my joy in the sunshine and the easy stretches in the journey, he helps me over the rocks, he leads me when I can’t see the path for the fog.

I send up prayers of thanks with every step. The Lord has blessed me on my journey. And I wonder how I ever made it on this path alone. Where I once longed for others that were taking the same trip I am, heading to the same destination, now I look at my husband, grasp his hand a little tighter and am grateful I’m no longer alone.

Sometimes we stop to visit with the figures along the side of the path hoping that ‘this one’ might be join us on our path…only to be disappointed time and again. So we go back to stumbling down the path again. Then we round a bend in the path and there before us our rocky road is headed straight up a mountain bigger than Mt. Everest, covered in thick layers of ice, in the midst of a blizzard that obscures everything. I can faintly see what looks like a series of knots in the path, pulled so tight I can’t see a spot to wiggle through.

Maybe it’s the blizzard obscuring the openings, maybe it’s the mountain but something brings me to a halt. I stand on this path that I didn’t choose, seeking my Savior that I want more than anything and I know I’m about to fail. The temptation to look back and see if I can see the stretch of path that was all sunshine and easy going just a few steps back beckons. I don’t want to look back. I don’t want to go back. I like the path I’m on.

Something inside warns me that this is about to get very, very difficult. My heart cries out to my Lord. Silently. Begging Him to clear the path. If only the path would stop here, if only I could stay in this place forever. But I can’t. I want to keep forging ahead, growing closer to my Lord. But the temptation is there none the less.

I take a few steps forward my hand stretched toward Heaven. And I see that my hand is still entwined with my husbands. And I’m reminded. I’m no longer on this journey alone. My husband lightly squeezes my fingers, our hands stretched toward Christ together. It’s a reminder I badly need as I clutch my map tightly to my chest. I’m not alone on my journey. We’re in this together now.

 I put one foot in front of the other, my steps matching my husbands as we continuing down the path. It’s hard but somehow it’s not as hard because I have we’re together. I clutch my map tightly to my chest and share the struggle of making our way over the difficult stretch of path with my husband.

A rock I didn’t see trips me and I stumble. Those aren’t small rocks on the path. They’re large and round, mixed with slick mud that tries to pull me in and hold me in place. I struggle to gain my footing and feel my husband lift me back to my feet and help me through the difficult stretch. On down the path we go. Mud latches onto our feet weighing us down, slowing our steps.

Icy wind blows up out of nowhere and slams against me with every step. It blows through my clothes and bombards me until my fingers are frozen and I can no longer feel my feet.  I look at my husband and see he too is struggling against the wind. He squeezes my hand, then wraps his arm around my shoulders. We huddle together and keep going. Now we must yell to hear each other and our teeth chatter with every word but we speak of Christ and encourage each other. We know our destination will be worth the struggles we must go through to reach it.

I lean into my husband and keep stumbling forward.

But as that mountain looms before us, as those knots in the path grow ever closer my steps grow slower, my feet hit a patch of ice and as I slide back down the path my emotions take over. And my flesh begs to demand of my Creator what He was thinking. The questions flit through my mind to wonder why He gave me this path.

My husbands arm tightens around me, stopping my backward slide. He pulls me back into place beside him. I wipe snow off his face and thank him. We stand there…looking at each other, as the storm rages around us, and remind each other that this too shall pass. It’s just a difficult section we must get through. We open our map, somewhere along the way we have lost one but we know its okay because we are no longer two travelers but one, joined through Christ, and that we no longer need two separate maps. We study our map together and are encouraged. We know that the Lord has us and this difficult stretch of the journey in His hands, that He’s in control of us and the storm around us.

Encouraged, we close our map and continue our journey. The rocks and mud are still there, the icy wind still blows but we have each other and we have Christ. So onward we go. Thorns grow up in front of us, slowing us even more. They tear at our clothes and  I once again want to question Christ but I’m encouraged by the feel of my husbands hand around mine and  as  I push the thorns aside I push the questions away with them.

It’s not my place to question my Lord. And I keep going.

Slower now. My teeth are chattering from the cold, snow is sliding down my neck, mud has coated my feet. But the path keeps going. It’s like an escalator. I can’t stop it, can’t stop my forward momentum I can only go forward. Placing one foot in front of the other, struggling up the slick and icy path. Through the swirling white I can just make out enough of the path to see that before I reach the knot I must climb straight up the mountain. Just to the left of the path there’s an easier way, it gently moves over hills that slowly go over the mountain, but here in front of me is a sheer cliff that I must scale.

But  I don’t have to scale it alone. I look over at my husband and see that his struggles are as rough as mine but we’re here together and somehow that makes the cliff a little less sheer. But still it’s there and we must scale it.

So scale it we do. I cling to it with bare hands and feet that are weighed down with enough mud to make me wonder if someone isn’t holding onto me, pulling me back. But I keep climbing.

I can hear my husband climbing beside me, feel his hand on me helping me climb. I reach over and take his hand, pulling on him because I know the mud is clinging to him just as it is to me. And we continue up the mountain.

This isn’t a mountain I wanted to scale. These aren’t the trials I wanted to face. Anger starts to take hold as I try and shake some of the mud off my feet. I lose a shoe but the mud hangs on. I claw at the rocky surface of the sheer cliff, trying to gain a hold that will keep me from sliding on the icy path. I tell myself I can’t get angry. It isn’t allowed.

I’m supposed to be thankful for everything that comes my way. But…the flesh battles the spirit. The anger wants to win. Hand over hand, one footstep at a time, I climb the cliff. I stay on the path. It’s so narrow now that I can feel open air on either side of us. I can sense the deep void of nothingness which I know isn’t really nothingness because lining my path is a broader path. The easy way. The way that runs right alongside where I’m at.

But I’m not on that path. I’m on this one. And I want to be on the one I’ve been placed on. Only today, in this moment, as I lose three fingernails to the sharp rocks cutting into my hands, as my feet slip and slide and are long past feeling numb from the cold and the ice, as my flesh and my spirit do battle against themselves. Today…I fight anger at the One that placed me here.

I shouldn’t feel it. I can’t allow myself to feel it. It isn’t my place to ask questions or to demand answers. I’m not allowed to blame my Maker for the path He placed me on. And the guilt sets in. Because I don’t want to ever be angry with Him. But the battle keeps raging. The snow turns to sleet. It hits me with the fierceness of knives, it cuts through me and lands blow after blow against my heart.

And I raise my hand.

I beg for forgiveness.

Beg for help.

And once again I see…

My husbands hand wrapped around mine. He squeezes my hand, somehow sensing the turmoil inside me, sensing the storm that rages in me with the fierceness of the storm that batters us. And I’m reminded again that through the difficult stretches I’m no longer alone. I apologize again to my Lord and thank Him for the blessing He gave me when he gave me my husband. Difficult as the path may be I remember that it’s so much easier now that I’m no longer alone.

My husband tells me I would be okay if I had to travel the path alone and I doubt that I would be. He reminds me that I have Christ and that’s all I need but he doesn’t know how much I need him. How much I have come to depend on him as we’ve struggled over the difficult stretches of the path. I tell him I would be okay because I know deep down that if I didn’t have him I would continue the journey alone but I still doubt that I would be okay without him. I need him here, on this path with me. I need him to see me through the rough patches. Because without me quite knowing how it happened I now depend on him with every step.

We stand in the storm and talk about how much easier the path is now that we have each other and then we face the mountain again. It’s still there, still looming around us. We look at our feet and see that we are balanced on a small ledge just big enough for the two of us. We laugh because it’s either that or cry. Here is a brief reprieve from the sheer cliff we’re scaling and we didn’t even see it until it was time to climb again.

And so we start our ascent.

Because we’re on this path. And there is no alternative. We must keep going. Christ is with us and we know that. He’s there…we can feel him. And we know that He has a plan for this storm being in our path. That there’s a reason He has placed us on this cliff.

It’s a cliff I’d rather not be on because at the top of this cliff I can see the knots I know we must try and find a way to wiggle through. And worse…I can know see something huge and dark and threatening looming there. It waits for us as we keep climbing. I want to stop. I want to stay hanging on this cliff forever. Going backward isn’t an option; hanging on the cliff with the threat looming over us isn’t an option, even though I’d gladly stay here forever if only I didn’t have to face that threat.

But as I look into the threat that’s waiting just ahead…I’m afraid. I don’t want to go any further.

But we keep going. As I climb I raise my hand toward Heaven knowing my Lord is reaching for me even though I can’t see Him. And I see my hand still held snuggly in my husbands. Together we reach for Christ. Peace is there but so is pain. The pain of the icy knives slicing into my heart, cutting chunk after chunk out of me. It’s shredding me and still I climb because I’ve been given no other option. I was placed on this path and I cannot get off. I don’t want to get off. But I don’t want to face the fog or the threat either.

And so the flesh and the spirit battle.

But I’ve found my Savior again. I can feel His hand on mine even while it rests inside my husbands hand. I can feel my Lord lifting me up, holding me because I know I’m rapidly approaching that place when I can’t hold myself up anymore. And I know that it’s not just me He’s holding up. I know that He’s holding my husband up right along with me. Because my husband and I are one, because we are on this path toghether. Even still the path has become too hard. It’s more than I can bear. And it keeps hurtling me closer and closer to the threat I can see looming, growing bigger and darker, at the top of the cliff. There’s no escaping the threat, no turning around, no avoiding it. I must keep climbing. I must struggle through the knots to reach the top.

And I must face the threat.

I know I won’t do it alone. I can’t do it alone. Already my legs are weak, my knees are buckling and my strength is about gone. Beside me my husband slows too, I know without looking that he is depending more on our Lord. That gives me courage to face what’s coming even though I know my courage is gone. Somehow even as I grow weaker in body I gain strength from knowing my husband too is relying on our Lord to see us through.

It won’t be long now before I have nothing left to climb with and my Lord will have to carry me. I have no strength to get through the knots, no ability to scale the last of the cliff, and I know that I have nothing to fight the threat with.

I lean against my husband and cling tighter to my Lord. Somehow, somewhere, on this path that has thrown difficulties at me and now looms above me threatening me…somehow this man that was once a stranger has no become not only a part of me but he has become a part of my relationship with Christ. And as I lean into my husband and let my Lord take my weight I know that they will see me through. That Christ will see us both through. Because I can feel my husband leaning on Him just as much as I am.

And I know…

The Lord is the only thing keeping us on the mountain now. He’s there and He’s holding us as we hold each other. He will carry us to the top, battle the threat for us, and see us safely over the mountain.