Just on the other side

In 2011, at just 28 years old, Jennifer Pharr Davis attempted both the absurd and ridiculous.  She set out that summer to establish the fastest record time for men and women hiking the 2,180 mile Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine.

As noble as that sounded, shortly into her epic hike, incredibly averaging about 47 miles a day, reality set in.  She was exhausted, cold, wet, and suffered painful shin splints.  She crept along until the next road crossing where her husband Brew met her with supplies.  "I'm done," she said.

"That's fine," he said.  "Just not right now.  If you still want to quit by the next road crossing tomorrow, I'll take you home.  But you can't quit now."

So she kept on hiking, knowing that in the matter of several hours, the pain would be over, and she could go home.

But something happened in those succeeding hours.  She felt just a little teeny bit better.  Just enough to keep going another day.  And then another.

Her story was not over yet.  She completed the entire trail in 46 days, 11 hours and 20 minutes, a record unsurpassed for the next four years.

One step and then another.

Last weekend, I ran a familiar trail in the woods that starts with a five mile ascent that always seems to go on f.o.r.e.v.e.r.  It was fiercely cold.  It was all uphill.  And yes, it was hard, each gravel crunching step, each winding turn in the road followed yet by another.  "Just get to the other side of this bend," I convinced myself.

Even though I didn't quite know where I was, I knew it was not a random journey.  As in any responding to the Lord, I was not just going somewhere, but God is going somewhere with this.  Even the really hard stuff does not lay beyond His redeeming.  There is another side to this.

We've all been there on one road or another.

Despair will get you nowhere fast.
       Or I can choose to trust Him.
                                  Even in this.
And pretty much throughout the entire Bible,
cover to cover,
God tells His people,
                      "Don't quit now."

O LORD,
show me Your path,
Your way through.

God is
going somewhere with this.

And as I came around what I was hoping the final bend in that steep rutted road, dusty and dreary, suddenly spectacular beauty surrounded me, the sunlight streaming through the woods like the glory of God, and golden leaves were intricately imprinted on a sacred sky of deepest blue.

If I had quit and turned around, I would have missed the awe.


For Your steadfast love is great above the heavens;
Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
                                   Psalm 108. 4


It took that momentary affliction of running uphill for me
to not just acknowledge God,
or even believe,
         but to know Him more.

Somehow,
    the hard stuff always leads to that.
God redeems the impossible
     in ways we never expect.

The view is not just at the top,
      not just on the good days
when the breeze is warm and favorable,
          but when I want to quit.

...let us run with endurance
       the race that is set before us,
       looking to Jesus....

                         Hebrews 12. 1-2

Even on the uphills,
following God
    even in what

    may make no sense at all,

                    to us,

God is going someplace

                     with this.

Even in this mess,

even in this seeming failure,

even in the bleakest wilderness,

                 God is.

Your story is not over yet.