I took a walk yesterday.  It was the first in a couple of weeks.  Not that I wanted to.

What I really wanted to do was pull the covers up over my head and ignore the work that I knew this day required. The Shameless Project that has been my life for 3/4 of 2017.  The intensive writing and the corresponding thought processes and unpredictable physical/emotional/spiritual responses that always accompany it.

It wouldn’t be an average Tuesday.  Not that any of my Tuesdays or any other day of the week have been average for the past eight months.  Or even much longer than that, if I’m honest.

But I got up and after a hot cup of coffee and a sweet conversation with my oldest daughter, I put on my walking gear. No more excuses.  No avoidance. Not regarding the work or the walk.

Once my shoes are laced, there’s no turning back. That’s my rule.

Usually, that first step out the door and the rush of fresh air on my face is all I need to feel ready. Motivated to move and keep moving.  But not today.  Today the air felt hot and sticky and slightly oppressive, even at 8:00 a.m.  And my first thought was:

“It’s too late.  I waited too long. I should have started earlier, or maybe never started at all.”

(Little did I know that those words were the essence of what my soul was feeling, had been feeling for some time now, at a much deeper level.)

But my shoes were laced, so quitting before I started wasn’t an option.  That’s the rule.

I made my way to the beginning of the trail that would twist and turn until it came to its temporary end.  The place where construction is still being done and the rest of the trail goes on only in the minds of those who are creating it.  For now, anyway.

Yesterday, on this particular Tuesday, I looked at that winding trail with a lump in my throat and tears fighting for a way out of my gut and decided that my only goal was to get to the end, where no one could see me, and let myself cry with Jesus.

I’ve never walked faster, trying to beat my tears to the finish line.

The sun was hot on my back and the mixture of the heat with my hurt felt unbearable.  Still, I kept walking.   Determined to hit the end and collapse, in more ways than one.

I made it to that spot.  The spot that looks like the end but it’s not. Not really any way. There is a future beyond that spot that I can’t see right now.  There’s a plan.  A bridge.  This is what I’m told.

I plunked my butt and my heavy heart down on the only place I could find with any amount of much needed shade.  Right in the middle of some sharp rocks. Of course.

I began to let the tears flow.  But it wasn’t the edges of the rocks pushing into my flesh that made me cry.  It was the return of the jeering of Shame, relentless for the past week, the snide remarks of Perfectionism, the mockery of Anxiety and Fear, the sneers of Control (or rather my lack thereof.) As is always the case with such unwanted guests, I was exhausted from their company.

I looked at the rocks all around me.

All I could see was hard, jagged, broken, dirty stones that caused pain.

This is how life felt yesterday, on this particular, unaverage Tuesday.

I cried out to God, “Show me something of beauty in these rocks that I see with my eyes, that I feel with my heart! Show me why I need to face when it feels like this, why I need to “lace my shoes” each morning and fight the good fight.”

I dug.  I looked with scouring eyes over the mass of grays and browns and tans, looking for a glimmer of something shiny, a piece of glass, a foil gum wrapper, a marble, for Pete’s sake,  among all those stones.  Surely, God would show me something of beauty in the mess. As if God would take the cheesy route to speak to my soul.

But as is always the case with God, He showed me what I wasn’t looking for.

No glimmering pieces of gold, not even the tiniest shred of tinsel in that pile of rocks.

He showed me something better.

“Jana, look at what I see in these rocks.  I see strength in these stones.  I see the makings of foundations.  I see the way that they have been laid, to welcome the much needed rain of winter and direct it.  A pathway for refreshment, for life-giving water to flow along a designated course.  I see purpose.  I see promise for the future.

I see the bridge that is coming for this seeming dead end and the beautiful path that will accompany it, giving you hours of walking enjoyment.  I see completion.  Healing.  Redemption.”

Ah.  There it was. I sat with those words, those thoughts for a bit and then gathered a few of those beautiful, broken stones to take home with me as reminders of the moment when I came to what I thought was the end and remembered that it wasn’t.  That the end was still to come beyond all these rocks, where the water would flow and the path would continue and the bridge would be built to make a way to the other side.

The rocks were still gray and brown and tan.  The sun was still hot in the sky.  But as I made my way back home on that very same path, something had shifted.  All I felt was the gentle breeze, like God’s cool breath refreshing me into this new particular, unaverage Tuesday.  The rocks I carried didn’t feel heavy, they felt purposeful.  And the shoes that were still laced took me home.

Because if your shoes are laced, you can’t turn back.  That’s the rule.