Hiking isn’t that hard, right? It’s basically just walking, and I walk everyday, so I can totally do this. This is what I kept telling myself as my trip to hike the Grand Canyon from rim to rim in one day (roughly 26 miles with 4,000 ft of elevation lost and then gained) came closer and closer on the calendar.
The year was 1986 and I was at a missions summer camp called Camp Nunny Cha Ha, held on the grounds of Falls Creek Baptist Assembly. It was a camp I looked forward to every year, where campers and counselors studied scripture together, sang songs, heard testimonies from foreign and local missionaries and had lots of fun in the Oklahoma heat. On the last night of camp, the guest speaker led us into a commitment time explaining that he felt the Lord was speaking to some of us in the room, calling some to accept Christ and others into special service (which was the term used for a call to ministry of some sort.)
As I write this, it’s a mere few days after Christmas and I’m already seeing it: the post-Christmas blues. Instagram posts of Christmas decor abound with captions already lamenting the day it will have to be put away. Some are sad for the kids to have to go back to school (though I suspect some are not).
In January 2016, my whole life shifted. I had just graduated college, accepted a job in “the Big City”, and was coming out of a season of sin. After my parents helped me settle into my new apartment and I hugged them goodbye, I sat alone in my new place. The unfamiliar sound of heavy traffic and uncomfortably close neighbors failed to drown out the wrestling within my mind.
