Don and Sonja gave me another book to read. They knew I had bicycled across the United States and thought I might be interested in "Hiking Through" by Paul Stutzman, a book about his hiking the 2000+ mile Appalachian Trail in 2008, after his wife had passed away from cancer. Again, they have given me a book which is touching me in a profound way. Yes, the physical details and demands of such an undertaking are intriguing, but the emotional and spiritual journey he took are what are speaking to me and the journey Karen and I are on.
Life throws us a lot of curves, and how we stand in there and wait for the pitch or bail out for fear of being hit speaks volumes about us and our approach to "playing the game". The key element in how we "do" life is our relationship with God and whether we do life with Him or do life on our own terms. When we raced across America in 1983, we didn't ask God to be on our crew. We found out later that He was on the crew without our knowledge. He was preparing us for a series of "journeys" He knew we needed to take. Paul in his AT journey asked God to come along and as he has progressed in miles, his realization is that God is THE major element in the things which he encountered. The Ministry of Miles journey was God's plan and Karen and I said yes to an unknown goal and a series of unknown means to reach that goal.
As I have often blogged, God is the architect of this journey and we are along for the ride however and wherever He directs us. For now, we press on, and right now it's back to chapter 19 of the new book.
Sent from my iPad
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