Rocky Trails in Sunday Shoes

We hadn't exactly expected to walk up this rocky trail in our Sunday clothes and shoes.

It's just that after church we decided to picnic somewhere different, and ended up not far from church beside Bear Creek, where there was another empty vehicle and a picnic table

 and this stream begging to be crossed,

and a hillside begging to be climbed.

And it usually isn't all that far from church to the rocky climbs of what we face as soon as we go out the church door. 

Sunday clothes and dress shirts and polyester pants and polished cowboy boots and ladies' black slipons

aren't exactly the style for the climb ahead or the workaday week. 

Sometimes the little white sandals and the lacy socks just have to come off,

and you may as well cross the stream barefoot.

There are all kinds of paths to take this week, wandering all over through the joint grass,

these unusual grass stems that come apart at the joints--

like when your week comes unraveled at day one, and you must try to get it put back together. 

Your Monday is crammed with work, the children bicker, you're hit with that weakness or that pain or that infection flareup or exhaustion or bad news or you remember your income tax forms are due on Wednesday.

And there are those times the grass comes apart, one joint after the other.

Till you hear about another family who was in a roll-over car accident just before Easter, when the dad fell asleep at the wheel, leaving the mother of six with a broken neck and severely injured spinal cord and the fear that she may be paralyzed for the rest of her life.

Many hours from home, her six children are being cared for by her sister who has twelve children of her own.

Eighteen children and sometimes other cousins, too, to care for in a place far from home.

A mom who can't even quite breathe on her own, whose biceps can barely move a bit, and she can only whisper...things like, "I'm thirsty. Can you get me a smoothie?"

Only, of course, she cannot have a smoothie.

You don't even know this mother from Eve or Mary Magdalene, but your heart is broken for her and her husband who must be half killing himself for falling asleep at the wheel only ten minutes from her parents' home--where they were to be home for Easter.

And all of a sudden, your path isn't quite so rocky after all.

We need better than silly Sunday slip-ons to get us through the rocky paths of life like that one. 

This path looked almost impossible when we looked up it, 

but all of a sudden, we were up at the top looking down.

And it won't be long, children, till we reach the other side of this trial.

The days may stretch into weeks and months, perhaps years.

But "this too shall pass."

The hospital experience may be a long one, the pregnancy a difficult one, the postpartum depression debilitatiting, the long years of raising children exhausting,

the disease creeping onward, and the bills piling sky high.

But there, along the trail are the blossoms of God's mercy and grace.

Even in that roll-over accident, there were paschal flowers of God's mercy springing all over the place.

Not one of the children had any more serious injuries then bruises and scratches, and neither did the dad. 

It could have been so much worse. 

There were so many relatives and friends to step in and help.

So many prayers around that hospital bed. 

And her arms still moved.

Just a little--but it gives hope. 

It's easy to stare into the valleys of our sorrows, mishaps, disappointments, accidents, burdens, pains, debts, illnesses, and nightmares of whatever sort,

instead of holding one another in each other's arms and finding something for which to give thanks.

Right there on the rocky path, right there where we gaze anxiously into our valley,

we find a cross on a tree.

It's a strange tree--one that almost got destroyed at one time, Jonathan noticed, insisting that I take a picture on my daughter's camera. You can see that obviously it had been blown over or perhaps struck by lightning. 

Something happened to that tree that laid it low, completely down to the ground.

But there it was, still growing, still putting out long, healthy branches full of green needles up to the sunlight. 

How many years ago it fell and nearly died we don't know. 

We just know it kept growing and bearing fruit--

while all the time carrying its cross.

A cross that reminds us of following the Man of sorrows and enduring the pain and reproach of a Christ-centered life--

but also reminds us that we don't walk this lonesome valley or this rocky trail

by ourselves.

No one else can walk it for us, but we don't have to walk it by ourselves.

His tender love is reaching out to hold our hand, to lift us up when we fall,

to hold us close,

and underneath are the everlasting arms!