Treasures from the Trail, Part 1 - What a Difference a Decade Makes

Last week my husband and I backpacked 32 miles of the John Muir Trail from Mammoth Lakes to Tuolumne Meadows over a four-day and three-night period.  Strapped to my back was 30 pounds of food, water, clothing and other necessities.  A few ounces of the weight was taken up by a small journal and a ballpoint pen with which I jotted down some of what I noticed going on around me and inside of me as I traversed the majesty of the High Sierras.

Over my next several entries, I will unpack in a sense the scrawling contained in my tiny notebook, expressing what God showed me to be true of Him and of me and how He met me in surprising ways on my journey.  Part of what I love about backpacking is how I am forced to slow down, both mind and body.  As I stop rushing, I arrive in a place where I am able to enter each moment, experiencing life one step at a time, one breath at a time, opening myself up to noticing God's presence in the world out there and in me, in here.

What I will begin with (and will, no doubt, be woven into much of what I share) is something that is becoming an essential, expanding part of me:  gratitude.

As we started on our trail, I was thinking about how I am soon to be turning 50.  Forty-nine.  I'm 49, I thought, and receiving this new gift God has given me of being able to hike with my husband.  How good is that? I smiled and thought to myself.  My mind jumped back a decade.  What was I doing ten years ago this summer, when I was 39 going on 40?  I was preparing to begin treatment for hepatitis C, with which I had recently been diagnosed, having received the disease from a blood transfusion in 1976.  Appointments with doctors, specialists, psychiatrists, calls to the insurance company, along with much prayer and questioning occupied me that summer, not knowing what lay ahead but, with what faith I could muster, entrusting the outcome to God.

The year-long treatment, which tremendously weakened my body, to my utter devastation and disappointment, failed, as did my spirits after receiving the bad news from the doctor.  The walls of the examining room closed in on me upon hearing the words, "Don't worry.  You won't have cirhossis of the liver for at least five more years."  Plunged into a deep, dark depression, frozen with fear that I would not live long, I entered a path of illness, anxiety and despair.

But that was ten years ago.  The ways in which God invited me to re-enter life, met me in my loneliest times and gave me new strength still amaze me but are subjects for another time.

Gratitude pulses through my veins as I begin my trek on the John Muir trail, aware that God Himself has given me new energy, new enthusiasm, enough that I am able to follow the desire He gave me to join my husband for this incredible adventure.

For the things He has done, I thank Him.  For Who He is, I praise Him.  For the creative ways He gifts me, I bless Him, and excitedly step foot onto the path to which He has led me.  My heart and eyes are open wide, and I am humbly grateful, ready to receive the blessings, trials and beauty of this place.