We went on a hike on Saturday. Like, a real hike. A challenging hike. At least for us it was a challenge, it definitely was not a challenge for the 2 older guys that smoked us at the beginning of the hike. It was over 10 miles. It was a lot of up and down. and up and down. and right when we thought, "okay, we have to be on the decent now", BAM!!! let's go up again! At one point of the hike, Dennis looked at me on one of our breathing breaks, and said, "you probably hate me a lot right now" (this little adventure was all his idea). I answered him, quiet shortly, "I am really, REALLY, not happy about this right now". He, quiet mysteriously to me, gave me a lot of space for the rest of the hike. As he would stop periodically to see if I wanted to take a break, I would answer him shortly, "no". and we would keep moving onward.
*Sidenote* Tuck was my buddy the whole hike and was a trooper. He would pull me up those steep climbs and try to drag me (running) down the small decents. Needless to say, he earned sleeping on our bed that night. Carlson was like the energizer bunny, him and Dennis would jog up those steep inclines (yeah, so cool) and run down those small decents. Carl just kept going and was excited and happy about the whole experience. Tuck and I were not. He was a mess by mile marker 3, he hates being dirty and having anything stuck in his hair, and I was mumbling under my breath. Alot.
We reached the summit, elevation of almost 6,000 feet. Yay! It was a beautiful view. But one I was not enjoying very much. All I could think was, "we have another 4 miles to go"...
We came to a fork in the trail a few miles further in our hike and stood there. Which way do we go?? There was no clear-cut choice. We knew we needed to go to Thain Creek Campground. Tr 431. But that wasn't on the marker. The marker only told us what was down the left path, no indication of what lay ahead down the path to the right. We concluded we did not want to go to Tr 411 or Tr 413, so we headed right. To the unknown.
I had taken a screen shot earlier in the week of the description of the trail, so when we started following a creek, I knew it jived with the description on my screen shot, but Dennis at this point, was enough up ahead that I never gave him that little piece of info 😏.
A few miles later, I heard Dennis yell back, "hikers!" I was never more relieved in my life. Humans!! We hadn't come across another soul for 5 hours! Up to this point we still weren't positive we had taken the correct fork in the road. A little family came into view. Daddy and Mommy with babies strapped to their front and back! Made some small talk, they asked us where we came from and if the hike up to windy mountain was doable for them. "its quiet the hike, and unless you are used to the up and down, I wouldn't try it this late in the day with 2 babies". We asked them, where does this trail take us?? Their answer... to Thain Creek Campground, its only about 30 minutes to the trailhead.
Immediate relief was seen on both Dennis and my faces I'm sure! I looked pretty rough at this point, sweat rolling down my face, limping because I twisted my ankle a few miles back and every step was excruciatingly painful, my flannel shirt was unbuttoned and hanging down my back and my sweatshirt was wrapped around my waist.
30 minutes! We could do this!! Got a little extra pep in our steps and when the car came into view, we both felt amazing! I found the nearest outhouse and Dennis got the dogs water. As we got everything in the car, we were talking and Dennis told me he had never heard me say that I really really did not like him, until today, I could tell he was taken back by it and hurt by it. He told me he was sorry about pushing me this hard, and he told me that he definitely bit off more than we could chew. I looked at him and said, "I never said I really didnt like you. I said I'm really really not happy about this right now... Wait... THATS why you kept a good pace ahead of me and wouldn't let me get close to you?!?". Needless to say, a big misunderstanding let us down a very silent last 4 miles of this challenging hike. We had a good laugh about it, AFTER it was all said and done and we have a few lessons learned from this little adventure of ours.
Yesterday was Sunday and we attended church online, from 1000 miles away (sometimes I really love technology)!
Pastor started a new 5-week study on the Armor of God, and Saturday's hike gave me a real way to put it into perspective.
The last time we planned all-day hikes, with elevation and steep climbs, we worked out, we trained. We lost weight. We had maps! We researched the difficulty level of the hikes. Saturday we were not prepared in any way for the hike we took. We jumped into it blindly, even though we had all the recourses at our fingertips, we chose to jump, without giving it the proper respect and time and effort it needed. No, it demanded! And we struggled, we stumbled, and we limped along, we were dejected and in despair, unhappy with the whole day and we had no clue where the end was!
God has given us a way to prepare for this life, this supernatural, spiritual, battle we are in every day of our lives, He has given us the only resource we need, we have The Map at our fingertips! Yet we find ourselves jumping in blindly. Without a bit of armor on. Without even the tiniest bit of preparing or training. And then we struggle, we stumble, we limp along, and we mutter under our breaths. We become dejected and in despair. We find ourselves unhappy where we are. Satan takes every stumble and struggle and uses it against us. Satan is no longer in battle with God, he knows God wins! But Satan is in a daily battle with us, to cause us to stumble, to cause us to lose focus, because then he wins in the battle for lost souls.
I am looking forward to the next 4 weeks of getting battle ready for this world we live in!
