This Easter weekend, I got to spend a few days in Asheville with Sara, Morgan, Jeb, and Gentry. We spent the better part of Saturday hiking Black Balsam Knob, leaving plenty of time for walking and thinking. Truthfully my writing felt uninspired this month, and on our last stretch of the hike I was thinking to myself about what old pieces of writing I could just use in place of this month's blog. Walking along that little trail I was reminded of the words, and the idea of, ‘hopeful contentment’. I had written about that idea based off of 1 Timothy 6:17-19 two years ago, but even in this moment felt just as applicable.
The twelve or so miles we hiked Saturday went through mud and ice and water, and unfortunately my Hoka’s were all I had. Every step that wasn’t on dry ground usually involved me having to think hard about what spots I needed to avoid, what rocks I could step on to not sink into mud or water- constant planning and thinking and focus on something that should be so simple. Inevitably my cautious, strategic stepping would cause me to fall behind a little, leaving me to run a little to catch up.
And is this not a picture of what my life constantly feels like: planning each little step, hoping to come out as unscatched as possible. Always feeling like i’m falling behind and needing to run a little faster, do a little better, to keep up with everyone else.
In all my striving, in my cautious placement, I’m so focused on looking down and making my next step that I forget to just look up and look around. I miss the sunlight beginning to fall softly onto the side of the mountain, the beauty in everything around me. Taking the wrong step is unavoidable; no amount of my trying could have kept my shoes dry or out of the mud.
I don’t know what lies ahead. For all my dreaming, and planning, and careful piecing together, I don’t know what even tomorrow will bring. Why, then, do I put so much hope in the preparation? When there’s no contentment beyond that of resting in the arms of the Father, why do I think my effort can bring about any sense of peace?
Hopeful contentment: “taking hold of that which is truly life” [1 timothy 6:19]. To be okay with the mess and the mud and whatever else may happen. Being obedient to His will and His calling and falling into His grace. I live in this tension of knowing all this, but struggling to believe it. Rarely do I let life simply happen, rarely do I simply be. I’m all too good at writing my own path, carefully and meticulously taking each step, always with the same goal of avoiding the unknown or the hurt or the pain.
I hope I spend more time this month, my last month-ish of being a Raleigh Fellow (#RIP), focusing on that which is truly life. I hope to live more in this space of hopeful contentment- releasing my tight grip on control. A false control, might I add, that I never had to begin with. Would I spend less time planning every step and be okay with trudging through a little more mud, and in doing so take more time to look up and notice the gifts displayed all around me. Life looks a lot better when you’re not staring at the ground!
monthly music recommendations: sanctuary by hiss golden messenger, your direction by chief, sanctuary by jake wesley rogers, green rocky road by bonny light horseman, soak into this by greta stanley, ditto by aries, cowboy by allison ponthier
-- Jen