Darkness…Headlamps…Light
5:45am The sky is dark, the stars have vanished, and the wind is still. But Sarah Burrows and I are determined to embark on an ordinary morning jog. We leave the Gainesville base clothed with a good pair of running shoes and a headlamp to guide our way. We take a left out of the drive and begin running at a ten-minute pace down a long paved road. After approximately fifteen minutes, we look to our right and see a piece of land ready to build houses on – streets, street lights, and one poured foundation. We decide to run inside the subdivision, and near the back, I remember a short cut through the woods back to the road we just came from. Being jet black outside with only our headlamps as light, we begin trudging through the woods. I feel as though I am in the middle of the Blair Witch Project.
Not realizing it, we begin to become disoriented with what direction we are headed. We begin stepping over logs, thistles, brush, varying our path to go around trees, and ducking our heads to miss branches. We look – do we turn back or do we keep going? We decide we are half way to the road, so we proceed. There is a ravine with a log placed across – just like a bridge – and I carefully pass over. I turn around to help Sarah step over, when I witness a graceful fall to the bottom of the large trench. We make it, but there is no end in sight. We looked closely into around surroundings and decide to follow the light off in the distance. We remember a house across the street; we are focused on getting to the road. We follow the light with our little headlamps and continue through the woods and pray that the poison ivy and thorns which blanket the land will not come upon us.
Several minutes later, we see the light in the near distance and find it to be, not the house across the street, but the AIM headquarters, our final destination. I realized we were like the Wisemen (well not exactly) following the North Star to reach the King of Kings. The Gainesville base is a special place – an area protected by God’s love, where students come to learn to hand over baggage they are carrying – literally and physically – to our Lord and savior. Just like the Wisemen bringing gifts to the King.
In time, God revealed that without His light, we would be lost in darkness. We need to keep looking towards Christ’s light, and we will reach our final destination – even if it is not in the direction we thought we were headed. Praise be to God that He has the perfect plans for our lives – ones that are far better than any plans we can imagine.
