Eating My Words (Camino)

Anyway, we just made it to Santiago a few days ago! Our journey ended up looking like this: 

 

Stage 1: Walking from St. Jean Pied de Port, France to Puente La Reina, Spain (Day 1-4)

 

Stage 2: Bus from Puente La Reina to Villafranca del Bierzo (Day 5-8)

 

Stage 3: Walking from Villafranca del Bierzo to Santiago de Compostela (Day 9-16)

 

I hate to admit it, but I actually really liked it. I had been dreading it for so long, but by the third day, I had to sheepishly admit to my team that I was actually having fun. 

 

The first few days I made several good friends who became my walking buddies during “Stage 1” of the journey. It was fun to see everyone at the end of the day, congratulate each other for making it, and explore the town together. I expected the Camino to be boring. I downloaded a ton of new music because I expected to be walking the whole thing alone. That couldn’t have been further from reality. I tried to listen to music once at the end of the day and within five minutes someone had already engaged me in conversation. 

 

For the first couple of days, I looked forward to taking our first bus. I thought, “4 days ’til the bus, 3 days ’til the bus, etc.” But in the end, I didn’t want to take the bus. I wanted to stay with my friends. From there, the trip started to shift and God started to teach me some things. After Puente la Reina, we took buses four days in a row, first to Logroño, then Burgos, then Leon, and finally to Villafranca, spending a night in each place. I spent those days trying to delight in my beloved buses (the same ones I had been joking about taking since I even heard about the Camino), but my heart was with the people I left behind. What made it harder was that there was another World Race team that stayed with those friends. They never took the bus, and they continued to build those friendships. I dealt with a lot of jealousy. I wasn’t content with where God had me and asked Him, “what was the point of it all?” This Camino, which I hadn’t even wanted to do, had suddenly become so important to me, but I felt like I lacked the freedom to do it my own way. 

 

This became a perfect metaphor for my life. When I was young, I suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts. One night I seriously considered suicide, and the thought came to mind, “there may come a day when you want to live.” Though I wasn’t a Christian back then, that is a thought I believe came from God, because nothing in my mind was that optimistic at the time. Eventually, God brought me out of depression and into joy and new life. But as time progressed, I became controlling over that life- the same life which I hadn’t even wanted to keep in the first place. 

Although I know my life is for God, I still find myself having my own preferences and doubting God when I find that those preferences aren’t met. I realized I needed to stop looking at where others were in their journey (both on the Camino, and in life) and be content with the path that God has me on. 

 

Then it came time for Stage 3, walking eight days in a row. It was at this stage that I started to realize what my “key” meant. 

 

At the beginning of the Race, we were each given a key with a word on it, a word that someone felt that they heard when they prayed for us. This word would come to have a special meaning for each of us over the course of the year. My word was “journey.” When I first got it, I thought, “that’s interesting. We’re all on a journey (the World Race), this key could be for anyone.” 

So for a long time, my key didn’t mean a lot more to me than the journey of the World Race. I thought of the obvious: Enjoy the journey, not just the destination. I knew we would have at least 11 destinations, but I also knew that I was supposed to enjoy the journey as a whole as well.

The word “journey” has connotations of being long and difficult. It also can mean a period of personal growth. Additionally, with a journey, you are never really promised you will reach your intended destination. 

When it came to the Race in general, most of those concepts didn’t seem to apply. Traveling and being away from home come naturally to me, so the Race, for the most part, wasn’t “hard.” 

Then God showed me how singleness is a journey. Oh no. That meant I needed to enjoy the “journey” too. It meant the “destination” would either be marriage or dying alone, and I needed to be content with either one. Regardless, the true destination is heaven.

Next I came to view the Camino as a journey, and finally saw faith as a journey as well. The two of them, the Camino and faith, had a lot of parallels. 

On the Camino, I faced three major temptations: 

 

-Backtrack

-Bus Ahead

-Plop on the Ground and Rot There

 

I found that each of these temptations represented something different in my life. 

 

-Backtracking meant going back to the person I used to be. Going back to old temptations and turning my back on the call God has for my life. 

-Busing ahead meant fast-forwarding all of the struggles and difficulty, and choosing the easy way out at the expense of learning something new. 

-Plopping on the ground meant giving up. Giving up on my faith, or choosing depression and choosing to die. Saying, “I’m done and I cannot go any further, physically or spiritually.” 

 

However the last option left for me was the one I had to take: to keep walking, one foot in front of the other, even when it hurt.

 

On the Camino, I struggled with my faith. I struggled with old habits, old temptations, old mentalities. I even asked God if He was trying to get rid of me, making it so hard for me to hold on to Him! Then He reminded me of the verses, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22: 31-34).