Chris, one of the creators of our route, said at launch, “We will do hard things and if you don’t want to do hard things…then maybe this isn’t the route for you”
The past six or seven days (all the days run together on the Camino) we did hard things. Sure I hiked short of 100 miles starting at 5:30am, had my blisters popped and then iodine poured in them, was an all you can eat buffet for some bedbugs, but that wasn’t hard. (Don’t get me wrong, those things sucked and I won’t miss the bed bugs) I had to let people in my space. There was not a single hill that I could climb up with my own strength. I had to have help rubbing cream on my body and I needed a hand to hold when the iodine burned my open wounds.
The scenes were absolutely breathtaking. We watched the sun rise over mountains and sat in reverence of the Creator, we walked through fields of sunflowers and miles of wine vineyards. The Father spoke to each of us girls like we were His only girls. Each morning we met Him with a glad heart.
The moments we spent laughing and bonding, as a team will not be soon forgotten. We had serious conversations in the Word and incredibly silly conversations that have made for several inside jokes. These girls held me as I cried. I woke up one morning looking like Will Smith in Hitch from bedbug bites. (YES. ON MY FACE. GROSSSSSSS) These girls pushed me to take fears and dreams to the Lord and than sat there and waited for me to hear from the Father.
We keep saying we are in the honeymoon phase of this (and truly we are) and we know things will get uncomfortable, we will fail and hurt one another and we will have to face our own flaws. But man oh man, do we want to be together with our Father. My prayer is that we continue to fight for one another, hold one another higher, and LOVE one another. The Lord keeps showing us, many members but one body. We are different but each needed so desperately for the Kingdom to expand.
Would you pray that we stay united? That we stay honest, that we would pursue God and one another. As the hard things come that we would keep leaning in to our Father to keep going. Pray that we would be hungry for more of the Spirit.
