An unexpected opportunity to be alone presented itself recently, which included an unexpected return to the “normal route” on my trail. Despite having taken that same path in the same direction for ninety-eight percent of my hikes there during the last two years, this time I hardly recognized it. The fallen leaves can do that to a place, but I sensed this was deeper than just aesthetics.
It was.
Brought once again to a place of swirling thoughts, I was fascinated that I seemed lost, in a sense, while wondering why God wanted me to go forward this time instead of backward, and while welcoming to mind something I once learned about shepherds and their sheep.
The mountains that shepherds lead their sheep up are steep. Naturally, the safe way to climb involves walking around and around the mountain at a gradually higher elevation each lap. Having climbed plenty of mountains in my lifetime, I know that their surroundings changed very little with each lap around the mountain. While they were not on the same exact path they were on the last lap, it was quite similar to where they once walked.
Such is my situation. While I am not walking precisely the same path I have before, it is similar–just a little higher up, a little closer to the mountaintop. Sometimes things look and sound familiar, sometimes things feel familiar, and sometimes that sense of familiarity brings me back to a place I don’t necessarily wish to return to.
I was brought back to two places I don’t really wish to return to while my thoughts swirled; two places that changed the trajectory of my life, two places that have left many scars and wounds, two places that impact my daily life more than I wish they would.
Then I was also brought back to a third place, a place I do wish to return to. A place I hope to return to one day soon. A place where those scars, open wounds, and the impact of the blast still exist but are cared for tenderly. It is in that third place that I finally see the mountaintop, where the familiarity is behind me, and the redeeming love of the Shepherd I’ve been following around and around the mountain rests on me once and for all…because it is in that third place that I finally let Him.