Today felt different. Backward, even. I headed up the trail knowing that something was going to happen; having already committed my heart to accept His invitation to the table, I was expecting that He was going to do something.
I am a creature of habit and a rule follower, which at Bald Mountain translates to always taking my trail the same way; at the first and second forks, I head to the right every single time. This time, I stopped at the first fork. Not wanting to take a single step outside of what God had for me, I considered turning left and taking the trail backwards. I contemplated whether this was my idea or God’s for a couple of minutes before He confirmed and I set out on the trail backwards.
With a tendency to allow my emotions to raise my expectations, I breathed deeply when I eventually arrived and sat at the table. I closed my eyes, laid my forearms atop it, my palms facing the sky, and told Him, “I’m here. I’m ready for whatever you have.” I confess that at that moment, my expectations rose. I think I was hoping for Him to just lay it out for me - to immediately tell me what it was in my heart that was an obstacle.
But He was silent. I waited, inhaling deeply and letting go of anything presumptuous with each exhale. He remained silent. My ears turned toward what was surrounding me. Crickets, birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and the wind all had something to say, their voices colliding into this beautiful symphony. Creation’s symphony. I basked in it for a moment before His voice pierced its beauty. It was gentle, full of joy, dripping with love. “Do you hear them, Amanda? They worship me with their song. All of them worship me and sing of my Glory. Their worship is a response. They are telling me, with their song, ‘I love you, too, God,’ because I first love them. Will you respond to my love?”
I stood, wondering how I could respond to a love I reject. It took a minute to remember I was taking the trail backward. Once I began to walk, my mind became fixated on that word: backward. I had been spending so much time thinking about all the ways various people had failed to care for me, projecting those negative circumstances, situations, and traits onto God. I had to do things backward in my mind as I had with my feet that day: He called me to think backward, to allow my mind to be flooded with all the ways He is good instead of the ways they have not been.