I love my morning walks with our dog, Oban.  It’s my time with God.  My morning prayer.  My realignment for a forgetful spirit.  I go to the nearby Open Space and wander, sometimes hiking hard and fast, but more often, slowly, taking in the sights and smells of creation.

 

The Waldo Canyon Fire took its toll on my city and my morning walks.  The Open Space is closed and I don’t know when it will re-open.  The mountains are a patchwork of black and green, the scorched against the untouched.  It’s been three months since the fire and I’m ready for it to be all done, all green, all open.  I have yet to find a new path to walk in the mornings though I’ve explored a few different ones.

 

New paths are lovely.  Discovering new ways, good.  But there is a reason why paths become well trodden, well worn.  There is a settled rhythm to the beautiful known.  

 

The last of my sons has moved out and on to college.  My pantry is neat.  My laundry is less.  My grocery cart is light.  And my heart is heavy.  I am on a new and unknown path.  The ways I have spent much of my days are not burned or scorched but are no longer mine.  I am on unfamiliar terrain but I have to continue on it because the well worn path that I have known is closed to me.  It will not re-open.

 

Seasons change.  Parks close.  Friends move away.  Children grow up.  Life moves on.  The old is gone, and ready or not, the new has come.  For me, at my saddest, it can feel like my life is over. Well, a season of my life is over.  But my life isn’t.  No child of God’s life is ever over.

 

(My deepest apologies to all my friends who have gone before me into this life change.  I empathized with you.  I ached for you.  But I didn’t have a clue.  I’m sorry.)

 

All change feels like loss.  Change is loss.  Even fabulous change.  But I do know that a season has to end in order for the new one to begin.  In this change, I am holding on to my Anchor who is a light unto my path.  Step by step, he will show me the way.  He is the Way.  Even when my heart is heavy. 

 

It will be good to discover the beauty that awaits…just around the bend.