Footprints
Sometimes the muse waits to speak. I am grateful that I have grown to allow myself the space to just share when it feels like the time is right - when the Spirit/muse/inspiration is right. I started writing about this image a few days ago and it just didn’t feel like the right thing at the time. But it feels a bit more so now.
I experienced this moment the day after we arrived in Virginia for a week away. One of my regular hikes out at the Manassas Battlefield whenever we come out here. I’ve walked this raised path many times before but something new stirred for me this time that echoes what I read in Romans a few days ago. Paul shares about the faith of Abraham and how he was justified by faith not by works. As I read that section, I also thought of how Abraham was included with so many others in the beautiful section of Hebrews 11-12 of the great cloud of witnesses who showed the way of following God.
Tuesday morning, it felt like I was the only one out at the Battlefield that morning. Mine was the only car in the parking lot and I didn’t come across anyone else before getting to this path. Yet, the timing was such that the morning sun reflected a bunch of other footprints of those who had walked that way before. But I hadn’t seen any of them. But they were there.
We do not always see those who have gone before us in life and faith but they are there. But there are moments when the timing and the conditions are just right that we see the footprints of that cloud of witnesses. And even if we don’t see them physically, we know they have passed that way before us.
Thanks be to God.