I’m a backpacker. I took my first backpacking trip with my sons, then ages eight and ten, and have not missed taking at least one trip every year since. My sons loved our yearly adventures, which continued into their college years. Now they have children of their own to pass on a love for the outdoors. For several years I went out alone, and more recently I started taking out my grandchildren. This year I will take my oldest daughter and her oldest son on the Appalachian Trail (AT) to Mount Rogers in southwest Virginia. Early in the fall I will take out five men from Hope House, an inner city ministry, to southern Pennsylvania on a “beginners” section of the AT.
I love the solitude that I experience while backpacking solo. Although I camp at shelters on the AT, and millions of people use the trail each year, most of my days are spent alone - just me and Jesus. We’ve shared the beauty of seeing Mount Washington blue on the horizon from the top of a mountain in southern Vermont; of waking up in the middle of a moon-lit night to hear the hauntingly beautiful call of the loon; of watching shafts of sunlight stream down through the forest in the early morning after a night of rain… And there have been my encounters with God’s little creatures like beavers, raccoons, deer, wild ponies, and that bear that just stood on the trail looking at me. He moved… after we had a little talk. I’m sure he was hoping for a Snickers bar out of my pack, but I don’t give up my Snickers bars without a fight, or at least a good scolding.
Three years ago Barb’s mother came up to visit us for a few weeks, so I took the opportunity to take a longer solo trip (not to avoid her, she was a great mother-in-law, but because Barb would not be alone). I met a taxi driver in northern Massachusetts, and he dropped me off in mid-Vermont. I was ready for a glorious trip of 11 days down through the Green Mountains. Hikers told me the first day out that it had rained 19 of the previous 21 days, and after hiking a few miles, I believed them. The AT was a series of peat bogs separated by rocks and a few hilly sections. I was carrying all of my food for the 11 days, which was more weight than I am used to packing. By the end of the first day I was wet, I was sore, I was beat. Seventeen miles of slogging my way through the peat bogs had taken their toll. “God, I can’t do this. I’m over 100 miles from my car. I just can’t keep up this pace.” I was up at first light, I made my coffee, and I sat down to read my little backpacking Bible. I must have read it 100 times, but that morning the little phrase used by both Paul and Peter in their letters to the New Testament Christians jumped out at me, “grace and peace to you.” If Jesus were standing there He could not have said it more clearly, “Gary, I will give you the grace each day to do the miles, and you will know My peace.” I had calculated that the next day would be another long 17 miles, but when I stopped mid-day to take a look at the map, I realized that I had calculated incorrectly, and it was only a moderate 13 miles. I slowed down, ignored my watch, stopped often to meditate and enjoy the beauty around me – such peace flooded my soul. I was still hurting – sore feet, that pain in my side that kept coming back, the aching shoulders - but each day I made it to my designated shelter in plenty of time for a relaxing dinner. Each day the mountains, the beaver dams, the sunlight, looked more beautiful, but what sticks with me from that trip, as glorious as it was, was not the scenery, it was the words of Jesus to me, “My grace will give you strength each day to keep going, and My peace will be with you.” May grace and peace be yours in Christ Jesus.
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