We recently took our annual camping trip to the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park. Every year we do a long hike. This year we did 12 miles in the rugged terrain. We have had a lot of rain so the trails were even muddier than usual. We were constantly walking around the mud, even having to blaze new trails to get through. We did about 7 miles of this, when we came to the planned river crossing. At this particular crossing there did not appear to be a passible way a crossed safely. The water was flowing enough that if we tried to wade through we could easily get swept away. This caused some of us to want to turn back and go back the 7 or so miles back through the mud. It was determined that it was too late in the day and if we did that we would be walking through the muddy wilderness in the dark. We found a long log that appeared to go a crossed the river, my brother-in-law tested it out and made it a crossed safely. We all worked together and carefully and got the whole family and dogs to the other side. After that experience you certainly didn’t hear me complaining about the mud.
I came out of that experience feeling something strong, but wasn’t really sure what that feeling was until today. It reminded me that when the journey gets tough, and seems like there is no way to continue on, that turning around and going back the other way won’t fix it. Turning back to where you have been and going back into the mud and darkness will not help, but that we need to continue forward and trust that things will work out.
I’ve struggled with living in the past, constantly trying to relive the past – revisiting those muddy dark trails, when what I need to be doing is to keep going forward, over-coming the obstacles in front of me that will help me continue on my journey forward.
And, if it took a little nerve-wracking trip in the wilderness to give me this lesson, well, I’m glad that it happened.
Becoming Katie Butterfly 