Blood trickled from under the dirtied rags wrapped tight around his wrists and hands, rolling down to his fingers and jumping to the snow below, a few tapping to his boots. His fingers were cold and hard and cracked.
He’d started the walk up alone. A new beginning. Unwanted things left behind. But they pursued, unforgiving. Like the shadow that trailed him dark and low. Relentless. Freedom gave way to burden. Each step a another reminder of all that he carried.
There was pain in the journey. Joy seeped in at times, though fleeting—a gift to hold but only for a moment. Then gone. As the sun teases warmth and light before stolen away by the cold and dark of night.
He stopped and tried to scuff the drippings from his boots, but the stains only deepened. He stilled himself and stared down. Moments passed. The warmth he’d built up from the walk faded. The splatters of blood around him lay quietly dying in the snow.
He tightened a rag. The flow stopped. Then the other. He began anew.
His legs stiffened as the terrain rose. The forest once thick began to thin. The trees that held fast showed themselves tall and strong and true all around. He felt unwelcomed. A stranger. He kept on.
After only a short distance more, the blood seeped and jumped again. He stopped and raised his hands to his face and took them in. He saw their age, felt their weight. All he’d ever known and touched danced before him, only to fall away once more. He held still. Silent. Each breath a hurried cloud racing through his fingers, only to disappear without proof it was ever there. The blood turned and rolled down his arms. He looked ahead. Then knotted the rags, squeezing and holding tighter to them. To himself. To the ascent.
He knew nothing else.
In the distance, a cropping of boulders drew in, then peaked. The approaching dark of the night consumed the sun. The evening cooled. He looked back at his tracks, his steps to this place. Worn. Bloodied. Fading deeper into the dark and distance. Those early steps long forgotten. Most taken without a thought. Unmemorable. Nothing much along the way felt like home.
A balsam lay prostrate before him. Its shallow roots once fed by spring rains now found themselves betrayed by them, punched hard and pushed over by the fierce winds of winter—ripped at the roots and felled hard against the earth it once trusted. Undeserving of such a lofty place high on a mountain. The grand fir. The ponderosa. Those are roots that hold firm. True in their place on the mountain. Swayed, but strong in the winter winds. Worthy.
He let go of his grip on the rags. The left unraveled and fell to the ground. In the dark he couldn’t distinguish stain from dirt from cloth. The other turned and twisted and followed.
He knelt and picked them up, then fell back with the balsam. He squeezed and held tight to the rags for as long as he could remember.
Did any part of this story hit you particularly hard?—Which part?—What did you feel? Are you still carrying any life regrets or deep pains? Have you tried surrendering them to God—and truly believing that He now carries those pains and regrets for you, setting you free from them? Have you shared them with your wife? Do they hold you back from being all that God created you to be?
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