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How Much Longer?

My guys are hiking the Alpine Trail, while us girls are thrift store hopping. (Boy, are we tired carrying around our bag of clothes. I totally scored a Banana Republic pencil skirt!)

My son got a cell signal on one mountain peak and gave me a holler. He sounds tired. They hiked six miles the first day, 10 the second, and I believe 10 more today.

How much farther do you have to go today? I asked.

He said, Ten miles.

I could hear my husband in the background saying, No, Caleb. Maybe three to five miles. 

It feels like 10, Caleb said.

I said, So, a healthy half mile?

Caleb laughed and answered, Yeah, a healthy half mile.

There’s a man at church who loads up a van full of teenage guys quite regularly on the weekends and takes them on killer hikes through the local mountains. He is a mountain man and takes them on hikes they call “grunts” because they’re so challenging. When the guys ask, How much longer? he always replies (regardless of where they are on the trail), Oh, a healthy half mile.

So that’s the joke. Seven miles left, straight up, is what’s left before reaching the campsite? Just a healthy half mile. That’s all. 

How much longer?  -christyfitzwater.com
(My guys are the two on the right.)

Paul would be a good trail guide. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9 NIV)

I know what makes you tired –loading the dishwasher again, communicating with that man you married, repeating instructions to kids over and over again, getting up and going to work, trying to please God in every way…

I know what makes you tired, and you wonder if you’re almost there. When can I get this heavy pack off my back and rest my feet in cool lake water?

Well, just a healthy half mile, sister. Keep goin’.

2 Comments

  1. Thank you for this post..sometimes, it’s so difficult to find the strength!

    1. Yes it is, but we do have the glorious might of God available to us in every moment! (Colossians 1:11)

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